It saddens us to announce the retirement of Alan Ereira, the Tairona Heritage Trust’s founder, after many years of energetic and determined work. Without doubt, it was his vision, insight, dynamism and creativity that kept the Trust animated for all these years.

Our newsletters are back with an updated design, renewed energies and much more to share with you all on the Munekan Masha project and international developments.

We are sorry for the long delay in letting you know how the donations you made last year have been spent but it has taken a long while to get a full report back from OGT due to a reorganisation following the death of Santos Sauna and the election of their new Cabildo Arregoces Conchacala.

In this newsletter, we bring updates on the Food Campaign, a series of four meetings proposed across the Kogi Communities and their results, the acquisition of computers and Internet installation, and the acquisition of materials and utensils for 20 Kogi families in Maldaka affected by fire In March 2021.

It has taken a long time, but the Trust is now able to report that our long-prepared plan for a land restoration project with the Kogi is able to move ahead. After two years of planning, the project has been enthusiastically endorsed as a pilot by a new UNESCO initiative called BRIDGES, and a joint committee has been established by the Trust and the Kogis’ Organización Gonawindúa Tayrona (OGT) to run it.

We would like to offer you the latest news from Colombia and the work of the Trust over the last few months. To say the least, it has been a rather tumultuous time. Following the death of Santos Sauna, the Cabildo (Governor) of Gonawinduúa Tayrona, from Covid-19 in August, the Mamas have selected a new Cabildo, Arregoces Conchacala.

Thank you so much to all of you who have been donating generously to the Trust over the last few weeks. We hope you are all well and gradually emerging after lockdown into what they are now calling the ‘ new normal’ which seems to mean a gradual resumption of a limited range of activities at whatever recommended distance your country advises. It has been a terrible period in world history but let's hope countries can continue to slowly open up again with a better understanding of how precious our natural resources are.

We hope you are all keeping well and staying out of harm’s way in these difficult times. With much of our lives put on hold we thought we would just share with you the details of an important event for the Trust and the Kogi which took place between Sunday 23 February and Tuesday 03 March 2020 just before we all went into lockdown and the world stood still.

Happy New Year to all our donors and supporters! The start of a new decade seems the ideal time to update you on our current activities.

In October Kogi Mama Shibulata and translator Sylvestre flew to Sweden for the first presentation of projects to the new Unesco BRIDGES commission. The meeting took place in Sigtuna and the Kogi were invited for the occasion as Unesco’s special guests.

The visit to the Sierra coincided with a follow up meeting arising from the Cross diagnosis in Drôme, southern France last September in which the Trust collaborated with the French NGO Tchendukua. One of the science delegates Patrick Degeorges has been involved with UNESCO and a working party was set up with the aim of establishing a cross-disciplinary coalition (called BRIDGES: Building Resilience in Defense of Global Environments and Societies) to launch projects connecting academic and non-academic authorities that can develop more effective global strategies to combat climate change.

The Chairman of the Tairona Heritage Trust, Jean-Paul Mertinez, the Kogi-speaking anthropologist Falk Parra-Witte and Alan Ereira met for a long breakfast in London with the Cabildo of the Organisación Gonawindua Tayrona, José Santos Sauna.