‘If we see you again, we kill you’: how a Colombian wildlife hotspot turned into a death zone

Armed groups and a state-owned refinery’s oil leaks have displaced Barrancabermeja’s fishing community and poisoned a paradise once full of manatees and jaguars Standing on her wooden canoe, a machete in her hand, Yuly Velásquez hacks away at reeds matted with blackened sludge. Close by, a burst oil pipe has released a slick of crude into the San Silvestre wetlands in Barrancabermeja, Colombia’s oil city, choking the water and its wildlife. “The destruction is immense,” says Velásquez, presi...

By Words and photographs by Harriet Barber in Barrancabermeja, Colombia