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Juan Guillermo Garcés remembers coming face to face with death at age 17. Smoke filled the air, choking his lungs. The temperature rose and Garcés struggled to see through the haze. Panic set in as he watched monkeys, snakes, lizards and birds desperately trying to escape the flames surrounding them.
Garcés and his brother started the fire that nearly killed them to clear a large stretch of land. But when the wind suddenly changed direction, they found themselves locked in. The brothers survived, but the fire destroyed the little remaining patch of virgin forest on the family’s 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) ranch, nestled along Colombia’s Magdalena River. Experiencing firsthand what the animals and plants endured was a turning point for Garcés.
“I felt death there in the flames,” he says. “When you’re about to be burned alive, you become painfully aware of the destruction you have caused.”
In an attempt to undo the damage he caused in his youth, the 74-year-old created the Rio Claro nature reserve, a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) oasis teeming with wildlife. Today, Garcés’s reserve marks him as one of Colombia’s most successful environmental protectors.
Many of the species that fled Garcés’s fire more than five decades ago find refuge in the reserve, climbing in the canopy and drinking from the clear, deep river the reserve is named after.
It owes its biodiversity partly to the marble bedrock upon which its jungle grows. This geological phenomenon, known as a karst forest, creates conditions for unusually high numbers of rare and endemic species. The Rio Claro basin is home to almost 850 species of fauna and more than 3,000 of flora.
“More than 100 new species have been discovered in Rio Claro … and counting,” says Saúl E Hoyos-Gómez, a botanical biologist. “It is a very special place – one of the few where you can find this level of biodiversity.”
Garcés was born into a ranching family in an era when the Colombian government encouraged ranchers to push the boundaries of expansion and “settle” the seemingly infinite jungle. “Whoever was first to cut down the forest, whoever was first to destroy nature, would become the land’s owner,” says Garcés.
He would probably have become a rancher too, if not for events that profoundly altered his worldview. One such moment was almost being burned alive.
Another was first seeing the untouched natural paradise near the Garcés family ranch, soon to be destroyed by a road-building project.
“Seeing how crystal-clear the river was, I threw in a small silver coin,” he says. “It sank about four metres, yet we never lost sight of it.”
Garcés decided to settle the land – this time, to save it. To lay his claim, he cleared a small patch of forest, planted cocoa, and moved into a cave on the river, where he lived for two years before building a small house. It took nearly 20 years for the government to officially recognise his ownership. By that time, Garcés had renounced ranching altogether to dedicate his life to reforestation.
His method is simple. He buys plots of land from peasant farmers, often deforested pastures, and then lets them rest. Recovery in the region’s hot and humid climate is fast. Left alone, pasture reverts to jungle within decades. About 80% of Garcés’ reserve consists of land reforested in this way.
To build his reserve, Garcés has had to navigate complex relationships with peasant farmers, the government and armed groups – each with their own interests.
Colombian politicians have promised to prioritise nature but, in practice, conservation results still largely depend on the country’s armed groups. These groups sometimes drive deforestation in areas they control, but also often limit it because they rely on the forest canopy to hide from government forces.
The forest nearest to the reserve is home to several armed groups. For Garcés, the security risk of expanding in that direction is too big. But the groups’ presence has kept others out too, limiting deforestation for now.
The reserve also owes much of its biodiversity to armed groups, who displaced peasant farmers, allowing the recovery of the ecosystem. The demobilisation of many of the groups since the turn of the century has put this land back on the market. Many of the farmers displaced decades ago were too old to return and few of their descendants showed an interest, according to Garcés. Many needed money and were eager to sell the family land.
Garcés bought up as much of the land as possible to grow his reserve and save it from investors wanting to restart ranching. He finances his project by setting aside a small part of the land for eco-tourism.
Growing numbers of Colombian landowners are following Garcés’s lead, turning pastures into reserves. This trend may help the country achieve its international pledge to protect 30% of its land by 2030, especially since much of it is privatised.
Still, private reserves remain far smaller than those controlled by government. The main association of private reserves protects 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) in total, while national parks protect, in theory, more than 20m hectares.
Private reserves also face an uncertain future after their founders’ deaths. Garcés is still searching for ways to legally protect his life’s work.
“I have never really been the owner of these forests, nor could I be,” he says. “If the law allowed, I would leave [the reserve] to the trees, to the animals. They are the true owners of this ecosystem.”
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