Pulitzer Center Update December 30, 2024
Guardians of the Coast: Course Combines Academic and Traditional Knowledge To Protect Colombia’s Coastal Ecosystems
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The La Paz branch of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) is less than four hours from the sea and close to the César River, which flows into the Magdalena, one of Colombia's most important rivers. Because of this proximity, it's important for students to learn more about the complexity of the ecosystems that surround them and their issues.
The Pulitzer Center and UNAL held the workshop "Guardians of the Coast: Marine Pastures, Forests, and Seas for Coastal Resilience." The two-day course, in late November 2024, brought together more than 80 participants, including students, researchers, teachers, and representatives from local communities. The students were mainly from the biology, geography, and cultural management courses at UNAL, one of the country’s largest public universities.
“Colombia is an incredibly diverse country and has many ecosystems at the coastal level. There is a great deal of complexity, both in each ecosystem as well as in their relationships, regulations, and processes. The course was held in order to understand these complexities, including the interactions with local communities, because professionals often arrive in these territories without any understanding of the communities' knowledge systems,” explained Professor David Sanchez, who was in charge of the event.
UNAL Professor Jorge Aponte emphasized the importance of the Pulitzer Center's support in promoting environmental agendas in Latin America: “Events like this that link journalism, academic discussion, and education processes carried out with communities help to spread knowledge more widely so that various audiences can access it.”
The first day of the event dealt with the characteristics and challenges of protecting and restoring ecosystems such as mangroves, grasslands, marine pastures, corals, and dry forests. To support the discussions, workshop participants used Pulitzer Center articles from Peru, Venezuela, and Colombia. In addition, restoration initiatives that are being carried out by UNAL students were presented, including in the dry forest on campus. The students participated in restoration exercises and talked about their experiences with researchers.
The second day included the participation of fishermen from local communities who have already taken part in research projects and live in the regions studied. The day also included a talk by Pulitzer Center grantee Edilma Prada, founder and director of Agenda Propia, an independent media outlet that promotes intercultural journalism in Latin America.
Prada's talk touched on recommendations on how to amplify local narrators’ voices in stories on the ecosystems, and the importance of treating ecosystems as living territories.
“It's local knowledge that allows us to understand the changes in ecosystems, seas, forests, and the climate crisis. On the one side, we have this knowledge, and on the other we have the solutions that communities are implementing. It was really interesting to have conversations like the ones we had at the workshop. On many occasions I've said that we can't keep telling stories about what's happening in the territories without the voices of those from the territories,” said Prada.
Researcher María Benitez Trigos provided perspectives beyond those in academic circles. Through her work, she has highlighted the importance of connecting different ecosystems as well as different types of knowledge.
“Academia is listening to communities. What is important is that we talk at a local, regional, national level, that the academic world is more inclusive for real debates between academia and ancestral knowledge.”
During her presentation at the workshop, Trigos created a map of the region and demonstrated how the different areas, from the mountains to the sea, are all connected.
“Every phrase that these guardians told us was classifying what we can do, what challenges we have to address, the importance of not just working with the scientific side, but also with the communities. Seeing ecosystems not only as this interaction between animals, plants, and the environment, but starting to see it as a social system,” biology student Jorge Ribón said. For Ribón, these different perspectives have helped lay the foundations for future research projects and reinforce his respect for local communities.
Anyelix Soanes, also a biology student, is already working on a dry forest restoration project at UNAL, and for her, the workshop gave her a deeper awareness of scientific concepts and expanded her horizons.
“We have very technical, rigid scientific methodology knowledge, and learning about the knowledge that the fishermen have acquired by experience was very enriching," Soanes said.
Next Steps
Sanchez said he hopes to see more opportunities for collaboration between researchers and internships for students.
“For the students, it was very rewarding to establish contacts and future opportunities, and for us researchers, to identify what collaborative agendas we can establish,” he said.
Read more about the event on the UNAL website
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