COLOMBIA'S COFAN STILL FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL

Bogota, Colombia -- Although he is only 21, Camilo Yoge has seen his
indigenous tribe lose its culture, territory and traditions.

Yoge, a member of the Cofan tribe, has seen farmers, ranchers and
oilmen invade his ancestral lands to plant illegal coca crops, raise
cattle and search for oil. He has seen many young Cofan take to
wearing Western-style clothes, listening to popular music and
abandoning their native language for Spanish.

"We're losing out traditional dress, our environment," lamented Yoge,
who is studying to become a taita, or shaman. "We are no longer free
in our own territory."

To help the Cofan, who number only about 2,600 people between Colombia
and Ecuador, preserve their traditions, the Colombian government last
month created the Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plants Sanctuary to
protect the plants the Cofan depend on for medicinal and spiritual
purposes. Officials in Colombia say the reserve is the only national
park in the world created for that reason. Sustaining natural resources

"Sustainable use will permit us to preserve the natural resources,"
said National Parks Director Julia Miranda Londono.

The idea for the reserve came after Cofan leaders met in 2003 with the
national organization of indigenous shaman to search for an
unpopulated region they could use to preserve their medicinal plants.
They took the proposal to national park authorities, who spent several
years mapping out a 25,000-acre reserve.

The Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plants Sanctuary, whose name means "our
territory" in the Cofan language, ranges in elevation from 2,300 feet
to nearly 10,000 feet above sea level in the southwestern departments
of Narino and Putumayo - about a two-hour drive from Cofan territory,
where much of the vegetation has been destroyed by farmers, ranchers
and oilmen.

With few options available for earning money, park officials say many
Cofan have resorted to harvesting coca leaf, the base ingredient for
cocaine, further eroding their traditions. Even traditional palm
fronds, which are now hard to find, have been replaced by tin when
building roofs for their homes.

"We live from nature, that's where our energy comes from," said Louis
Octavio Criollo, 39, a Cofan who is also training to become a taita.
"But when (the forest) is cut down, all of that is lost." A wealth of
biodiversity

Aside from spiritual value, the new park's elevation range has
abundant biodiversity, parks officials say, including about 400 bird
varieties, numerous reptiles, and such rare species as chameleons,
jaguars and Andean spectacled bears. Cofan elders have also identified
nearly 100 plant species used for medicinal and religious purposes.

Two of the most important plants are yoco (Paullinia yoco), a vine
used against fatigue and as a laxative and to prevent malaria, and
yage, a mildly hallucinogenic vine used in traditional rites, which
has become popular with outsiders who often harvest the plant for
sale. Other plants are used to treat inflammations, kidney ailments
and rheumatism.

Indigenous Colombians, who belong to dozens of different ethnic
groups, make up about 2 percent of the nation's population of 45
million. Like the Cofan, many have suffered the impact of disease,
deforestation, and violence from the nation's more than 4-decade-old
civil war. More sanctuaries needed

Lilliana Madrigal, vice president of programs for the Amazon
Conservation Team, based in Virginia, which helped plan the new park,
predicts that the reserve will inspire the creation of protected areas
in other nations.

"It's a huge precedent for countries worldwide," she said. "I think
that we're going to be seeing a lot of other sanctuaries or biological
reserves for the same purpose."

In fact, Colombian park officials say they are already planning to
convert a 2.9-million-acre indigenous reserve into a national park to
protect areas important to the creation myths of several indigenous
groups living there. Luciano Mutumbajoy, a member of the nearby Inga
indigenous people and a leader of Colombia's traditional medical
practitioners, helped create the yet-to-be named park

"If our medicine is finished, the life and existence of the indigenous
people will end," he said. About the Cofan

Before the Spanish conquest, the Cofan numbered between 15,000 and
20,000. But smallpox, whooping cough and measles reduced the
population to about 2,600 today spread between southern Colombia and
northeast Ecuador.

In Ecuador, their ancestral lands have been polluted mainly by oil
companies. In Colombia, Cofan lands have been invaded by cattle
ranchers, coca farmers and oil companies.