The faces behind the project that aims to prevent Bogotá from suffering from water rationing again.

The air is different in the páramo. It's humid, icy, heavy, and full of water. In the high mountains, clouds arrive from many places, transformed into "flying rivers." When they collide with frailejones and grasslands, they fall to the ground as drops and accumulate, then descend between ravines, which accumulate in a river and then stagnate in a reservoir. This is how water reaches the homes of 17 million people in Colombia, according to data from the Humboldt Institute. But in 2024, that didn't happen in Bogotá, because the páramo air wasn't the same.

This ecosystem—responsible for producing the water consumed by the nation's capital—home to nearly 21 percent of Colombians and generating 31 percent of the national GDP (despite not being an industrial city), saw the air of the páramo change last year and part of 2025. It was drier, as if its "flying rivers" were no longer in the air.

The reason? Climate change, rising temperatures, and, above all, the degradation of key ecosystems such as the Chingaza-Sumapaz-Guerrero páramos, responsible for water regulation in the center of the country. All of this meant that, between April of last year and for exactly a year, the city faced daily water rationing.

The warning was clear: reservoirs are not eternal, nor does water come from a pipe. Water emerges from the humidity that hits the moorland and descends through the ravines. But if there are no mountains, jungles, forests, or ravines, there will be no rivers or reservoirs, nor water when you turn on the tap. And although, according to experts, the emergency that the nation's capital experienced for a year could be repeated, today a group of biologists, farmers, organizations, and government entities are working to prevent the situation from happening again.

The equation is simple: if people care for and conserve the páramo, there will be enough water for future generations and beyond. But in the páramo, people also have to eat, and for years these mountains have been filled with potato crops, and the soil has been eroded by plowing, affecting this ecosystem's ability to capture and release water that then becomes rivers.

But achieving this requires the efforts of community leaders like Juan Camilo López and Gilma Rodríguez Jiménez, as well as scientists like Patricia Bejarano. They are among the leaders driving an initiative involving more than ten national and international organizations that seeks to prevent Bogotá from suffering from water rationing again by protecting its "water factory": the páramo.

To understand the capital's problem, the first thing to consider is how water reaches the homes of more than 10 million people. Bogotá and the 21 surrounding municipalities benefit from the water and services provided by the high Andean ecosystems of the Chingaza-Sumapaz-Guerrero Strategic Conservation Area, which encompasses two departments, 22 municipalities, more than 550,000 hectares, and six environmental authorities.

The problem is that, for years, it was mistakenly thought that this resource was inexhaustible and, moreover, very cheap to obtain. The capital has three supply systems: the Northern Aggregate, the Southern Aggregate, and the Chingaza System. Under normal conditions, Chingaza (which receives water from the Chuza and San Rafael reservoirs) provides 70 percent of the city's consumption at a very low cost, thanks to the natural filtration process carried out by the high-mountain ecosystem and the gravity system that transports water from the páramo.

Faced with the drought emergency, the Northern Aggregate was forced to supply what Chingaza could not deliver. The problem is that the water there does not filter naturally but must pass through the Tibitoc Drinking Water Treatment Plant, located in the municipality of Tocancipá, where water from the upper Bogotá River basin is treated. This plant can deliver up to 50 percent of the city's water needs and worked to its full potential during the supply crisis.

However, such water treatment has its challenges, given that this basin presents problems with pollution and sedimentation: not only must the liquid pass through several processes, such as manganese removal, followed by filtration, disinfection, and pH stabilization; but the situation also becomes more complicated during the rainy season. According to the Bogotá Water and Sewer Company (EAAB), heavy rainfall increases the presence of sediment and organic matter in the raw water arriving from the Bogotá River basin.

Diego Restrepo Zambrano, an expert in water science, flood management, and sustainable urban development, emphasizes that Bogotá has an advantage in having these two water supply systems due to their climatic differences: the upper Bogotá River basin experiences two peak rainfall periods during the months of April-May and October-November; while the Chingaza River receives rainfall between June and August, which theoretically allows year-round access to water if managed properly. However, both basins are currently affected: the Chingaza River by degradation and the Bogotá River by pollution (which makes water treatment costly).

“We must keep both systems operating. Chingaza is cheaper because the water is pure and flows by gravity, while the Bogotá River requires more treatment and pumping. But we can't rely solely on Chingaza. If we allow the Bogotá River's water quality to continue to deteriorate, we will lose that redundancy, and the city will be exposed,” Restrepo warns.

Seeking to restore the Chingaza River's water management capabilities, and also the Bogotá River's ability to deliver much cleaner water, since 2007 the NGO Conservation International has been developing—with the help of several partners—multiple projects to restore these ecosystems. The objective, though simple, entails a monumental challenge: to restore areas that have been deforested or degraded and to protect those that remain intact.

“The first thing we did was understand why we're running out of water,” reflects Patricia Bejarano, director of Sustainable High Mountain Landscapes at Conservation International. “The second was to look for solutions from nature itself. When we talk about nature-based solutions, it's not an abstract concept, but rather concrete actions: if there are no trees, there is no water.”

