By Laura Jimenez Ospina, Network Research Assistant for Latin America
Between 15 and 17 June 2023, we participated in the Caribbean-Latin American Meeting for Climate Justice, organised by the Political Ecology and Water Justice Study Group of the Pontifical Bolivarian University (Medellín), the CLACSO Working Group on Political Ecologies from the South/Abya-Yala, the Hillside Movement (Medellín) and the Popular Training Institute (Medellín). These were days of exchange of knowledge on issues related to climate justice between members of civil organisations, academics, researchers, and social movement activists. The event was attended by some twenty-five civil society organisations dedicated to strategic litigation, national and international advocacy, popular education, and environmental and climate change activism from Colombia and Puerto Rico, as well as several study groups and academic groups from Colombia.
The main objective of the conference was to create spaces for the exchange of knowledge and dialogue around the experiences, learning, and contributions made by rural and urban movements in the construction of ways to achieve climate justice through practices related to the defence of water, territory, the environment, and the protection of the environment in which we live. The Network Plus Creating Safer Space was represented by a participant and a researcher from our research project: “Water conflicts, violations and forms of self-protection: A multi-case study in Eastern Antioquia, Colombia, 2022-2023“.
Firstly, Verónica Sánchez, peasant leader from the municipality of Argelia and member of the Social Movement for Life and the Defence of Territory – MOVETE, spoke about the way in which the communities of Eastern Antioquia have organised to defend water and peasant sovereignty in the face of the advance of small, medium, and large-scale hydroelectric projects. Secondly, Dubán Quinchía, researcher from the municipality of San Luis and member of Vigías del Río Dormilón (Watchmen of the Dormilon River), spoke about Vigías experience of community organisation to stop the construction of a Small Hydroelectric Plant on the Dormilón river, as well as the work that the organisation has done with the Tierrap Collective to continue protecting the municipality’s water sources through art and culture.
We thank the organisers of the event for letting us participate in this space of collective exchange and community building.