“Welcome to our Gunmaku community of the Arhuaco Indigenous People”. This is how the video, made by Arhuaco youngsters themselves, starts when they explain the mapping of their own land.
Establish the reserve of the Arhuaco
Gunmaku is an Arhuaco community in the North of Colombia, in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. The community is self-conscious and has a strong cultural identity linked to the natural environment.
Gunmaku is not an official indigenous reserve. It is a large parcel that the Arhuaco bought from surrounding informal farmers. Their aim is to repurchase gradually more parcels in order to establish their own reserve.
Youngsters of Gunmaku in Colombia measure their own land
Until now, no map is available of the repurchased parcels. That spatial information is known by elderly community members, but not by the youngsters, nor by outsiders. The Minister of Agriculture, the National Land Agency and the governor of the Arhuaco community and Kadaster agreed last February 2022, to train the youngsters of Gunmaku to measure their own land. The interest was impressive: some youngsters walked for over 8 hours to attend the training. The training was supervised by the Arhuac geographer Felipe.
Watch the video - made by the youth of Gunmaku themselves
This video was made by the youth of Gunmaku of their training.
More information
- This project is part of the LAND-at-Scale programme of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). Read more on our project page.
- Do you want to learn more about the ‘Fit for purpose’ approach like this example in Gunmaku? Read the page Fit for purpose.
- We apply our knowledge and skills in international projects. Find out more about our projects.
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