Transition towards the ecological value of the environment in an agricultural region: life statement of a conservationist farmer in the cañón del río Anaime, Cajamarca (Tolima, Colombia)

NODIER VIVAS-ZAMORA; DIEGO ESPITIA-PACHÓN; LAURA ALVAREZ BORLA; DIANA PADILLA-RIVERA; JORGE GARNICA; OSCAR MORENO-FOGLIA

Congreso; XVI Congresso da Sociedade Internacional de Etnobiologia XII Simpósio Brasileiro de Etnobiologia e Etnoecologia I Feria Mundial da Sociobiodiversidade; 2018

Univeresidade Federal do Pará eo Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi

This paper presents an approach to the construction of the life story of the conservationist farmer Diego Espitia Pachón from Tolima, who currently lives in the Anaime river canyon, in the central mountain range of the Colombian Andes. The Fundación Muisca since 2016 has explored, from the life story as a methodology, the process of transformation and reconstruction of the perceptions, imaginaries, knowledge, and attitudes of Diego who has been implementing agroecological practices on his farm, interested in the conservation of the ecological value of natural resources and rejected the possibility of open-pit mining in their region.The life story is presented along different stages that relate to social, political and economic moments specific to the region, which determined to a large extent the way of relating to the environment and the community. It is identified in the modification of the ways of cultivating, of making use of vegetation and water, of interacting with the fauna, of rescuing traditional knowledge and of respecting and defending the territory; changes that have configured to Diego as a leader, enterprising and defender of nature.This life story is one of the many existing ones of the people of the Colombian municipality of Cajamarca, which in the year 2017, through a popular consultation, voted against the execution of an open-pit gold mining megaproject in the region. This democratic process became the first in the country to oppose mining extraction by multinationals. This phenomenon generated processes of organization and social cohesion of the peasants, based on the reflection on the ecological and cultural importance of the territory.