Etelvina Ramos: From coca farmer to opponent of the illegal crop

This story is part of a Mongabay series on female environmental defenders in the Amazon. Read about the lives and work of Soraida Chindoy, Maydany Salcedo, Alis Ramírez, Etelvina Ramos.   It was when Etelvina Ramos Campo was four years old that she first became aware that she could die. In her nightmares, a boa surrounded her, broke her fragile bones and left her body at the mercy of other beasts. Almost half a century later, a snake is no longer the antagonist of her sleepless nights but the trigger of a gun held by those who want her dead. Etelvina Ramos arrived in the Amazon at four years old because her father, José Antonio Ramos, promised to earn an inheritance for her and her ten siblings in a new land: a place where water flowed abundantly and food was so fresh that it seemed to be still alive. In 1977, her family — her mother, father, and siblings — abandoned Santander de Quilichao, the second-largest city in Cauca Department, Colombia. After almost a full day on a bus, passing trails and towns that became smaller and smaller, they arrived in Puerto Caicedo, in Putumayo Department. It was at the end of the road and what seemed like the end of the populated world. There, the family seemed to step into another reality, into the Colombian Amazon, with hundred-year-old trees, marmosets, deer, armadillos, large rodents, parrots, tigers, snakes, and a forest so thick that Etelvina Ramos’ father had to walk…This article was originally published on Mongabay