<
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/12/22/the-colombian-coffee-growers-protecting-the-spectacled-bear>
"In Colombia’s Western Villa de Cauca region, Jhoan Bravo’s coffee farm is
nestled in the verdant green Andean mountains, covered in a tapestry of fertile
fields and emerald forests. It is a striking backdrop for a 30-hectare
(74-acre) estate that has been in his family for more than 50 years.
As he moves among clusters of bright red coffee cherries, the 35-year-old
recalls a childhood memory of his grandfather returning home one day with a
spectacled bear he had killed. The animal’s fat – believed by locals to have
medicinal properties – was extracted and smeared onto the belly buttons of
Bravo and the males in the family to make them stronger.
“This wasn’t something unusual. When I was a child, hunting animals was normal
around here – it was a way of life,” Bravo says, explaining that animal skins
were often dried or stuffed and used for farm equipment, like horse saddles or
as decorations in homes.
But over the years, sightings of the creatures – also known as Andean bears
(
Tremarctos ornatus) – became less common.
Some of Bravo’s family continued to hunt other animals. However Bravo, as well
as tending to the coffee farm, preferred riding his horse into the forest to
chop down trees and sell the wood to locals. “It was illegal, but I’d get some
money for it,” he says.
He was unaware that his work was having a negative impact on the bears. “If you
don’t know that by making noise with your big, rattling chainsaw or by chopping
down a tree, you’re harming animals, then you don’t see it as anything bad,” he
says.
In 2017, he began to discover the severity of the threats to the Andean bear.
And today, as Bravo breathes in the sweet, earthy aromas from the coffee beans
on his farm, he says his mindset has shifted dramatically: Rather than hunting
the bears and destroying their habitat, his family is now protecting them."
Via Frederick Wilson II.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
