They called him ‘the protector of the river of five colours’. Javier Francisco Parra Cubillos came from the Sierra de la Macarena, an isolated mountain range in northwest Colombia, where the unique red, purple, yellow, green and blue algae in the Caño Cristales river give it the appearance of a liquid rainbow. When he was gunned down on 3 December 2020, reportedly by a couple on a motorcycle, he joined a long list of environmental campaigners murdered for trying to defend the mountains, jungles and rivers of their country.
Colombia is the deadliest place in the world for human rights activists and those trying to protect the environment. In 2020, 177 campaigners were murdered in the South American country by guerrillas of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other armed groups – the highest rate in the world, according to the human rights organization Global Witness. Covid-19 has only made things worse, with such groups violently imposing quarantines and restrictions on movement, in order to tighten control over land and the valuable trade of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. Like Cubillos, many of those who are dying are engaged in a struggle to protect the unique natural ecosystems of Colombia.
