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The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is in mourning. Danilo Villafañe, the best-known Arhuaco leader in the country, died this Monday trying to rescue two young women who were swept away by sea currents near Perico Aguao, an area bordering Santa Marta and Mingueo, in the Colombian Caribbean. In addition to the governor of the Arhuaco council, Erika Izquierdo, a 15-year-old indigenous teenager, died. The bodies of the members of this indigenous community were taken to Katanzama, the center of thought of the Arhuacos, to say their last goodbye. Gunna Chaparro, Danilo's wife, still cannot assimilate what happened. “Danilo went into the sea without thinking to take care of others. He was like that, that defined him,” he says by phone. “My husband did not drown, he died saving other people. He left the king, the Arhuaco king,” Chaparro laments. Villafañe leaves behind two daughters, ages four and five.
The indigenous leader, 49 years old, was a leading figure in the fight against climate change and the defense of the rights of his community and the other towns of the Sierra Nevada. Regardless of the political color of the governors, presidents or ministers, he was one of the main interlocutors of those who cared about the ecosystems and the Colombian people. Carlos Eduardo Correa, former Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, remembers “how much he learned from him”: “Danilo had a very integrative vision. He always talked about the 'defense of what is ours'. And he had the ability to bring by the hand all the younger brothers, who were not indigenous, but white, to his community. He wanted to teach us why we have to conserve their territories.” Correa also highlights Danilo's “selfless” leadership: “he managed to sit down with businessmen, governors, other communities. He sat with everyone because his priority was to defend the rights of his community. His legacy is indelible.”
A clear reflection of this integrative vision has been the condolences of countless Colombian politicians on social networks. Among them, President Gustavo Petro. “We met several times to discuss the forms of the climate crisis in the region, the installation of clean energies in the heart of the earth: the Sierra Nevada, which he loved, and the creation of the black line,” the president wrote in the social network X, formerly Twitter. “Defending life he died,” he concluded.
Iván Duque, president between 2018 and 2022, located at the ideological antipodes of Petro, also spoke out. “Colombia today loses a great leader and a fighter for the conservation and preservation of the environment of the Sierra and our country.” For his part, Álvaro Uribe, former president of the country and political boss of Duque, also shared his condolences on social networks: “This news hurts deeply. Danilo was a great leader, a great indigenous person, a great patriot. What a void his departure leaves.” Senators, ministers, activists, journalists and friends have also mourned his death. The networks have been flooded with memories, farewells and hundreds of images of the smiling leader, whom they knew as the “chancellor of ecosystems.”
Fabio Arjona, executive director of Conservation International and friend of Danilo, also “cannot quite believe” his death. “We had so many projects together… My partner, my wise friend, spiritual guide and source of inspiration, suddenly left,” he laments. “It's been less than a week since we spoke to congratulate each other on Christmas and to expand a process of consolidation of the Arhuaco territory.” Arjona, who had known him for more than 30 years, does not hide his sadness at the loss of one of the “greatest leaders” of Colombia. “He knew that building a great bridge with the West, with the whites, was a great way for his people to advance and gain more rights. And he did it without leaving behind his traditions and always in a peaceful manner.”
The Arhuacos are one of the four indigenous peoples that inhabit the Sierra Nevada, a sacred territory for these communities. This town, of approximately 40,000 people, was displaced from the coast, where they were originally from, to the mountains. And they have spent centuries in a peaceful struggle to recover access to the sea, their territories and trying to ensure that their culture and worldview is recognized and preserved. During the Colombian armed conflict, they were also severely affected by violence and illicit crops in their territories. Danilo's activism, say those who know him, has been one of the most important in this demand, inside and outside Colombia.
A few weeks ago he was in Dubai to talk about his community during the COP28 sessions. There he was accompanied by his wife and Alicia Montalvo, manager of Climate Action and Positive Biodiversity at CAF-sustainable development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. “I always had projects in my head and a desire to improve, to progress. Although he was very faithful to his traditions, he was a great visionary and someone very modern who knew how to captivate by talking about the Sierra Nevada or heart of the world, as he called it.
Minutes before starting his talk in Dubai, Montalvo remembers, Danilo performed a ceremony with herbs and told him to find a pot in which to plant them later. “I smiled and told him that I would plant it in the desert, a few days later. There is. In the end he was right, everything ends up being connected to Sierra Nevada.”
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