I love traveling by speedboat down the rivers of the Amazon Basin. Water sprays up and the boat bounces as the driver maneuvers over hidden channels and around floating debris. A sea of green trees zip by on the riverbanks, as do phalanxes of birds and technicolor butterflies.
In late November of last year, we had an opportunity to do just that along the Putumayo River in the Colombian Amazon. The occasion was the 24th anniversary of the Amazon Pearl, a 22,700-hectare region along the border with Ecuador that is sustainably stewarded by 800 campesino (rural) families. They continue to resist oil companies and illicit crop cultivation encroaching upon their community for decades, generating regular death threats from criminal organizations.
Amazon Watch has supported the Amazon Pearl since 2021, along with other community-based processes organizing to protect the precious biodiversity and cultures of the Colombian Amazon.
Our most recent visit culminated a year of solidarity and accompaniment of at-risk leaders of the Amazon Pearl to critical advocacy meetings within Colombia, such as COP16, as well as international meetings in Washington, DC. We leveraged our presence to encourage other organizations to attend, helping expand the circle of allies for the Amazon Pearl.
Every December, their anniversary brings their different communities together for communal dance shows, an ecological beauty pageant and a friendly soccer tournament featuring both men’s and women’s teams. The event culminates with an all-night party in which blaring music continues past breakfast.
This past year, Colombia’s Congress decorated the Amazon Pearl with the Simon Bolivar Order of Democracy, a prestigious recognition. Putumayo’s congressman Andrés Cancimance, member of the Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future, joined the anniversary and presented the medal to community legal representative Jani Silva and other members.
The official resolution for the award recognizes the work of the Association for the Holistic Sustainable Development of the Amazon Pearl (ADISPA) for bringing both national and international recognition to their model for community organizing and environmental management. “In the midst of significant adversity, like the historic impact of violence and the pressures of armed groups and resource extraction sectors, the Amazon Pearl has resisted as a space of peace and sustainability,” the statement underscores.
The text continues, “The women’s, youth, communications and agro-environmental committees, organized under the direction of ADISPA, have generated empowerment and self-management, articulating a strategy for development that integrates principles of respect for the Amazonian ecosystem and the strengthening of the peasant economy.”
To complement this Congressional award, a number of notable admirers of the Amazon Pearl sent video testimonials from across the country and the world. Helena Storm, the Swedish Ambassador to Colombia who has visited on various occasions, stated, “I have seen first-hand the difficult work of consolidating the community organization, along with their unwavering effort to recuperate their campesino identity while making the land productive, all the while facing threats that put at risk the lives of leaders.” Her remarks were echoed by statements from other embassies, the United Nations human rights office, and international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Global Witness.
Those threats – emanating from illegal armed organizations that operate with virtual impunity in the region – are a constant subtext to the work being done in the Amazon Pearl and elsewhere. Just a few months ago, Amnesty International issued an urgent action raising alarm about a menacing death threat Jani Silva received over the phone, in which the caller threatened to “blow you up, car and all.”
Amid these extraordinary difficulties, the families of the Amazon Pearl have not wavered in their commitment to protect life, biodiversity, and their territory for nearly a quarter of a century.
On one hand, this is a credit to the inspiring and arduous work of ADISPA. On the other, it is a function of the national and international support they have been able to rally. As Jani said to a group of Ambassadors in Cali, “This accompaniment has allowed our process to continue. Believe me, when the violent actors see that our processes are accompanied, they respect us a little more.”
As we go into 2025, Amazon Watch is committed to deepening our accompaniment of the Amazon Pearl and other community resistance movements in the Colombian Amazon. We are inspired by their resilience and encourage you to join us in supporting their courageous efforts to keep themselves and the Amazon alive.
