Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies Kristina Lyons, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and an affiliate of the LALS program, writes about a community-based participatory transitional justice program in the Colombian Amazon where the rights of nature are front and center. Working with a participatory research organization, Fundación ItarKa, in Puerto Guzman, Putumayo, Dr. Lyons engages local community members along the upper, middle, lower regions of the Mandur River watershed in dialogues to collectively recall and share memories of the environment prior to periods of conflict and development. This initiative enables the community to confront and design community-based solutions to ensuing degradation and obstacles to restoration.
Read the full article here published in the Penn Program of Environmental Humanities blog.