One of the projects, specifically, has so far achieved 550 hectares of rehabilitation and recovery, 64 families have implemented adaptation measures, and $4.2 million has been committed to the design and implementation of climate change adaptation systems.

This initiative, "Adaptation to Climate Impacts in Water Regulation and Supply for the Chingaza-Sumapaz-Guerrero Area in Colombia," has been implemented since 2015.

It is financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with the support of four strategic partners: the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (IDEAM); the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca (CAR); the Bogotá Water and Sewerage Company (EAAB); and the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Guavio (CORPOGUAVIO).

The effort to restore these ecosystems increased exponentially last year with the "Bogotá-Region Landscape Water Resilience" project, whose mission will extend over the next 25 years.

The project is supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Ministry of Environment, and Conservation International, through a $92 million investment to protect the waters of Bogotá and the Sabana.

"Water Resilience Landscape Bogotá-Region" will have three components, ranging from interventions in 14 micro-basins through the restoration of 7,200 hectares, the recovery of 1,800 hectares through reconversion and productive diversification, and the conservation of 13,467 hectares. The initiative will involve the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Government of Cundinamarca, the Environment Secretariat of Bogotá, the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca, the National Natural Parks of Colombia, Central Region (RAP-E), the National Center for Water and Biodiversity, Cormacarena, Corpoguavio, Corporinoquia, the Bogotá Aqueduct, the Government of Meta, Conservation International Colombia, among others.

“Water doesn't just spring up. It arrives here from the rainforests and condenses on the vegetation of the páramos, passes into the soil, and from there into the streams and rivers. It's a complex but very fragile system. Páramos aren't water factories. They're regulators. That's why their function is even more important: they retain, filter, and deliver water slowly,” Bejarano explains. Restoration, then, consists of allowing that system to function again.

But restoring the páramo requires working with those who inhabit it. Because, simply because it's a páramo, it's not a protected area. Colombia's páramo is home to farmers, farmers, ranchers, miners, and other productive activities. In fact, according to data from the Humboldt Institute, only 51 percent of Colombia's páramo complexes have some type of legal conservation measure.

Although Law 1930 of 2018, known as the Páramos Law, defined these ecosystems as strategic for the country and requiring special protection—indicating activities that should not be carried out there—this does not mean that productive work or low-impact agricultural activities cannot be carried out in the páramos, provided they are environmentally sustainable and comply with the guidelines of the relevant ministries, as established in Article 10 of the regulations.

In addition, the lack of demarcation in some paramo complexes worsens the situation, because some páramo areas have no clear boundaries, as is the case in Santurbán, where there is currently a broad debate over the development of mining activities that communities have been carrying out for years.

Therefore, to preserve them, we must work hand in hand with those who have lived there for years. And this has been a central pillar of international conservation projects. According to Bejarano, the goal is to ensure that those who live there have the opportunity to continue producing, because "if the communities can't sustain themselves," they can't protect the mountains either.

In Guatavita, Gilma Rodríguez Jiménez, a member of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Guatavita (Ameg), is among those who defend the idea that by incorporating sustainable practices, it is possible to protect the region in which they live and guarantee the future of the company that, along with 39 other women from Ameg, produces dairy products.

For 25 years, Ameg has been converting milk from the small farms where its members live into yogurt, caramel, kumis, and country cheese under the Carbo Lac and Simqua brands. “We learned that if you conserve water, there's more milk. And if there's more milk, there's more product. That changed the way we view our livestock farming,” explains Rodríguez. In Colombia, where livestock farming has a significant impact on the degradation of ecosystems like the páramo, Ameg decided to demonstrate that production can be achieved without destruction.

“We trained in silvopastoral systems. We fenced water sources, planted trees to provide shade and protect the soil, and carried water to the drinking troughs without the cows stepping on the troughs,” Gilma explains, recalling that today they even collect manure and turn it into compost for their own crops.

But Ameg hasn't been the only one. Other productive initiatives have positioned themselves in the area as an alternative to traditional agriculture, which has a strong impact on the high mountains. Juan Camilo López is the founder of Apiman and a producer of honey and other beekeeping products such as pollen.

López is also the logistics coordinator for Dulce Monte, a community organization responsible for marketing all the sustainably produced products in the villages near the rural area of Guatavita, where Ameg and Apiman honeys emerge as an alternative to traditional products.

Agriculture and livestock farming have been the two major factors in the loss of plant species like frailejones and the migration of animals like the Andean bear in the páramos. According to Juan Carlos Benavides, coordinator of the Ecosystems and Climate Change Laboratory at Javeriana University, while there is a good level of conservation in some páramos, those close to areas of high agricultural demand—and which have already been degraded—continue to lose more and more cover.

The páramo sustains the city. Chingaza alone supplied nearly 70 percent of Bogotá. But one day it ran out of water. According to a study published in 2020 by researchers from the Universidad del Rosario, rising temperatures could render up to 52 percent of the Chingaza páramo unable to survive. To prevent this from happening, Patricia, Juan Camilo, and Gilma, along with dozens of other biologists, technicians, experts, officials, and farmers, are working, as anonymous faces, trying to save the páramo so that Bogotá never experiences drought again.

Environment and Health Journalist