Q: The wild animals you study are insects. What led you there?
CATALINA: From the time I was little, my father took us every year from Cali to the jungles of the Chocó-Darién region near the Pacific coast. We’d spend weeks without electricity, fishing the rivers and dodging bullet ants, one of the largest in the world, with a brutal sting. I never dreamed I’d wind up studying insects, but when I got to college I fell in love with their hidden universe and role in sustaining life. After studying beetles and flower flies, I found my way to bees through my first project at WCS. We found that where there are still forests in an agricultural landscape, there are more diverse wild bees. And where we have more bees, we have higher production of coffee and passion fruit. Colombia’s most biodiverse regions are full of people living from the land; we have to conserve species and their ecosystem services in these areas as well. We are also helping families revive and improve the ancient practice of keeping native stingless bees, to raise awareness about sustainability and diversify their incomes.
Q: Can you share an inspiring win?
CATALINA: The work of our team and partners to protect an endangered catfish in a stretch of the Magdalena River is a great example of community-led conservation. The government had set a seasonal closure, but with environmental changes that closure no longer matched the time when the fish reproduced. We persuaded the authorities to be guided by the community, initiating the closure only after the fishermen reported seeing the fish move as they do when they’re ready to breed, unifying the efforts of local people and regulators. This also helped rebuild the social network that had been lost during many years of armed conflict in the region. Women and men who previously had little interaction when we arrived came together around the environmental challenge, and 10 years later are still together, running a bakery, restaurant, and handicraft business. The catfish species is recovering and so is the community, welcoming new conservation projects and advocating for itself with the government.
“Everyone here is talking about biodiversity, proud to be recognized as a ‛megadiverse’ nation. That energy gives WCS an opportunity to accelerate and scale up on all fronts.”
Q: Your vision for the future?
CATALINA:This fall, Colombia is hosting the sixteenth UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 16), followed by two years as president of the group of nearly 200 member states. That’s already having an effect: everyone here is talking about biodiversity, proud to be recognized as a “megadiverse” nation. That energy gives WCS an opportunity to accelerate and scale up on all fronts: maximizing the climate and health benefits of our biodiversity work; recovering critically endangered species like the Carranchina turtle and its vanishing dry forest habitat; and working with partners ranging from big private companies to the smallest communities to conserve landscapes as protected areas or communal territories.
