Eco-tourism expels Colombian peasants.

As I travel through the Tatacoa Desert it looks just like a scene from a Spaghetti Western, arid
scrubland, sparse vegetation broken by cactus shoots that abound and over the hill comes a man on
horseback. The comparisons ith the lo budget Westerns don!t end there. They ere not shot in the
".S. but rather in Italy and this particular desert is in #olombia, a country more associated in the
popular imagination ith jungles.
$oever, deserts do e%ist and they are a groing tourist attraction, particularly this one hich is
located around five hours drive from &ogot' and the government has a plan to increase tourism in the
area( e%pel the peasants. The area is home to ),*++ people ho live off the land, groing plantains,
aloe vera and unlike the coboys of lore, goats. Their livelihoods are under threat from the regional
government hich has tried to have the area secretly declared a natural park. The declaration as first
made in December -++., yet the local population only found out about it three months ago.
Diana /alen0uela, a layer from the nearby city of 1eiva and president of the nely formed
association of those affected by the plan e%plains 2We applied for funding from the 3inistry of
Agriculture for some projects in the area and they re4uired us to produce a certificate that stated that
the land for the projects as not subject to any legal proceeding or any restrictions by other authorities.
We thought nothing of it and applied for the certificate and that!s hen e ere told that four years ago
the area had been declared a natural park.5 1obody thought of telling the locals, of course, the tourists
ere of greater importance.
According to the regional government in $uila and the regional environmental authority the aim is to
protect and conserve this uni4ue habitat. The park covers some 67,+++ hectares ith a buffer 0one that
could see it e%tended to 7*,+++ hectares. 3ost of the area is designated as 2untouchable5 hich as the
plan states means that 2that the environment has to be protected from the slightest human alterations
ith the aim of restoring and maintaining the natural conditions forever .5 This means no agriculture.
It is as Diana /alen0uela states 2the effective mass e%pulsion of the population. If they can!t ork the
land they ill have to leave.5
The parado% is, of course that the majority of the population has lived there for years, some for
generations. I came across one young farmer ho told me that his farm had been in his family for at
least one hundred years. 8ike many, they kno no other life, no they must make ay for the natural
park. $oever, the motives behind the 2environmental measure5 are suspect to say the least. The ell
knon businessman 9ean #laude &esudo of the Aviatur group had already e%pressed an interest in the
area. $is company Aviatur is infamous for privatising, under the guise of natural parks, hole areas of
#olombia for eco:tourism. Such is the case of the ;orgona Island on the <acific here most of the
locals have never ventured since it passed into private hands. Diana <aola says that they are orried as
the plan includes an area for a five star hotel comple% run by #omfamiliar.
In fact the hole plan is one based on privatising the area for tourism, ith one medium impact area
and one high impact area reserved for companies like #omfamiliar. The 2untouchable5 area includes a
tourist trail right through it and the five star hotel comple% is smack bang in the middle of it. Such is
their commitment to the environment that in order to celebrate the =++
th
anniversary of the founding of
the city of 1eiva, the authorities gave the go ahead to a motor rally from the >-
th
to the >*
th
of 9uly.
There is nothing 4uite like a motor rally, ith hundreds of cars churning up the dirt to protect hat the
farmers recognise is a fragile environment.
The environmental studies that ere carried out ere cursory. There as no real inventory of flora and
fauna carried out, no capture and recapture studies on the ildlife, nothing. Instead a Dutch 1;? got
involved and came up ith a document that in one part shoed such contempt for locals that it
produced a photo of one farmer ith an accompanying note that stated 2We intervieed this farmer for
three hours and all he said as !no ma!am, yes ma!am@. 8ots of disdain, very little in the ay of
statistics.
The ignorance of local functionaries is astounding. I accompanied Diana /alen0uela to one meeting
here they told her that they ere going to use an older environmental management plan. It as
pointed out that the la had changed in the intervening years and the older plan as no longer in
compliance ith the la, he just looked surprised. Then the governor told us that after four years they
had realised that the night time sky hich is clear all year round ould be affected by the luminous
contamination coming from the hotels. The area is home to #olombia!s only observatory and yet in
their rush to facilitate a lucrative tourist industry they overlooked that little bit.
The farmers have organised and have come up ith their on eco:tourist plans based on the e%isting
infrastructure ith visitors being housed by locals. They are also designing agricultural plans to
reduced the impact of goat herding. The government has the backing of international environmental
1;?s that have given their support to e%pelling the peasants, a sort of green fascism that ill hand
over the area to foreign tourists and international tourist operators. They say the best things in life are
free and the Tatacoa is one of them. It is ama0ing, a beautiful area and it saddened me hen I left it to
think that it ill be no more and it on!t be free, not even for the locals, it ill as the ;orgona be a pay
as you go resort for the ell to do. 8ike the esterns, the blue eyed stranger ill in out over the evil
sarthy types.
The campaign to save the Desert can be contacted at concienciaverdeAgmail.com