returning to my home
The FCDS claims that about 70% of the Nukak population has been driven from their ancestral homelands.
Most families were forced to lead sedentary lifestyles, settling in dormant camps near towns, where child sex abuse and addiction became commonplace.
Others have settled on small plots in rural areas where land disputes between settlers and residents erupted.
The land was taken over as if it were vacant by the colonists. They claim there were no Nukak, but Njibe claimed that the Nukak became ill and left.
The Colombian government is not very active in the Nukak reservation’s most remote areas of the Amazon.
Therefore, when the Nukak attempt to reclaim their lands, they have few legal protections from settler violence.
However, in recent years, Nukak members like Njibe have decided to leave their homes after getting tired of waiting for government intervention.
In 2020, several clans retreated into the jungle out of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The clans, however, considered staying for the duration after returning to their relative isolation. They requested assistance from non-governmental organizations like FCDS.
Njibe was residing within the Nukak Maku reservation at the time.
Large tracts of the forest had been wiped out even within the reservation after decades of colonization. The tallest palm trees in the Amazon had fallen to grassy pastures full of cows.
Following a government-FARC peace agreement in 2016, deforestation had increased. The rebel group had previously restricted Amazon forest degradation to protect itself from airstrikes.
However, the largest armed rebel group at the time, the FARC, agreed to demobilize as part of the deal. Its replacement was left with a power vacuum.
The FARC claimed that powerful landowners converted the land into cattle pastures as they quickly moved into the areas where they once held cattle.
Armed dissident organizations that disagreed with the peace deal continued to operate in the area, charging extortion rates per cow.
A FCDS expert who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal claimed that “the colonization process has caused many]Nukak] sites to be destroyed or absorbed by settler farms.
The FCDS continued to advance with a pilot program to assist seven Nukak communities as they settled deeper into the reservation, where the lush forest was still present, in 2022. The Nukak were hoping to bring back a more traditional, if not entirely nomadic, way of life.
However, many attempts to find permanent relocation locations were unsuccessful.
Njibe initially planned to relocate to a sacred lake inside the reservation, which he had recalled from childhood, but when he arrived, it turned out to be a ranch.
Njibe was forced to choose another place to live when the settler who owned the ranch requested permission to stay there.
He considered moving back to a forested area that he thought his childhood home was, which is roughly 24 hectares (59 acres) wide and the size of 33 football fields.
