Libia Grueso, the 43-year old daughter of a fisherman and schoolteacher from Colombia’s Pacific coast, is co-founder of the Process of Black Communities (PCN), an environmental and civil-rights network linking 120 community groups around Colombia. In 1989, Grueso spearheaded the campaign for Law 70, historic legislation that recognized Afro-Colombians as a distinct ethnicity for the first time and granted them rights over nearly 15 million acres (6 million has) of Pacific Coast land. Passed in 1993, Law 70 has since proved a bulwark for black communities fighting to control resources in their region, where they make up 94% of the population. For her efforts on behalf of Afro-Colombians’ culture and ecology, Grueso in April was awarded one of the six Goldman Environmental Prizes handed out every year to outstanding environmental activists around the world. Speaking recently to EcoAméricas’ Bogotá-based correspondent Steven Ambrus by phone from Cali, she says she sees a long struggle ahead. [Log in to read more]

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