All Together, We Can Create Miracles

martha llano

If preserving our species is a challenge, protecting our trees is an even greater one. Protected land is a utopia. My vision of protecting the trees while supporting our species has been considered by some to be crazy.

But I am not a crazy woman.

I believe that we need trees as much as we need water, air, and land. Knowing that deep inside my heart, I decided more than 20 years ago to protect land, to protect trees, to protect air, to protect water. These are the resources we need to protect our species and to protect all species. Maintaining our planet while advancing is a delicate equilibrium.

For the past two decades, I have been working to protect the land around a growing city. Where I can see pure air, others only see smoke. Where I see can see pure water, others see swimming pools. Where I see trees, they see buildings. When I walk I see birds, mammals, and butterflies; developers see only space for more buildings.

There are many who are trying to reach these amazing lands to conquer them with the goal of having more money in their accounts. For many years, I have been trying to educate people from the cities that the best bank account is to leave nature as it is. In nature, we find resilience as the most important principle; it can teach us everything.

My project, which I call Resiliencias, is my effort to connect private preserve areas of my country. In my efforts, I have faced so many challenges, but also so many miracles. Yes, miracles. Miracles happen every time I face an obstacle to trying to connect land, women, and the trees. These miracles are only possible when we believe deeply in ourselves and in what our bodies tell us.

When I was selected as a World Pulse Impact Leader, my main challenge was to focus on just one thing. Living in Colombia, a country in war, means you are not allowed to do just one thing at a time. We have had to think fast and develop different, complex strategies. It was normal to have many approaches to the same problem just in case.

But things are changing in my country. In the central range of the Andes, at 2600 meters abovesea level, life seems to be different now. It is a more peaceful habitat, and that has given me the strength and the time and the energy to start telling women about subjects I have never spoken to them about before. Survival was always first: food, shelter, health. Now, we have been doing conservation work, and we have started a new WhatsApp network to share ideas about how to preserve our species, some seeds, some trees.

This network will be connected to a bigger network, first in Colombia, then to the whole world. We all need to be connected so we can all together help each other. We can find solutions. We can share experiences. We can educate civil society about the importance of trees and preserving lands for our own survival.

My other challenge has been time. I have had a short period of time only to gather information for a new website, and to design the site. I was able to buy the host site just a few days ago, and soon I will fill the website with all of the information needed to protect land and trees and to connect green people to greentrees around the planet. All of this in one place.

Together, if we have the right information and the right connections, and if we believe in ourselves, we can create miracles.