Indigenous Reserve La Teófila

Description of the LAND-at-scale project activities in the Indigenous Reserve La Teófila la Arenosa in Solano, Caquetá - Colombia (English)

History of the Indigenous Reserve La Teófila

1980

The purchase of the Laguna La Teofila farm after the arrival of the first people, the family of Jorge Chica from the department of Putumayo

1998

Arrival of indigenous people from the Koreguaje community from the Gorgonia Indigenous reserve, whereafter new families were started who began to live together in this area

1999

Request for the establishment of the official Indigenous Reserve at INCORA

2000

INCORA carries out the necessary technical visits for the legalization and constitution of the reserve

2003

Constitution of the Resguardo (Indigenous Reserve) with the Resolution 008 of 2003 of INCORA

2006

The Chica family begins the process of cultural self-recognition with an ethnological study in order to determine that the Chica family and its members are descendants of the Makaguaje people.

2009

Ancestral and cultural recognition of the Macaguaje ethnic group by the Ministry of the Interior.

2018

Separation of the Makaguaje and Koreguaje communities, the Macaguaje family builds another settlement in the reserve

2022

Signing of an agreement between the two communities to recognize the presence of the Makaguaje people in the La Teófila reserve and the request to expand the reservation is written

Official Data

As part of the Land-at-scale Colombia project, multiple visits were made to the La Teófila Reserve in 2021 in order to identify the needs of the two communities that live in this reserve. In these meetings, different activities were developed with focuses on the autonomous collection of information by the communities. One of the main issues that the community expressed in these visits was the geographic displacement of the official polygon in the government’s data, as a result of an incorrect georeferencing procedure of the reserve’s title. As the community wants to expand the reserve, this official data needs to be rectified. 

Agreement

In May 2023, the Indigenous leaders traveled to Bogotá to apply for an expansion of the Teofila Reserve, and for the constitution of a new Indigenous reserve called Nueva Betania, next to La Teófila at the Colombian National Land Agency and the Ministry of Interior Affairs. After these meetings, the leaders requested Kadaster support on the correction of the polygon, to be able to continue the expansion procedures.

In blue you can see the aproximate location of the reserve.

To be able to measure the real location, Kadaster proposed, together with the community leaders, that they themselves could measure the real limits according to their perspective and the areas of expansion in Solano. Kadaster would organize a training session to teach the community members to work with the measuring equipment.

Training

A two-day training session was organized in Florencia, the capital of the Caquetá Department. 9 Representatives of the Koreguaje and Makaguaje communities participated. 

After the training, both communities took home one GNSS antenna (Trimble R2), one mobile phone with the mobile data collection app ArcGIS Field Maps, and several batteries to measure the limit of the reserve

Fieldwork

The community members in the field measured over 200 points. All points were measured with the GNSS device.

After three weeks of fieldwork, where the Koreguaje community measured the north limit and the Makaguaje community the southern limit, the Indigenous community members uploaded the collected data to the cloud, whereafter Kadaster made the map with the first results.

Field measurements by the Indigenous community.

Measuring the Reality

The two communities measured together the real limits of their land. Besides measuring the correct boundaries of the Indigenous Reserve La Teófila, they also included the proposed extension area in the measurements.

Results

Based on the field measurements, several areas were defined: the real location of the Teófila reserve, the requested area of extension, and the area for constitution of a new reserve Nueva Betania.

Which, as you can see, are important areas to be able to create the desired conservation corridor, conecting the Teófila reserve with the neighbouring Indigenous reserves.

This information is sent to the National Land Agency and the Ministry of Interior Affairs to follow up on the administrative processes.

Local Development

Within the Land at Scale project, several other activities were carried out to promote the investment in sustainable economic development.

Spatial data collection training:

In the month of December 2022, the Kadaster team visited Teófila and training sessions were held that allowed the young volunteers from the communities to collect information on crops, milpeso palms as well as basic data on each family. This information allowed the ICCO team to carry out subsequent activities together with the World Food Program for the use of the milpeso palm in the reserve.

Cooperation with WFP:

At the end of 2021, ICCO and WFP representatives visited the Koreguaje and Makaguaje Indigenous communities in order to start the project to strengthen value chain of the milpesos palm oil within the framework of the Ancestral Markets program with an emphasis on how the project responds to the exercises of joint construction of the communities in the characterization of economic alternatives that guarantee the generation of income for families.

Botanical gardens:

In May, Tropenbos established a communal plant nursery in the Makaguaje community, which allows the investigation of organic fertilizers produced by materials found in the reserve. In this so called Botanical garden, seeds for crops, medicinal and timber plants will be planted.

In the Koreguaje community, a plant nursery was established for each family to control the development of the local biodiversity. A nursery was also made for the school in which the children of the community can learn about the flora.

LAND-at-scale Colombia

Kadaster, ICCO, Tropenbos

Field measurements by the Indigenous community.