Over the last 100 years people fleeing violence have arrived at the Bajo Caguán-Caqueta region. The Indigenous Murui-Muina and campesino people have made their home here and developed a deep connection with the forest and a strong sense of solidarity with their communities.

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This still—unbroken forest of the Bajo Caguán-Caquetá connects the wetlands and upland forests of La Paya National Park to the west with the spectacular sandstone uplifts of Chiribiquete National Park to the east. Our inventory revealed plentiful tapirs, jaguars, and white-lipped peccaries, animals that are threatened elsewhere in the Amazon and that need large home ranges to maintain their populations.

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Most importantly, campesino and Indigenous people in Bajo Caguán-Caquetá have a consensus vision on the need to maintain standing forest, and simultaneously provide for their well-being and ways of life. With a newly signed peace accord, there is a growing feeling of hope—and a tremendous opportunity to construct a new regional conservation model with direct use by local people in the nearly one million hectares of forests of the Bajo Caguán-Caquetá.