Colombia's vanishing wetlands: pollution, fish collapse & the fight to survive

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:10]Seeing that the fish was far from each of these villages, they decided to build the village in the center of the Pajaral hill.

[00:00:23]We live here because we are at peace, calm, we leave things there.

[00:00:30]We have little, but no, the tranquility, the air we breathe is much better than that of the cities.

[00:00:38]Good morning, friend. There's fish around.

[00:00:43]Nothing.

[00:00:53]UNESCO designated 2000.

[00:01:01]Flora has a wall there. Nothing. We arrived where Juan Carlos wasn't, where Eider wasn't, where this garábalo wasn't, is n't. Although we have thousands of problems right now, the problem of the hydrilla is preventing people from working. As you can see, we are under attack right now.

[00:01:44]of invasive plants, the common water higher synth on the lakes surface and the thick roots of hydrilla that clog the water below.

[00:01:54]Labeled by the US Department of Agriculture as one of the world's most invasive aquatics. The hydrates thick patches of roots that blocks, hinder?

[00:02:10]Yes, because here 97% live directly from fishing, and those of us who don't derive our money from the fishermen. There's nothing else to do here but fish.

[00:02:28]We are waiting for the departmental, municipal, and national governments to finish their studies and see how we can help with the problem, but we cannot wait another 6 months. There are people here who are in need because they cannot work. They are very poor families, and above all, the children and the elderly are the ones suffering the calamity, and why not say it, some are going hungry.

[00:03:04]Cieneagre is one of the largest swamps in the world, I believe, in Colombia, and at this moment we feel abandoned by the state.

[00:03:40]We learned that they had it in some ponds for the buffalo to eat, but it overflowed and the Medellín River fell.

[00:03:48]The Medellín River sent him to the Magdalena River. That's what we know, because it's still being studied to determine if it's invasive. How can it not be invasive if it doesn't have a blind temple?

[00:04:02]Let's just say this plant has a very, very fast growth rate. We're talking about meters per day, right?

[00:04:16]Mangrove. Teams have been studying the hydrilla and searching for possible solutions since the fisherman sounded the alarm.

[00:04:32]I was really surprised. I 've seen buchones many times from many places. I've never seen such big pochets as the ones in Venice.

[00:04:38]They're super snobby. Idrila is supposed to have originated in Asia and a little bit in Africa, but it is now distributed almost all over the world in areas such as tropical and subtropical regions. My impression is that it's like a super plant, because there are other plants like it, similar ones in the swamp that may be native to the swamp, meaning they should be there, but then this super competitor arrives and starts to grow and obviously overshadows them, right? In other words, it overcompetes. The problem is that it forms such dense tangles that it first begins to create problems for the life that exists there. In other words, fish have more difficulty moving, hunting, for example, and predators have more difficulty finding their prey because there are places to hide, right? Other plants have more difficulty photosynthesis. Because? Because Dila is cutting off their light.

[00:05:29]Good morning, guys. What else? How are you doing? How did I get that catch? We've been in four parts and we haven't gotten four hands wet.

[00:05:42]That one is too small for the little clans.

[00:05:45]Here, Auntie.

[00:05:56]Well, we did manage to get some, but they were tiny fish after running around a bit and they sold them to us expensive, small and expensive.

[00:06:10]I was born here in New Venice, proud to be Venetian. For me, Nueva Venecia is a magical place, a beautiful, unique place; there is no other place like it.

[00:06:28]I feel threatened by this invasive plant because every day it grows, increases, invades our swamp more and more, and if the fish cannot be caught because it has them devastated, wrapped up underneath it, I will not be able to succeed in my business. My business will go bankrupt every day because when tourists come, obviously what they ask for is lunch with fish. My fellow community members took over the La Prosperidad road, the Sianaga-Barranquilla highway, about a month ago because no entity has resolved anything; they have n't wanted to help us, I would say.

[00:07:14]So, we're thinking that if we run out of time or patience, the entire community of Nueva Venecia will take matters into our own hands, because we can't take it anymore.

