300 Died in Floods Ten Years ago – but now Colombia’s Farmers Know How to Cope with Climate Change

A decade following the worst floods in Colombia’s recent history, local farmers have taken measures to better cope with the sporadic weather – and with the help of international funding, they’ve managed to become more climate resilient, too!

The flooding in 2010 had killed around 300 people and displaced 2.2 million others, damaging a million hectares of land along the way. Extreme weather will likely keep striking, say aid officials, prompting hardest-hit areas like the poor farming communities in the La Mojana region to be more prepared.

Since 2013, the United Nations has helped around 6,000 families across three of La Mojana’s municipalities take significant measures such as restoring damaged wetlands and growing climate-resistant crops like rice. The method: “nature-based solutions” led by village farmer associations, opting for improving woodlands, wetlands and watersheds rather than building dams and the like to contain floods.

“What we are seeking to do is to recover the capacity of the region’s water systems,” says Francisco Charry, head of climate change at Colombia’s environment ministry, which is leading the project with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

The UNDP calls this one of South America’s biggest climate change adaptation initiatives, that is expected to benefit around 400,000 people. With $117 million in funding coming in from donors as well as the Colombian government, nine more municipalities in La Mojana will be partaking in preservation and restoration measures over the next eight years. This will include farming communities installing around 7,400 water harvesting tanks on the roof of homes, clinics and schools, to collect rain during drought periods.