Is the Answer Colombia?
Let’s take a deep sigh. You probably do not know about Colombia’s natural resources richness. It is the only country in South America who has coasts in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, it has five important river basins and an immense mountain region, moors and volcanoes. The Amazon Rainforest contributes to its diversity, giving to Colombia the recognition as the country with the highest biodiversity per square meter in the world, in fact, Colombia is in the top 5 of countries which has a large species of butterflies, amphibians, mammals, fruits, orchids, roses, carnations, birds and hydrological resources.
However, our politicians do not give a damn and they are destroying the only good thing Colombia still has. Why? because we sell our votes to those who only condemn us to misery but it does not matter because despite all the shit we have to suffer we are the happiest country in the world. Ironic huh. In the following article, I am going to do an overview about what is happening to four of our natural national treasures: The Cocora Valley, The Pisba Moor, the Amazon Rainforest and the Crystal Pipe.
The Cocora Valley is in the west-central part of the country and is the principal location of our national tree, the Quindío wax palm. Little by little the wax palms have been reducing and they require protection. Hence, the National Mining Agency is planning to explore and exploit 3,182 hectares. What do they want? Gold and platinum. Is this real! They are willing to destroy 3,182 hectares covered by wax palms which produce almost 70% of the water on this region and yet, the government has the effrontery to demand we save water.
I forgot to mention, Colombia also has a mineral wealth that is destroying the rest of our natural resources because it is necessary to waste a lot of water in order to obtain a misery of gold, emeralds or platinum and if you do this activity in a place like the Cocora Valley or a moor, those places immediately lose their capacity to provide water. Apparently, the government forbade mining exploitation in moors but recently, Greenpeace denounced mining activities are carried on in the Pisba moor, leading to plant death and water pollution. A water that is needed by La Guajira, a department where adults and children are dying because of dehydration and no one seems to care.
In the south, you can find the Amazon Rainforest which is inhabited by 7 out of 10 colombians and at the moment most of the trees cut down in Colombia are from the place that gives us the recognition I mentioned at the beginning, this means we are killing our amphibians, butterflies, birds, mammals and destroying our orchids, roses, carnations and fruits.
Our seven-color river, Crystal Pipe almost suffer the consequences of this bad decisions. Given the energetic crisis, politicians want to extract petrol, regardless if they need to obtain it from the corpses of their ancestors. The national environmental agency was going to issue licenses to explore oil deposits near the river. Fortunately, we reacted on time and stopped the excavation of 150 wells.
I know our politicians are human beings and it is normal to make mistakes, but they are too stupid or too twisted-minded to make this decisions. It is not my intention to defame but it is obvious, they are standing up for their own interests. Finally, I would like to invite you to those beautiful places and to enjoy the purity before they get immortalised in photos and videos.
I took information from La Pulla to write this article. If you are a Spanish speaker, check this out http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/del-medioambiente-solo-nos-va-quedar-el-recuerdo
*The title is based on Colombia’s country brand: The answer is Colombia.
