Climate change threatens Colombia's Indigenous groups

Indigenous communities have lived in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range for thousands of years. The cloud forests are sacred for the Arhuaco, Kankuamo, Kogi and Wiwa, distinct but related groups — but climate change is threatening their homeland.

The snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada rise up to 5,775 meters (19,000 feet) above the Caribbean Sea, making them the world's highest coastal mountain range. But regular heat waves are melting the region's glaciers. According to official figures, Colombia had 14 tropical glaciers at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, only six are left.

Nabusimake is the spiritual capital of the Arhuaco people. For the Indigenous groups who inhabit the Sierra Nevada, humans and nature are intrinsically connected. They see the mountain range as the center of the universe, its rivers, stones and plants part of one living body. They see it as their job to protect this balance.

Mamos, the Arhuaco spiritual leaders, gather in the shade of a sacred tree to meditate and discuss their changing world. As a "consequence of man's actions, it is slowly warming, more every year," one of the men told the AFP news agency in the Iku language, through a translator. "We are here to live in peace, in harmony. Believing otherwise leads to global warming."

Colombia's Indigenous peoples are seen as custodians of nature, because they live in harmony with it. They live with traditional clothing and beliefs but use solar panels to electrify their mud huts. "We are not alone, nor separated from other human beings, nor from animals, nor from anything that exists on Earth," said Seydin Aty Rosado, an Arhuaco leader.

Rosado said it's now possible to cultivate bananas, manioc and coffee in Nabusimake, as seen here — it used to be too cold for that. But the alternation between morning frost and midday heat has made it difficult to grow grain and vegetables and ruined the latest maize harvest.

In January, a record high of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in the seaside city of Santa Marta, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. The Arhuaco hope the weather extremes will subside by March so they can plant beans and maize.

Leonor Zalabata is the first Indigenous woman to represent Colombia at the United Nations. "All the glaciers that existed in the Sierra Nevada are disappearing," she warned. In 2022, UNESCO recognized the ancient knowledge of the region's Indigenous peoples as part of the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage, calling it essential for the protection of "Mother Nature, humanity and the planet."

The statistics back Zalabata's observations: according to the state meteorological institute, the glacier area of the Sierra Nevada has shrunk from 82 square kilometers (32 square miles) in the mid-19th century to just 5.3 square kilometers in 2022. "Man is going to end himself because of his own inventions, believing himself to be very intelligent," said one Indigenous leader.