{"id":50388374,"date":"2024-02-01T12:41:04","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T12:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogochino.net\/?p=388374"},"modified":"2024-04-11T15:16:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T15:16:03","slug":"388374-the-colombian-industrial-city-organising-itself-to-face-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/388374-the-colombian-industrial-city-organising-itself-to-face-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The Colombian industrial city organising itself to face climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In western Colombia\u2019s Valle del Cauca, around 100 kilometres from the Pacific coast, lies the small industrial city of Yumbo. Amidst the violence that has blighted the region and wider country for over 50 years, Yumbo has been something of a refuge, with thousands of displaced citizens settling here: between 1975 and 2015, the city had the one of the highest<\/a> rates of population growth in Colombia \u2013 higher than the capital, Bogot\u00e1, or the major cities of Medell\u00edn and Cali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s industry and commerce \u2013 its factories produce cosmetics, construction, stationery and food products \u2013 has generated high revenues. But this has largely failed to benefit its 111,000 inhabitants, with four out of 10 Yumbo residents estimated to live in poverty<\/a>. Meanwhile, the pollution from its factories is so intense that the city is said to have developed a microclimate: according to Oswaldo L\u00f3pez Bernal, an architecture professor at the Universidad del Valle, researchers found that pollution generated by Yumbo\u2019s factories raises the temperature by an average of five degrees higher than the nearby neighbourhoods in Cali, to the city\u2019s south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These paradoxes have demanded much imagination and perseverance from environmentally conscious residents of Yumbo. In the midst of poverty, pollution and neglect, some have begun to engage in alternative ways of living, spurred on by another common factor: climate change. Among the city\u2019s population, reforestation, urban vegetable gardens and water reservoirs in public parks are just some of the initiatives gaining ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reforesting reality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Panorama is an informal neighbourhood in the north of Yumbo. Up until even the late 1990s, it was yet to be recognised in official land-use plans, notes local resident Miguel Ledesma. This meant that basic services such as electricity supply, drinking water and sewage disposal were not in place. Ledesma remedied this situation with a group of fellow residents, bringing public services to the community before the local administration managed to, and established Panorama\u2019s Community Action Board in the process. \u201cAfter this, we focused on becoming an environmental foundation,\u201d recalls Ledesma. By 2014, the Fundaci\u00f3n FACY<\/a>, a neighbourhood nature conservation organisation, was established. FACY reflects Ledesma\u2019s belief that more action is essential in confronting climate change and its consequences for his city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n