Authors: Karina Monroy and Tathiana Bezerra

In the department of Caquetá in Colombia, a group of 700 fish farmers are implementing new production practices focused on forest conservation to mitigate climate change. The work is supported by the Caquetá Sustentable platform, including aquaculture.

Photo by Karina Fernanda Monroy

The cultivation of ornamental fish and fish for human consumption is a common diversification strategy for farmers in Caquetá to supplement their income. Covering close to 250 hectares of water surface area, these producers are becoming an example of low-emission production methods that protect water sources, conserve sensitive habitats and forests, and minimize the use of agrochemicals.

The program is part of the Caquetá Low Emission Rural Development LED-R Strategy that is supported  by Amazonia Connect, a partnership between USAID, Solidaridad Network, Earth Innovation Institute, National Wildlife Federation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The work is promoted in the territory by the Department's Secretariat of Environment and Agriculture. 

Photo by ACUICA

Ongoing progress can be followed on Caquetá Sustentable, a public access platform that highlights examples of legal, productive businesses that are in harmony with nature. This is especially important in a department that lost roughly 19,193 hectares of forest in 2022 according to data from the Ministry of Environment and Rural Development. 

"What we want is that people who are interested in the conservation of the Amazon can enter and see that we are something different from what is expected," explains Jorge Eduardo Franco Páez, technical and project director of the Association of Aquaculturists of Caquetá.