"Before the water came up there, all that you see to the edge was full of trees, look for the other side and you imagine that the forest was one"-as we sailed by the Urra dam in under the referendum on water and pre-IV Latin American Meeting of People Affected by Dams, indigenous people with their body painted and wearing beautiful necklaces of colored beads, recalled with nostalgia the Sinu river once that not only was the spiritual foundation of the people Embera Katío but also the protein source that guaranteed food for everyone.
The ride to Begidó community is a graveyard of giant trees that stood on the water, robust vegetation that took hundreds of years stand as monuments of nature and now, drowned and dead, we remember the negative impacts that development at close range causes not only the nature but also to communities. The referendum on water embarked on a new navigation the Sinu river eight years ago was dammed to make way for I Urra hydroelectric project, which not only impacted in irreversible and harmful to the rainforest but also caused severe damages the Embera people seated at the high, as well as fishing communities and farmers of the middle and lower basin. Navigation is made up of delegates from Chile, Mexico and Guatemala, along with other sailors from various social processes of Chucurí San Vicente, Buenos Aires-Suárez, Guarinocito, Manizales, Southern Territory (Tunjuelo basin) in Bogota and La Cocha in Nariño, several of whom have hydroelectric bias in their territories.
The dairy Begidó community (where he was from the leader Kimy Pernia Domico killed for opposing Urrá) turned the night into a huge tower of babel cooled by the mysterious sounds of the forest and the river Esmeralda its way into the forest. In the midst of the deep night and strangers shared experiences and knowledge, "what they want is our movement and get us out of the basin, so we shake hands to all and keep us informed, this alliance must be strengthened so to fight together, "said the indigenous governor of the Town Council and to the attendees.
that extent the task of collecting the necessary signatures for the referendum on water succeed, feeds on more and new reasons from regions country, which in its bucolic and simple language are questioning the entire Colombian nation about the real meaning of development that comes without risk impoverishing many communities to the detriment of the country's most coveted treasure: our water potential.
While the impacts of hydropower, obviously harmful, threatening a new project to come: Sinu Urra II or Project, the thrust would be fatal to these fragile ecosystems and communities developed there. Listening to the price paid in life that many leaders to lead the opposition to the work, seeing prejudices acute nature, the river, knowing now that bocachico eg sold out because their migratory spawning is interrupted by an impenetrable gray walls, knowing the contradictions of a project that was presented as the panacea for floods (the Last year Sinú overflowed flooding ever to the people of the middle and low) ... knowing, seeing, hearing and feeling we wonder why they want to build a dam whose impacts will be five or even six times higher?
Motivated by the force that gives the reason and encouraged to know that our motives are concentrated now in the referendum on water, the fluvionavegantes embarked Tierralta and back to Monteria where all our impulses would focus on collecting items for which the Colombian people to rule in favor of water and life.
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