By Steven Grattan CALOTO, Colombia (AP) \u2014 Indigenous Nasa children are gently splashed with water using a leafy branch \u2014 a ritual meant to protect them and symbolically \u201copen the path\u201d \u2014 before setting off with wooden signs they had painted with messages like \u201cWe were born to protect the environment\u201d and \u201cPeace, please.\u201d Wearing protective gloves, the children nail their signs to trees lining a dirt road still used at times by armed groups for drug trafficking, as they collect trash from land their families reclaimed from vast industrial sugarcane plantations in Colombia\u2019s conflict-scarred southwest. This is no ordinary schoolyard activity. It\u2019s a quiet act of defiance \u2014 and a hands-on lesson in protecting land and culture. Just beyond the reclaimed land of the Indigenous L\u00f3pez Adentro reserve, near… <\/p>\n
By Steven Grattan CALOTO, Colombia (AP) \u2014 Indigenous Nasa children are gently splashed with water using a leafy branch \u2014 a ritual meant to protect them and symbolically \u201copen the path\u201d \u2014 before setting off with wooden signs they had painted with messages like \u201cWe were born to protect the environment\u201d and \u201cPeace, please.\u201d Wearing protective gloves, the children nail their signs to trees lining a dirt road still used at times by armed groups for drug trafficking, as they collect trash from land their families reclaimed from vast industrial sugarcane plantations in Colombia\u2019s conflict-scarred southwest. This is no ordinary schoolyard activity. It\u2019s a quiet act of defiance \u2014 and a hands-on lesson in protecting land and culture. Just beyond the reclaimed land of the Indigenous L\u00f3pez Adentro reserve, near... <\/p>\n