A new report from the Institute for Economics and Peace highlights grave ecological threats around the world — and suggests ways advocates can nurture a more benign environmental future.
by Miles Howard
At first glance, the Jaguar cacao fruit resembles a glowing green orb wrapped in earthen brown roots. But the fruit’s value lies within: a multitude of edible seeds that, when roasted and ground into powder, give chocolate a nuttier flavor profile.
The fruit grows in a few ecosystems in Central and South America, such as the foothills of southeastern Colombia. There, in the Amazon River basin, Rotary Peace Fellow Lorena Rodriguez has played a pivotal role in seeding this rare crop and quite a few others. During her fellowship, Rodriguez spent time in rural Colombia conducting field research on food sovereignty, which prioritizes the needs of the people who grow and otherwise produce food over the demands of the markets and corporations that distribute it. In 2019, she joined forces with friends and launched La Realidad, an NGO that helps communities in the Putumayo region of Colombia grow their own fruit and vegetable crops using regenerative agriculture practices — such as crop rotation, composting, and cover cropping — that help create a more nutrient-rich soil and reduce excess carbon in the atmosphere.
“Putumayo has been highly affected by the armed conflict in Colombia, by narco traffic, and by the structural violence that arises from the gap between urban and rural societies,” Rodriguez says. “A lot of the elders there were leaving, and their kids cannot sustain their lives doing agriculture the way their parents did, using pesticides and heavy chemicals to produce bigger yields of corn or sugarcane for the global market. It’s not sustainable economically or environmentally.”
