Colombia’s Surprising New Export

www.ozy.com [OZY]( [OZY]() Your World. Bold & Bright Big, bold ideas. Future changemakers. Thrilling recommendations. This is the Sunday read you’ll find nowhere else. Feb 26, 2023 Sunday When Juan Guillermo Jaramillo set out to document butterfly and bird species in the early 2000s, he had no idea his work would lead to important discoveries. Amid violent conflict and environmental destruction, will an unlikely export bring new hope to Colombia? – by Joshua Collins and Daniela Diaz in Bogotá, Colombia The Butterfly Effect Juan Guillermo Jaramillo has no formal training as a biologist or researcher. But that doesn’t stop him from leaving his house each morning, camera in hand, to add new photos to what he calls a “butterfly species directory.” In the last year alone, a project he started with U.S.-based photographer Kim Garwood has identified hundreds of butterfly species as part of a “[Butterfly Checklist](” that has documented butterflies across Latin America — including an astonishing 3,877 different species in Colombia since the project began. In 2021, Colombia was declared the most biodiverse country in the world in terms of butterfly species, according to a [study]( conducted by the Natural History Museum in London. “In Colombia there isn’t much information about the vast numbers of butterflies that exist in our territory,” said Jaramillo. “I want to show this biodiversity to society, so that we don't continue destroying it.” A Lucky Accident Kim Garwood began making trips to Mexico in the 1990s to photograph bird species and document them. By the early 2000s, her work had expanded to Colombian butterflies. “Juan found my work online and reached out to me, because he had all of these photos of butterfly species he couldn’t identify,” she told OZY by phone from Mexico, where she was conducting photography fieldwork. “And I started to realize that we had dozens of new discoveries on our hands. It was really like a ‘wow’ moment for us.” That initial conversation quickly evolved into a yearslong collaborative partnership. By 2007, Garwood was making regular trips to Colombia and organizing bird photography tours with Juan’s help, while also collecting photos of butterflies in their natural habitats, which they cataloged and organized in an online databank. “It really became a community project,” she explained. “And Colombians have been instrumental in the work.” Over 350 photographers are credited in the project’s comprehensive documentation, a catalog which includes more than 400,000 photos. Garwood noted that Indigenous communities in particular have played a vital role in documentation. “I really can’t stress that enough,” she said. “They know things even lifelong experts in the region don’t.” “They might have different names for a species we are seeking to document, but when we show them a picture, they might reply, ‘Oh sure, that species arrives in August, and stays until September. Come, I will show you where.’” But Garwood also expressed serious concern that, in the decades she has spent investigating butterfly species, she has also seen much destruction of butterfly and bird habitats. “It is an indescribable sense of loss to see that kind of destruction in person,” she said. “It’s common, I think, for a lot of people in the modern world to live in a state in which nature is somewhat removed from our daily lives. We often forget that we quite literally can’t survive without it.” Discovery in Conflict Zones Colombia’s 52-year civil war officially ended in 2016, when the government signed a historic peace accord with rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Colombian biologists and environmental activists at the time hoped the peace accords could bring renewed opportunity to study Colombia’s rich biodiversity, which for decades had been hidden from investigators by security threats and the fog of war. And for the first few years after the accord, there was greater opportunity for research. Even the former guerrillas who laid down their arms en masse saw ecotourism as a means to peacebuilding — after all, no one was more familiar with the inaccessible jungle areas of the country, where they lived and fought for years. In the development of ecotourism projects, some ex-guerrillas became birdwatching guides in Antioquia, in northwestern Colombia, and rafting guides in Caquetá, in the south of the country. But in recent years, the power vacuum left behind in formerly FARC-controlled areas went unfilled by the government, despite promises to build infrastructure and foster economic opportunity in communities that had been neglected by the central government in Bogotá for decades. New criminal groups began to fill that void, including some guerrillas who decided to return to arms in the face of what they saw as broken promises on the part of the Colombian government. The result has been a [resurgence of conflict]( in rural areas of the country. Dreams of peace in Colombia began to evaporate, and so did the hopes of researchers who had sought to document the rich biodiversity. Jaramillo explained that the violence is a huge obstacle in his work to document new species in regions with enormous ecological potential, such as Putumayo, a conflict-ridden and biodiverse region in southwestern Colombia, as well as his native Antioquia. Botanist and ecologist Alberto Gómez worked with the Colombian government on its coca eradication program from 2002 to 2009, which involved aerial spraying of glyphosate, a powerful herbicide. Coca is the raw ingredient used to make cocaine. Gómez, who now works to preserve many of the same environments he damaged during his time with the government, pointed out that there are 40 species of flora that exist only in the forested Putumayo region. “We were destroying our greatest national gift, our biodiversity, for a program that wasn’t working,” he said, referring to the spraying of coca plants. Today, Gómez and others hope that an unlikely new export can help reverse such destruction. Colombia’s Future: Butterfly Ecotourism? President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August 2022, promised on the campaign trail to rein in the country’s economic dependence on petroleum, and invest instead in sustainability-oriented tourism. Activists, researchers and ecotourism companies all hope that such efforts can be an engine not only for economic growth, but also for conservation of endangered habitats. “We want communities to think beyond tourism just economically,” said Lorena Salazar, technical coordinator of the foundation [Travolution](, which encourages community-based tourism across Latin America. She said that a strong ecotourism industry could provide the funding and momentum for protecting forests, conserving water and preserving delicate habitats. In the past, said Salazar, efforts to boost tourism often involved large international conglomerates building sprawling resorts, which often had negative effects on surrounding communities and ecosystems. She said that today’s ecotourism efforts are focused on a more responsible approach. Garwood hopes that their new discoveries can lead to more sustainable initiatives. She explained that “birding” — tourism for bird photography — could easily be marketed toward butterflies as well. She said that birding expeditions in Colombia have long been popular with foreign tourists, especially on Colombia’s northern coast. “And any good habitat for birding is good for butterflies as well.” “I do this because I love it. We don’t make any money,” she told OZY. “But if we can bring awareness of the importance of these habitats to the global community, well, that’s a win for everyone.” She added, “Especially the butterflies.” ABOUT OZY OZY is a diverse, global and forward-looking media and entertainment company focused on “the New and the Next.” OZY creates space for fresh perspectives, and offers new takes on everything from news and culture to technology, business, learning and entertainment. 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