They’re defending their land—and paying with their lives

Since a 2016 peace deal, nearly 1,300 Colombians living in former guerrilla territories have been killed resisting mining, logging, and drugs.

Ati Quigua performs a ritual to protect a river in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains in northern Colombia’s Cesar Department. An Indigenous Arhuaco environmentalist and politician, she has protested mining and large-scale development that threaten natural resources in the Sierra Nevada, a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
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