The event included the participation of the panelists: the former Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ricardo Lozano, Engineer Carlos Barraza, director of the Environmental and Health Engineering Program at the University of Magdalena and Camilo Gonzales, Indigenous of the Arhuaco People.
This Wednesday the conversation was held: Reflections on climate change, challenges and opportunities for the department of Magdalena. It was developed in the facilities of the Magdalena Regional Autonomous Corporation. It had the participation of the aforementioned panelists and the presence of the Secretariat of Economic Development and Competitiveness, Civil Defense, the Arhuaco indigenous ethnic group, among other entities.
In the middle of the conversation, the former Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ricardo Lozano, spoke about the most important challenge worldwide: the literacy of society because people do not know many languages related to climate change, drought, how the earth moves , among other concepts.
Likewise, he commented that the Ministry of the Environment, generally, when they go to develop the work route, literacy is the last project to be developed and usually very little is invested. It is for this reason that the former minister affirms that this ministry should invest more in this issue.
The director of the Environmental and Health Engineering Program at the University of Magdalena, Carlos Barraza, stated that “it is important to understand that when the planet ends, life ends.” With this he alluded to the fact that people have ignored calls for attention about the care that must be taken to preserve the environment and it is important that people begin to change their way of thinking and acting to have a better environment. .
“We must teach people from a very young age to take care of the environment, those first strokes are what will contribute to the improvement of climate change, if nothing is done as has been done for 50 years, the years to come will be worse, the weather conditions will be stronger,” Barraza pointed out.
In the middle of the intervention, Camilo González, an indigenous person from the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, spoke, who participated as a panelist in the conversation to contribute about climate change from his ancestral knowledge: “I was born and raised in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Therefore, I will be able to talk about the climatic conditions that are occurring in Pico de Colón, where the density of the ice is becoming less, the thermal soils have changed, therefore, certain products cannot be grown due to the conditions of the land, “we have sought to make alliances to generate quick solutions that can improve climatic conditions,” commented the indigenous leader.
Environmental education is weak because issues related to the environment are usually left for another time, which is why this group of people and entities have as their main objective that environmental issues can be developed as a priority. Camilo González stated that “we agree that human beings have had bad behavior towards the mother earth.”
Minister Lozano indicated that we must find a way to give value to the properties and farms without having to remove all the trees. Currently, a trend has been created and that is to do ecotourism for biodiversity or living resources that generate moments of tranquility for people who usually do this type of ecological activities. “We have to learn to live with nature,” said Ricardo Lozano.
One of the collective measures presented by engineer Carlos Barraza: “Ecological tourism must be encouraged where the use of motorized vehicles is stopped and bicycles or walks begin to be promoted when taking trips to places like Minca, the Sierra Nevada, Tayrona Park and thus avoid the use of boats that usually generate more pollution such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and nitrous oxides that cause global warming.
Lozano highlighted that the bad actions of human beings, such as throwing garbage on the ground and the use of plastic, cause human beings to go through a process of self-destruction. “My government, it is me, I am very spiritual and when you start to look at yourself in terms of the actions that have been committed, you cannot demand a clean city if you are not clean,” he added.
The indigenous leader stated that “from our perspective, the participation of organizations is important to safeguard the flora and fauna that we have on planet Earth.”
To conclude, the director of Corpamag stated that “we will work on literacy, this implies understanding the behavior of ecosystems, understanding the goods and services that natural resources provide us, and that these are important for the economic and social development of our communities. ”.
