Silencing the guns, not the birds: the EU and Colombia on a mission to make 'Peace with nature'

euronews (in English)

In this episode of The Road to Green, we travel to Colombia, host of the COP16 conference on biodiversity and Europe's partner in efforts to bring about peace and restore nature.

Transcript

00:00One million species are threatened on our planet.

00:08We are destroying the nature we all depend on, in Europe as well as at the other end of the world.

00:13A few weeks ago, Colombia organized COP16 in Cali and asked us all this question.

00:19How to live in peace with nature?

00:21Direction Colombia, one of the great allies of the European Union for biodiversity.

00:28We start this episode in the natural reserve of Bahia Malaga, in the Colombian Pacific,

00:39to meet the guardians of one of the richest ecosystems in the world.

00:50This afro-descending community mainly lives from fishing, fish and molluscs, like the piangua.

00:56But it is becoming more and more rare in these mangroves.

01:00Before, our grandfathers caught 100, 200 dozens of piangua in two or three hours.

01:07Now, at most, we catch 20 dozens, because it has decreased a lot.

01:13This work is mainly done by women, who measure each specimen with this piangometer, a form of regenerative fishing.

01:21Other people who come from other territories, they take this one, even smaller than this one.

01:27And they also take the big one.

01:29So, if they take this one, this one has not yet reproduced, so it cannot leave babies, it cannot grow any more.

01:35The resource is running out.

01:39Wow!

01:45If there is no resource, how do we do it?

01:47We were going to set up a great business of piangua, when the resource was running out.

01:51With these molluscs, they can last many years, if they take care of them.

01:55But if we don't take care of them, we won't get anywhere.

01:58I raised my children with this resource.

02:00For me, this is, all the cradle is a love.

02:07These women have a project, supported by the European Union.

02:10Transform and pack the piangua here, to sell it at a better price and make it a gastronomic attraction.

02:17Tourist establishments have indeed been opened, with the support of the Community Council,

02:21where the protection of nature conditions all economic activity.

02:26The Colombian Pacific is at risk today, because we have been threatened by economic interests.

02:32We have also had the whole issue of actors who want to arrive with illegal economies.

02:36We have said no, we remain in a territory of peace.

02:39But there are also legal economies that can depose the territory.

02:42Tourism, when it is sold, generates a loss of territory.

02:46We do not want all economies to go in logic,

02:49so that communities can live with dignity and remain in time in this territory.

02:58If the community lives in peace with nature, this is not the case everywhere in this region,

03:02damaged by the profit race, mining, deforestation and armed conflicts.

03:07In a peaceful appearance, the city of Buenaventura has paid the price.

03:11Here, criminal groups are fighting for control of one of the largest ports in Colombia.

03:15The homicide rate was recently one of the highest in the country, and even in the world.

03:21Buenaventura was chosen as a pilot by the government,

03:24to see how the exercise of total peace works.

03:27Brian is a local leader for peace.

03:29The total peace he speaks of is a government plan to put an end to the armed conflicts

03:35that mine the country.

03:48A truce was recently sealed in the neighborhood of his childhood.

03:51The sadly famous invisible borders have disappeared.

04:04At 5 in the afternoon, when we were in times of violence, you passed and saw this very cold.

04:09People got used to seeing things empty.

04:14It is on this football field that the truce has been sealed, which remains fragile.

04:19And this field, you guys playing football and all its normal dynamics.

04:24The activist for peace closely follows these tables of dialogue, since the premises of his foundation.

04:29The European Union has always been a key ally of PROIPA.

04:33Here we can see one of his visits, who was in this house.

04:36Here is Ambassador Gil.

04:39Peace is, according to Brian, closely linked to the fate of nature.

04:44Colombia is a country that, if you bet on the exercise of peace with nature,

04:48it is not only the peace of silencing the rifles, the weapons and so on,

04:53but also of silencing those who, in a clumsy way,

04:58generate an abusive extractivism and also the exercise of illegal mining,

05:04which generates a contamination bet.

05:07It is a table where the path is established to, through conversation,

05:11explore the possibilities of reaching some agreements,

05:14that total peace is a reality.

05:17Less than three hours away, heading to COP16 in Cali.

05:22This UN summit was supposed to accelerate the implementation of the Global Framework on Biodiversity,

05:27the GBF, signed two years earlier.

05:30These are the 23 objectives.

05:31This is number 3, protect 30% of the earth and oceans of the planet by 2030.

05:37Minimize the impact of climate change, number 8.

05:39We're not going to do them all.

05:42Local and indigenous communities have also been recognized as guardians of biodiversity.

05:47Their representatives were in the city center,

05:49in the guise of the speakers on the outskirts of Cali.

05:53We are right in the blue zone.

05:54This is the negotiating zone.

05:56And this is where the ministers, the heads of state,

05:58will make the big decisions.

06:04We're taking a break.

06:05There are people from Europe, America, Asia,

06:08and today is Sunday.

06:10Here, the European Union is more of a leader.

06:13It is one of the signatories who adopted clear objectives for 2030.

06:40We are now on nature restoration,

06:42which actually mirrors the targets that are in the GBF.

06:46For the water, it's a bit more complicated,

06:49but also on this we are working a lot.

06:51We will come forward with a water resilience strategy.

06:54There we have to get also more attention to it.

06:57It's also time to move the money, right?

07:00How can we unlock finance for biodiversity?

07:04Public financing is important.

07:07And we, as the EU, are the steady donor.

07:10But clearly, this cannot be really matching this gap.

07:14So we go for guarantees, but together with brands.

07:18We are looking, like many others,

07:20into nature credits, nature certificates,

07:23to reward those who keep the nature ecosystem services flourishing.

07:28That is the foresters, the agriculture, the farmers, the landowners.

07:32But it can also be an enterprise investing

07:35because they need the commodities from healthy land, healthy soil.

07:40So this is where we have to go for public and private money.

07:47That's it for this trip to Colombia.

07:49The COP17 on biodiversity will take place in Erevan in 2026.

07:53But we will meet again very soon on the road to a greener world.

Category

Transcript

Recommended