The first day of the workshop began with the words of the coordinator of the Latin American Environmental Safety Network, Eduardo Pastrana, who highlighted the importance of promoting these face-to-face meeting spaces between academics for the construction of knowledge in favor of environmental protection.
Later, our director at EKLA, Nicole Stopfer, gave her words of welcome and thanked the participants for having agreed to participate in the event and to work with constant interest in the issue of environmental safety. Finally, the director of KAS Colombia, Stefan Reith, and the deputy director of the Escuela Superior de Guerra, Brigadier General Alexander Salamanca, gave their words of welcome to all the participants.
Immediately afterwards, Dr. Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez gave the conference "Environmental governance in the territories and cooperation between decision makers and academics", in which she shared her experiences and opinions regarding the challenges that decision makers present when it comes to incorporate the contributions of academics in public policies. Thus, from her point of view as former Minister of the Interior of Colombia and Human Rights Adviser, she gave an account of the great gaps that exist in the country to include the environment as a pillar of State projects and measures. Additionally, he stated that the greatest challenges for the country are: Overcoming the gaps between regulations and implementation, articulating actors such as academia, social organizations and the private sector in decision-making, and giving greater prominence to the environmental sphere in Colombian legislation. .
Then, the investigations of each subgroup of the Latin American Environmental Safety Network were presented as follows:
1. Environmental Challenges and Recommendations in the Caribbean Subregion
Representing the first group, Paula Prieto and Louise Lowe explained the line of research that their group has carried out regarding the Caribbean. In this way, they highlighted that they began by delimiting the notion of the Caribbean that they are going to work on and, later, they presented the idea that they would handle for the development of the policy paper, which will address the threats and challenges to both environmental security and governance. multilateral in the Caribbean.
2. Environmental Challenges and Recommendations in the Andean Subregion
This second group, represented by Miguel Burgos, explained the evolution that the group has handled regarding the chosen research topic. Thus, it was shown that, thanks to the comments and suggestions of the first virtual meeting of the Network, it was concluded that the topic to be studied will be the relationship between deforestation and illicit crops in Putumayo, Colombia, which is why A tentative budget was presented to be able to carry out the field work that allows testing the proposed hypotheses.
3. Environmental Challenges and Recommendations in the Amazon Subregion
Thirdly, professors Andrés Valdivieso and Diego Dávila explained in depth the theme that their group had chosen and the way in which they have been working on it throughout the months of research. Thus, the central theme of the policy paper will be the border environmental management policies between Colombia and Brazil in the period 2018-2022. For this reason, they explained that they already have contacts on both sides of the border between the military and academics to learn their points of view and present the best recommendations to decision makers in the region.
4. Environmental Challenges and Recommendations in the Southern Cone
Regiane Nitsch spoke on behalf of group 4, who explained that her team had concentrated on studying the problems of the international legal instruments that the southern countries of the American continent had. In this way, they plan to study the existing mechanisms on issues such as the management of water sources and sovereignty in Antarctica to later evaluate the level of implementation they currently have.
5. Environmental Challenges and Recommendations Crosscutting Issues
Finally, Professor Eduardo Pastrana stated that this group would be nourished by the research of the other groups to evaluate which are the main problems that the region shares in order to analyze them. For this reason, the work in this group responds to the results and gaps present in the other teams of the Network.
On the second day of the workshop, the Network group went to the headquarters of the National University, where Dr. Alexander Segura, Administrator of the Río Puré National Natural Park, and Alberto Rojas Lesmes “Kápax”, a member of the group, spoke first. of National Parks of Colombia and defender of Colombian rivers. In their interventions, they highlighted the difficulty in monitoring the vast Amazonian territory given the technical difficulties and the lack of financial and human resources. In addition to the above, they showed how the deforestation of the jungle to turn it into land suitable for livestock and/or illicit crops is the greatest challenge today. Thus, they lament that thousands of hectares of virgin forest are lost annually due to the lack of state presence and the dominance of illegal loggers and miners.
Then, the representative of Corpoamazonia spoke, who complemented the representatives of Natural Parks in the face of the phenomenon of deforestation and mentioned the immense problem of fauna and flora trafficking in Colombia. Hence, he has mentioned the difficulty of said institution to control the illegal networks behind this criminal activity and the budgetary and human impediments to reinsert the smuggled animals back into their natural habitat.
In addition, a discussion was held with Dr. Clara Patricia Peña Venegas, Research Coordinator of the Institute of Scientific Research (Sinchi) on the impact of illegal gold mining on fishing in the Amazon. Among the most worrying aspects, it is highlighted that the level of this mercury metal increases as it goes up the food chain, which is why it represents a real threat to local communities, mostly indigenous, who feed on the different types of fish present in the Amazon River. After finishing the various conferences, we had the opportunity to visit the place where the Leticia Pact was signed, in 2019, located in the maloka of the University.
Later we moved to the Support and Services Battalion for Combat NO. 26 (BASPC 26). There, Colonel Sergio Alberto Lara, commander of the Twenty-Sixth Brigade of the Colombian Army, began the conversation, who mentioned the various operations carried out in the department to deal with criminal activities such as deforestation, drug trafficking and illegal gold mining. . The colonel stressed that one of the greatest obstacles to the development of the missions is the particularity of the triple border, in which each country has its own legislation and there is not much coordination in the face of problems such as dredgers with Brazil and trafficking of narcotics with Peru.
Colonel William Alberto Lara, commander of the Amazonas Police Department, mentioned the objectives set by the institution to maintain order in the department, such as the binational plans for control and prevention in the border area, which aim to reduce the rates of common crime in the cities that are on the border of Leticia and Tabatinga. Later, the frigate captain Diego Fernando Gil Barón, commander of the Amazon Coast Guard, spoke about the various operations carried out by the navy on the Colombian river border. Thus, tasks such as the control of fishing, the contribution to national sovereignty, the repression of smuggling and the assistance and rescue in the Amazon River and its slopes stand out.
Finally, Colonel Jhon Fabio Ospina, commander of the Amazon Air Group, showed some of the results of the aerial operations that seek to identify Brazilian dredgers in the Amazon River that pollute water sources and threaten Colombian sovereignty. For this reason, he presented the capabilities they have to deal with this problem such as infrared images, oblique images and satellite images that allow us to contemplate the seriousness of the situation and the urgency to increase measures to attack said flagellum.
The third day we had field views in the surroundings of Leticia, where we had a discussion with those in charge of the city of Puerto Nariño and knowledge of the Local Fauna and Flora.
