Participatory Monitoring of biodiversity loss in Colombia: Alternatives for understanding and resolving environmental conflicts

Photo by Ellen Youkhana (Parque Los Sochos in Colombia)

June 21, 2022 | 09:00 h - June 23, 2022 | 17:00 h

Format: The workshop will be primarily in-person but we will have a hybrid format so participants can join via zoom as well.

This workshop has three objectives:

• Firstly, to inform and sensitise each other about current participatory monitoring initiatives to face environmental conflicts in Colombia and Germany.
• Secondly, to share and discuss scientific questions in the framework of a ColPaMon proposal to enhance participatory monitoring of environmental conflicts in Colombia.
• Lastly, we want to discuss and enrich the results of the previous workshops aimed at a comprehensive document for wider distribution.

Background of the workshop and ColPaMon project

The ColPaMon project is an initiative that has emerged from the Doctoral Studies Support Program (DSSP), which is a bilateral graduate school run by ZEF, University of Bonn, the Institute for Environmental Studies (IDEA) of the National University of Colombia (UNAL). DSSP and ColPaMon are both projects funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Together with the Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI) at Freie Universität Berlin, (specifically with the program trAndeS), ColMaPon has been promoting exchange spaces of community-based monitoring in conflicts since 2021, not only in Colombia but also in other Latin-American countries. The main objective has been to explore alternatives and respond to environmental conflicts in Colombia while including and supporting local stakeholders in the process. Between May and November 2021, two workshops and three conferences were carried out and contributed to deepening diverse monitoring experiences in territories of conflict. With these inputs, we have increased knowledge about participative and community-based monitoring processes, and have approached local communities that already have developed different monitoring processes of an environmental conflict.

These insights and reflections also disclosed the potential of inter/transdisciplinary research and the need for an open science-framework that links local knowledge, scientific methodologies and environmental policies at different levels. Furthermore, the outcome of workshops and our research so far also showed that there is a demand for more visibility of and information about the conflicts.

This third workshop will provide the opportunity to present the exploration of participative and community-based monitoring processes. We will also discuss in-depth a joint research proposal and future paths for addressing environmental conflicts, the role of science, and the perspective and potentials of the participatory monitoring process not just in Colombia but also in other regions of the world.

You can download the program (including the zoom links to access the sessions virtually) here.