[00:07:35]Look how different it is from fishing; we don't know what to do because some young people who find themselves without work, without an education, unfortunately would resort to violence in order to survive. And that's what we do n't want, for our children to become criminals. It wasn't bad, we didn't get anything.

[00:08:09]You see the clean plan, the box is empty.

[00:08:14]This is the toughest time. We would leave at 4 in the morning and by 12 we were already back home with food.

[00:08:20]food for our children. But not now, now we have to leave at 2 in the morning and we arrive at 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

[00:08:30]Sometimes we arrive with the dry plan, we don't bring anything.

[00:08:34]Sometimes you eat when there's food, and when there isn't, you have to put up with it because you know that's just how things are.

[00:08:45]The plant is changing the behavior of the lake. The thick roots steal the waters, so causing more problems. With no plumbing, human waste drops directly into the lake. In the past, moving waters dissolved and diluted the sewage.

[00:09:12]I have 0 children, 10 people. feed.

[00:09:17]If this continues, we're going to be in need.

[00:09:20]Yes, because you can imagine, we don't have, or rather, we hardly have any work.

[00:09:33]Well, we'll have to fight because I'm not going to leave my children here. I'm going out for a run; we'll have to suffer together because she says she's not leaving here. If you don't go out, neither will I, because I'm not going to leave my children abandoned here, starving to death while I live the high life, right? We'll go all out here.

[00:09:56]We have the tools to do biological control, but it's complex because we have to do a very important social job first. I'm talking about two species of large herbivores that live in the swamp.

[00:10:07]One is the manatee, right? The West Indian manatee loves hydrilla.

[00:10:13]We already did a trial run of feeding some, and he liked it. The problem is that obviously the density of manatees is very low and the reason is that people hunt and eat the manatees. So, obviously there's important work to be done with the community to convince them that a live manatee is better than a dead manatee, because it helps them control the issue of the plants.

[00:10:39]We are doing everything possible to prevent people from degrading, to prevent people from being displaced.

[00:10:54]At first, I don't understand why they mention it so frequently. And then we learn the town has been displaced before.

[00:11:02]Horror can come even in paradise and their families.

[00:11:14]Yes, in 2000 we were displaced and it is very sad that this happens because of all the people they detained that time, which was more than 37, they left them lying in the swamps. Then they shot and vilely massacred innocent people of the war, people who know what, because they were fighting amongst themselves. Four family members and they never had problems with anyone. Two brothers, a nephew, and a cousin.

[00:12:13]The swamp, then, is, I believe, one of the most important ecosystems that the country has, especially in coastal areas. In fact, it's like the largest coastal lagoon or coastal wetland we have in Colombia and one of the largest in all of America, right? It's a super-complex system, also super rich in diversity, meaning there are tons of animals of all kinds there. It supports a large human population that settles there.

[00:12:53]Dale. The idea is to open it, nail the sticks to each end of the rod along its length, so that it is tight there, there, there, there, there, so that they always maintain the line over there. Well, we're in an emergency because we don't have roads, so here we are opening passages, we're locked in, and we're doing this work thanks to the people who have made it possible to provide unskilled labor, and some friends from the community who are also contributing their time and guidance.

[00:13:39]We are clearing space, clearing the undergrowth because it is what prevents boats and motors from passing.

[00:13:46]So, we're opening it up on the sides, we nail some heels in, we say here we put wood along the length so that we can walk as needed.

[00:14:02]We, from the community action group, together with the community, are doing this manual labor because so far we haven't seen any support from any state entity, and if we wait, we'll end up trapped, and transferring a patient or having teachers come in to give classes to the children is almost impossible if we don't do this work.

[00:14:34]It is a lung of the world. The hundred should be taken into account by many countries and by the national government.

[00:14:49]grow and reclaim this small space, erasing it under this scorching Caribbean sun.

[00:14:56]But for now, they toil along.

[00:15:01]love.