Today, the Jaguar Arhuaco Plan is not just a local initiative. It is a strategy that unites millennial tradition with modern science, and seeks to redefine conservation methods from a spiritual and territorial vision.
Through partnerships with international organizations, Colombian ministries and entities such as USAID, the Tayrona Indigenous Confederation (CIT) has managed to position jaguar as a bridge between cultures, knowledge and politics.
Jaguar Sierra Nevada
In the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, where each mountain is word and every river is memory, jaguar is not just an animal: it is a symbol of balance, a guardian of natural order, and a silent master who walks among the thoughts of the world.
For the people ArhuacosHis presence represents the force that keeps the Black Line alive, that ancestral intelligence system that connects the sacred points of the territory.
Thus, since time immemorial, we have had "the arhuaco jaguar plan" protecting the snowy jaguar not by external mandate, but by spiritual conviction.
Their existence is intertwined with the health of forests, the flow of water, and harmony between beings. But in recent years, something has changed: the world has begun to hear the roar that we have watched in silence for centuries.
The Arhuaco jaguar plan: Conservation of the most sacred in Arhuaco territory
Between 2014 and 2017, the CIT signed an agreement with USAID to protect the jaguar and its natural corridors of tropical dry forest in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
This effort resulted in a manual for the conservation of jaguar and tropical dry forest ecosystems, developed from the dialogue between ancient science and wisdom. It was not just a technical document: it was a statement of principles, a guide that recognizes that maintaining is not to intervene, but to listen and respect.
Over the past five years, we have strengthened relations with international NGOs dedicated to the protection of jaguar. These alliances have enabled us to move our Jaguar arhuaco plan to expand the protection circle.
Because when the world recognizes that jaguar cannot survive without the peoples who understand it, we think that the possibility of building more just, deeper, more living policies is open.
The Jaguar Arhuaco Plan proposes more than monitoring and maps: it proposes a conservation that understands that biological corridors are not just passing routes, but sacred roads that connect life. We know that further work is needed with the world to redefine scientific methods, including conservation manuals and public policies.
And it is not enough to keep only a species like jaguar, and yet the Jaguar Arhuaco Plan is our initial offering, our proposal, and our commitment.
