This Wednesday!

Please join us this Wednesday December 7 at 3 pm ET to hear first-hand from the frontline Colombian environmental defenders who are protecting the vital San Silvestre wetlands outside the city of Barrancabermeja – and risking their lives by doing so.

Yuli Velasquez has experienced three armed attacks against her life – on January 20, 2021, and on June 2 and July 5 of this year.

On July 25, three armed men entered the home of Luidmila Gutiérrez and threatened her while her husband Oswaldo Beltrán was out.

And CREDHOS, the Barrancabermeja-based human rights organization that accompanies these artisanal fishers, has been subjected to numerous threats over the years.

This Wednesday, meet Yuli, Oswaldo and Juan Camilo from CREDHOS as they talk about who is perpetrating this violence against them, why, and the ongoing struggle to defend the wetlands from the Ecopetrol refinery, encroaching agribusiness, landfills that leach into the waters, and the corruption that impedes the clean-up of these waters.

To register for this webinar, click here.

This webinar will take place on the opening day of the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal.

It’s an important time to highlight that wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests and that 35% of the world’s wetland ecosystems have been lost since 1970. Wetlands, lakes and rivers also cover less than 1% of the planet’s total surface but are home to over half of all the world’s fish species.

As such, wetlands are a crucial part of biodiversity.

This webinar is about the guardians of this biodiversity who are being subjected to threats and armed attacks and what we as an international community can do to counter this.

Sign-up now and join us on Wednesday to discuss ways forward.

You can also help us promote this webinar by amplifying our posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Brent at PBI-Canada