{"id":477,"date":"2007-05-02T22:04:05","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T22:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/166.62.41.2\/~holaamericanews\/2007\/05\/02\/leader-of-cofan-tribe-of-ecuador-speaks-at-knox-college\/"},"modified":"2022-07-17T14:07:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T19:07:19","slug":"leader-of-cofan-tribe-of-ecuador-speaks-at-knox-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/leader-of-cofan-tribe-of-ecuador-speaks-at-knox-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Leader of Cof\u00c3\u00a1n Tribe of Ecuador Speaks at Knox College"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"cofan_leader\"<\/a>Randall Borman has spent much of his life saving and preserving the Ecuadorian rain forest and indigenous culture he was raised in, he told an audience at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. on April 2.Borman, the son of missionary American parents and now a leader of the Cof\u00e1n tribe, was born in 1954 in the village of Dureno, seated on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Cof\u00e1ns, which base their survival on hunting, fishing and subsistence agriculture, live in an area, where Borman said it was hard to imagine that someday outside threats of oil companies, deforestation and other environmental, economic, political and cultural issues
\n would be at stake.\u201cThere was an ocean of forest. It was impossible to imagine that this could be altered,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole idea of indigenous rights was something (for the government) not worth getting involved with.\u201dAfter attending college in the U.S., Borman returned to Ecuador where he found roads bulldozed through the jungle, polluted waters and a scarcity of wildlife species.In the 1980s and 90s, Borman and the Cof\u00e1n people successfully stopped private and government-backed oil exploration in the territory. The tribe also developed many conservation projects, including Cof\u00e1n Community Ecotourism, which Borman said was probably the first indigenous community-based tourism project in the world.
\n\u201cThe development of a conservation mentality began,\u201d said Borman, who shares three sons \u2013 one a Knox College student – with his wife, Amelia, a Cof\u00e1n woman.
\nHe said the overall conservation land-rights efforts were twofold: one, internally, take control of the ancestral land to create a national tribal identity, and two, externally, present the Cof\u00e1n nation to Ecuador and the region.
\nThe initiatives, being implemented through the non-profit Cof\u00e1n Survival Fund of which Borman is director, also included other environmental and conservation projects. Among them was the community\u2019s role in increasing numbers of Amazon River turtles, which Borman said were near extinction.
\nThe logistics of making such changes happen are many, including, staffing, planning, training, education, equipment and transportation.
\n\u201cThrough the years, one of the biggest things we were facing were the oil companies,\u201d Borman said. \u201cThe fights with the oil companies bought a lot of attention to us.\u201d
\nThose battles are still being fought in court. But meanwhile, Borman has numerous other projects to help improve and preserve the lives of the Cof\u00e1ns and their land, including English and Spanish-language training, ranger education and a handicrafts program.
\nTo learn more about Borman go to www.cofan.org\/randy.htm. To learn more about the Cof\u00e1n tribe, go to www.cofan.org\/quienes\/quienes.html.<\/p>\n

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Randall Borman has spent much of his life saving and preserving the Ecuadorian rain forest and indigenous culture he was raised in, he told an audience at Knox College in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t