Over the course of the last century, colonization by peasants from different regions of Colombia, who invaded a large part of indigenous territory in the flat, lower and middle altitudes of the Sierra Nevada, has caused great ecological damage to the mountain. These peasants came here fleeing the different civil wars which plagued the country. In the 1970s and 1980s, the cultivation of marijuana for export and later illicit coca attracted the attention of a greater number of colonists, who formed a peasant belt around the lower and middle elevations of the Sierra Nevada, which today is estimated to amount to 210,000 persons. The introduction of the practice of indiscriminate felling and burning of the rainforest, the formation of grazing ground for cattle, the consolidation of a belt of coffee farms, the constant extraction of hardwood, and the expansion of illicit coca crops have destroyed the majority of the forests along with the richness and variety of fauna and flora. Actually, only 12% of the 21,000 square kilometers of the Sierra Nevada is intact primary forest.

This immense deforestation has caused erosion of the soil and the consequent sedimentation of the rivers' watersheds, and the disappearance of numerous species of plants and animals, many of them unique in the world. Worse still is the loss of Sacred Sites which play an essential role in the maintenance of the ecological equilibrium and of our culture. When Sacred Sites are transformed by the action of the Younger Brother, the knowledge of the Law of Origen and of the ceremonial practices that are contained in each Site are compromised.

The occupation of the flat, lower and middle elevations of the Sierra Nevada has also cause the displacement of indigenous people towards the higher reaches of the mountain, and has impeded their access to the moderate and hot zones, thus limiting the possibility of exercising the traditional forms of agriculture based on a vast knowledge of the ecology of the Sierra Nevada and of astronomy. Where our peoples have been able to maintain the traditional practice of vertically organizing agriculture, integrating the harvesting of different foodstuffs at the different elevations of the Sierra Nevada (corn, yams, beans, tubors, banana, yuca in the lower regions; arracacha, malanga, and native sugar cane in the middle elevations; onions, garlic and potatoes in the higher altitudes) they have also been able to maintain their cultural integrity intact. And where our peoples have lost the possibility of maintaining the vertical integration of agriculture they have suffered serious alterations in their cultural identity. Agriculture is fundamentally associated with the social fibre of our peoples.

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