Protecting water resources

Cajamarca is the agricultural strong hold of Colombia. Its productivity is due to the richness of water sources that are born in strategic ecosystems of high Andean forests and páramos. This great biodiversity has been threatened by the imposition of a neoliberal extractivist development model, which includes the La Colosa project to develop open pit mining for gold. In 2017, the Cajamarcans decided to organize and learn about the impacts of large-scale mining, and held the Popular Consultation of Citizen Initiative. Fundación para la Defensa de la Madre Tierra recognizes the necessity of informing citizens in accessible language and calls for peaceful, creative, and forceful action during the pandemic. They are strengthening alternative recovery plans to defend the Popular Consultation of Cajamarca. They are also creating audiovisual and printed content to inform the community about the progress of the judicial processes against the Consultation.