Echoes is an ongoing documentary project to record the voices of those who depend on their land as they suffer the effects of climate change.
The Arhuacos are one of three indigenous groups situated in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the area by the border between Colombia and Venezuela. Originally a coastal people they were forced into the mountains by the Spanish and have become the guardians of the Sierra Nevada to this day, even as the area suffers widespread drought, water shortages, colonial agriculture, and more.
What follows are the recorded interviews with Mamos and Atimamas (male and female spiritual leaders) along with everyday Arhuacos on the state of the Sierra Nevada and their place in it.
You can see the global warming on the peaks above us. The rivers are drying, the animals are beginning to disappear, and there is a change in everything. Before the rivers flowed stronger. The trees that grew below now grow above, the snow in the mountains is disappearing.
I never learned letters, I never learned to write, but it’s the spirit that moves me and has moved me. Instead, you have the advantage that you’ve learned from the sciences, but it isn’t with that knowledge that you will save the planet. It must be with your heart. From inside.
In my seclusion, I couldn’t imagine that there was such a movement of young women (within the climate movement). I just learned what is going on in the world, and I would like to tell them that this makes me very happy. I didn’t know I had other women helping me in the work. Keep rising up
Not long ago, I went up into the Sierra. And there it was dry everywhere. Where there was snow on the peaks now it is no longer white, but yellow instead. We know that the snow is what gives birth to our rivers and we wonder what will happen if the mother of our water disappears? What will happen to the life of the people?
It is not a desire that these things come to pass, but where is the medicine?
The medicine is intangible. That is why Mamos have to do spiritual work. You see the damage and you want to solve the problem materially and that is not the case, the solution is spiritual and intangible and manifested through respect.
For example, people who lack affection but have food will wither away regardless because they lack human warmth.
I’ve been working for 25 years on the question of recovering our land. My work was always been managing between the government and our land. Searching for funds and resources to buy land.
The nonviolent way to reclaim what we have lost is to buy and pay for it from the farmers the colonizers who are occupying our land. It’s a slow process, but it’s allowed us to buy many hectares throughout the years. It started in the year 1970 before I was born.
My father started it, and on this path, they assassinated him.
They brand us poor and vulnerable, and we have to keep going through the world asking. Explaining that we are poor and vulnerable when the reality is, we got a bad deal. They have submerged us in that condition and when we could have the opportunity and it’s our heritage.
The problem is that in the world there is a logic, what is not profitable does not work.
Caring for nature has to produce money, caring for water has to produce money, nobody wants to do the job out of conviction or understanding because everything is driven by interests. That is what you call good intentions with perverse stimuli.
It doesn’t rain when it normally would rain, the snowcaps on the mountains have deteriorated, the air is no longer healthy, these are new conditions. This is not the most important thing, because it’s so easy to see. The important thing is; where are these changes originating from? These problems originate in other parts of the world and affect all of us. Where is the intelligence to repair? In the same way we seem to have endless intelligence on how to destroy we need to find that intelligence on how to repair. Because if we don’t find it what will happen?
I think in the global context it is not fair for adults to expose young people to danger and just leave it that way. They must take responsibility for the error and teach them where they went wrong and what are the best options for repairing the problems. But you can’t just leave this new generation in peril, it’s not responsible.
I think that the ever-growing population will become a problem, because it creates needs that become destructive, and that could be a problem. - Mamo Kainaku
The Sierra Nevada is sacred. And it is the base. If you can do nothing from your jungle of concrete the least you can do is preserve this place. To make sure no damage comes to these mountains. This is the heart of the earth. The heart has to be well. At the very least the heart has to be well. Keep these mountains and the heart of the world healthy and allow us to continue our spiritual work here.
If one can understand that the responsibility has always been motivated by some interest, by some profit, by what can be generated, but perhaps this could be a deviation, because thinking in the origin of the world, nature could not have imagined that it would produce the human being that would convert things into money or that they would conduct themselves the way that they do today. There are things that are permitted but everything has a limit.
