The Kogi have asked us to save the natural world, with their help. In September 2018, Kogi Mamas are arriving in France to take part in a discussion with scientists. They have found a new way to talk to us about understanding the way they see the world, which they say is vital to our future.

This visit being arranged by our French partners ‘Tchendukua Ici et ailleurs’ and we are requesting your help to raise funds to bring the Kogi to the Drome in France to make this important ecological dialogue possible.

The Kogi leaders are called Mamas and they are from the Sierra Nevada mountains in Colombia. For the last 30 years they have been engaged in environmental and political activism – making films to educate and warn us about the impact our Western consumer driven culture is having on the natural world. The Kogi have taken it upon themselves to help us understand how we are affecting the natural world and now they’re working to educate and enlighten us so that we can come closer to nature, appreciate it and realise the harm we are causing.

As a starting point they suggest we must renew our connection with the earth:

“You don’t know how to walk! Don’t you have to walk in your country? In your cars and aeroplanes, don’t you walk? … The Kogi walk literally as well as figuratively, in the paths of their ancestors. There is a powerful sense of thousands of individual trajectories constantly crossing and re-crossing the mountains, weaving an astonishingly dense web of relations between kin and places, and all these movements following well-paved paths paved by the ancestors.”

From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers Warning (1990)

Their knowledge comes from this intimate observation, repeated, refined and shared over generations. From this comes their deep empathy with the world we live in.

We are asking you to help us bring the Kogi Mamas to France for this discussion and you can do this by walking, by starting to observe and appreciate nature – closely, mindfully, with friends, family and neighbours.

You can help us by raising sponsorship from your walk. This is a simple request to our friends and growing community of supporters to organise such a walk by a river, or through a wood on your own or with friends as a way of appreciating nature, spending time in the wonder and beauty of the natural world. Write about your experience or ask your kids or grandkids to write or draw something from your walk, we’d love to post these for you on Twitter and our website.

To organise your walk, download our instructions and the sponsorship forms

The funds will be spent covering the costs of the Kogi’s travel and programme in France. We believe this is an important event as it continues to build a bridge  between indigenous knowledge and western understanding about how to understand and protect nature.

Read the website, confirm your walk with us on there and renew your commitment to nature. We’re trying to raise a minimum of £5,000.

Follow the latest project work and updates from the Trust.

Thank you.

The Tairona Heritage Trust