Through the Sustainable Colombia Program, peasant families contribute to the conservation and protection of forests and their ecosystem services in the areas most affected by the armed conflict.
According to Mary Gómez Torres, coordinator of the Program, indicated that of the 200 projects that have been launched, 36 contemplate conservation actions, through ecological restoration (active and passive) and the implementation of Payment for Environmental Services schemes. in rural areas of the PDET municipalities, that is, those prioritized by the National Government for the implementation of the Peace Agreement and which are our geography of intervention.
With these initiatives chosen through a public call carried out in 2019, more than 14,800 peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian families protect 23,187 hectares of areas of special environmental importance, including natural forests in the departments of Antioquia, Arauca, Bolívar, Cauca, Cesar , Córdoba, Nariño, Putumayo, Sucre, Tolima and Valle del Cauca.
Gómez Torres stated that of the 36 PCS projects that contemplate biodiversity conservation activities, twelve are implemented by ethnic communities (indigenous and Afro-Colombians) in collective territories such as Indigenous Reservations and Community Councils, with which they protect around 11 thousand hectares of forests and other strategic areas.
“We also have six projects that are implemented in protected areas of the National Parks system; eight projects that mainly intervene in the tropical dry forest ecosystem and two other projects that intervene in the mangrove ecosystem in the Pacific; in all of them we seek to protect biodiversity in areas not only affected by the conflict, but also by deforestation,” said Gómez Torres.
He added that, through 174 PCS projects that contemplate sustainable productive activities, Zero Deforestation Agreements were signed with more than 23,000 rural families for the conservation of 56,935 hectares of natural forests.
