“Don’t go to Zabaleta because they’re going to kill you.” “Why are they going to kill me if I haven’t done anything?” “They’re going to kill you, please don’t go to your house.” “How do you know that?” “Someone told me: ‘Tell your sister, for the love of God, to not to get involved because they’ve already planned that they’ll kill her when she enters the town.’” This unexpected, hurried, and difficult conversation occurred on August 7, 2018, between María Alis Ramírez, an environmental defender from the southern Colombian department of Caquetá, and one of her nine siblings. Alis Ramírez, 55, lived in a very small jungle town called Zabaleta, which has no more than 300 homes and belongs to the municipality of San José del Fragua. “I was alone; I was working at the edge of Belén de los Andaquíes [another municipality in Caquetá], and when I received that call from my brother, some people helped me run down some slopes and catch a bus that would take me away from there as quickly as possible,” said Alis Ramírez. She now lives in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, which is 12,700 kilometers (over 7,800 miles) from the home she has not been able to return to since that day. As an environmental defender in one of the most dangerous countries to be one, Alis Ramírez said she had to abandon her land to defend it. In its most recent report, the non-governmental organization Global Witness reported that 60…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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