Colombia | Hessian Peace Prize goes to Colombian environmentalist

Jani Silva has been subjected to death threats from armed militias for years. Her courageous insistence on sustainable use of the Amazon region has earned the Colombian environmental activist considerable national and international respect. She is currently holding talks with non-governmental organizations and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Berlin. On Tuesday, she accepted the Hesse Peace Prize in Frankfurt am Main.

For 40 years, the 62-year-old has been committed to social justice, environmental protection, and the establishment of a protected area in the Putomayo Amazon region, which provides smallholder farmers with access to agricultural land and a future free from the drug war and violence. In 2000, her organization, Adispa, acquired a land title for 22,000 hectares for 800 families who want to cultivate ecologically and live in peace in the "La Perla Amazónica" protected area. The concept, developed collectively with her colleagues, has also won over government agencies.

Adispa, however, finds herself at odds with two actors: the paramilitaries promoting coca cultivation and the Chilean-British corporation Amerisur, which drills for oil in the region and has been reported several times for contaminating rivers. In October 2020, Silva was forced to sell 45 head of cattle, a dozen geese, ducks, and chickens, and flee into exile in the town of Puerto Asís. "I couldn't go on; the death threats were massive. I narrowly escaped twice," Silva, who misses village life, recalled to "nd." When she travels in the Amazon region these days, she is usually accompanied by members of the Peace Brigades International or state security personnel.