When the rubber tree was discovered, of the 80,000 indigenous people who inhabited La Chorrera, only 80 survived the slavery regime for the extraction of the liquid. Currently there are around 4,000 indigenous people living and protecting the place.
The Uitotos, Boras, Ocainas and Mirañas indigenous peoples, in La Chorrera, Colombian Amazon, who survived the exploitation of rubber at the beginning of the 20th century, opened an expedition that seeks to find new species in this thick jungle that for years was also hidden by the armed conflict in Colombia.
An expedition called Bio, Alto Río Igara-Paraná (an extensive arm of the Amazon River that crosses the place) seeks to mix the ancestral knowledge of the aborigines of the area, who will guide 15 biologists in search of fish, mammals and other species with which they have established a relationship of centuries.
“This land is a mother who has taken care of us and is very important to us,” he told the voice of america the indigenous leader Jorge Tetelle.
To get to this jungle you have to travel by air on a two and a half hour flight from Bogotá to a Colombian military base located at that point, the other option is by boat, on a 15-day journey through the Amazon tributary from the city from Leticia, the only economic center in the Colombian department of Amazonas, to the south.
What species are you going to investigate?
The expedition, according to the Colombian Ministry of Science, will search for new findings in eight biological groups, such as birds, flying mammals and flora, among others.
“Indigenous reservations in Colombia play a very important role, they are a barrier to deforestation. In Colombia, more or less 150,000 hectares of forest are felled, we need to stop this deforestation and we need to know what the jungle has, ”he commented to the VOA Luz Marina Mantilla Cárdenas, director of the SINCHI Institute.
The expedition will have the task of obtaining first-hand information and reference material on the diversity that exists in this natural reserve, in order to contribute information to the inventory of the country’s biodiversity, in an area that has the presence and abundance of species endemic to the Amazon that need management plans for their conservation.
“This scenario is very important in the Colombian Amazon. He maintains his traditions, he maintains his culture and he has a lot of knowledge of the species with which they live, ”he told the voice of america the biologist and researcher Mariela Osorno, who will be part of the group of researchers.
The territory, which extends over an approximate area of 13,078 km², has a slave-owning past
La Chorrera was known at the beginning of the 20th century as Casa Arana, owned by the Peruvian merchant Julio César Arana, who dedicated himself to rubber exploitation, subjecting the indigenous peoples of the area to forced labor in the extraction of rubber.
“Historically, we have suffered several episodes of great magnitude, as is the case of the cauchería of the Arana house, which marks our history in two moments.”
The expedition has a budget of about 387 million pesos (83,000 dollars) to preserve Amazonian biodiversity by mixing scientific knowledge and ancestral knowledge of the Uitotos, Boras, Ocainas and Mirañas peoples.
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