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The 'Other Face' of Colombia |
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By Yadira Ferrer*
Libia Grueso, winner of the Goldman environmental prize for her efforts benefiting Afro-Colombian communities, spoke with Tierramérica about the award and her work. Grueso was able to put the brakes on a multi-use pipeline that threatened the delicate ecosystems of mangroves and jungles in Colombia's Valle del Cauca department.
BOGOTA - Libia Grueso, 43, Colombian activist in defense of black communities, is a recipient this year of the environmental prize awarded by the U.S.-based Goldman Foundation, recognized for her sustainable development project in the Colombian southwest, based on an alliance of ecology and culture.
A social worker, environmental educator and co-founder of the Black Communities Process (PCN), Grueso is one of the promoters of what is known as Law 70, which in 1993 established official recognition of black communities as an ethnic group with cultural and territorial rights in the area they have traditionally inhabited.
Her first environmental victories came in the early 1990s, when she was able to halt the use of 21 backhoes for extracting gold from the riverbeds in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca, on the Pacific coast. The gold mining operations were causing irreversible ecological and cultural damage.
She was also able to put the brakes on a multi-use pipeline project for natural gas, gasoline and diesel. The pipeline was to cross delicate ecosystems of mangroves and jungles in the municipality of Buenaventura in the same department, constituting a serious environmental threat.
Grueso's goal now is to convince the government to approve a special environmental policy for Colombia's Pacific coast.
The Goldman prize, awarded to six people each year, was created in 1990 to recognize those who promote exceptional environmental projects and inspire others to follow their example.
Q: What does the Goldman award mean to you?
A: It is an opportunity to show the other face of Colombia, and especially the contribution and the value of the Afro-Colombian communities of the Pacific coast.
Q: What is the focus of your group, the PCN?
A: The promotion, protection and application of ethnic, cultural, territorial, social and political rights of the Afro-Colombian communities and the defense of the natural habitats that provide a vital living space.
Q: In practical terms, in what ways has the approval of
Law 70 benefited these communities?
A: If that law did not exist, we wouldn't have the programs for ethnic education in the Afro-Colombian communities, or scholarships for youths excluded from the educational system due to lack of resources. There would be no community council to exercise authority within the collective territories, or plans for the use and management of forests and natural resources with the participation of the black communities that inhabit those lands.
Nor would the consultative commissions function in which leaders define for the government entities the decisions that affect the communities, nor would there be representatives on the corporations' boards, nor would there be an office for ethnic affairs of Afro-Colombians in the Ministry of Interior.
There would not be a project in progress to create rules for regulating mining, nor would there be talk about laws for protecting traditional knowledge of the use of medicinal plants.
All of this is just part of the practical application of Law 70.
Q: How does the Colombian civil war affect the work of the
PCN, and what protections does the group have for carrying out its
work?
A: The conflict prevents the full development and experience of the right to land in our communities, it threatens young people in particular, and in general the Afro-Colombian communities, which today are the ones who are most often forcibly displaced from their homes.
According to figures from the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement, in 2002 there were two million internally displaced people, and 82 percent were members of the Afro-Colombian communities of the Pacific, of the María hills and the inter-Andean valleys.
Q: What will you use the Goldman award money for?
A: Two things: to buy and build an office for the organization in Buenaventura, and the rest will go towards paying for school for my two children.
* Yadira Ferrer is a Tierramérica contributor.
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