Photo:Ovidio González - Presidency

​​"With the associations that exist it is due to the industrialization of fishing, in the hands of artisanal fishermen": President Petro

Ciénaga (Magdalena), May 26, 2026

Fishing in Colombia is attacked for reasons that have to do with human beings, but not specifically local ones, and some of the effects were already evident here. What arrived here was an arctic front, even throwing ships onto the beaches, something that had never entered these seas and these lands, ever. It is the first time that it comes in and throws us a disaster that is not natural, a vision that must begin to change: nature is not to blame.

The blame lies with a global economic system based on the use of hydrocarbons, which when expelled into the atmosphere produce warming. They are already feeling it now, an increasing warming of the atmosphere, which triggers climatic effects that we have never seen before, that take us by surprise, that occur here and there throughout the planet, not just in Colombia. We are already about to receive the second Arctic front, which is what they call the mega Niño or super Niño, not a human child but a phenomenon of absence of water due to warming of the Pacific Ocean.

Does this have a solution? Yes, but the solution does not depend only on the inhabitants here or on the Colombian Government, which must set an example. The solution is global, that is the problem. It depends on the most industrialized countries on Earth, such as China, the United States, India, Brazil, all of Europe, etc. The lack of agreement, added to the fight between greed and life, because they are antagonistic, brings the consequences that we are experiencing. And the poorest people experience it first rather than the richest people on the planet, because they have more security conditions, the wealthy people. While people who live without resources have to try to adapt, mitigate the phenomenon by stopping consuming hydrocarbons.

Adapting is knowing that increasingly serious problems are occurring, preparing the territory for human disaster. And there we are failing. A fund was created in the Santos government that was called the adaptation fund, because in that government a human disaster also occurred, which comes from what I am talking about, such as the flooding of half the country, contrary to the coming drought. It was an excess of rain, less than what we have just seen in the Caribbean region due to the cold arctic front.

The Adaptation Fund is not working and the cabinet must take note here. That fund has to make a list of priorities, we surely lack money. Every time a disaster occurs, where do we get money from? I wanted to use the economic emergency, but the Court overturned one in the Guajira drought. And it ended up happening that it was not Guajira that was left without water, but Bogotá, with nine million inhabitants. They had to bathe with totuma, the solution was to buy drinking water in the store, although it is not a solution, because buying drinking water in the store to bathe and replace the water that does not come out of the bathroom system is a replacement for the problem, but it does not solve the problem.

But I am not going to talk more about that, but rather go into the problems of local adaptation. So, Mr. AUNAP (National Aquaculture and Fisheries Authority), which is a department of the Ministry of Agriculture, you have to talk to the Adaptation Fund. He tells me how it's going, because one of the immediate plans has to be the recovery of beaches. Be careful, what is happening is irreversible, until we can stop it: the sea is rising because the ice at the north and south poles is melting, and there is nothing to do there. It's going to rise unless the melting of the North Pole stops,

That is the tragedy we are in. And it depends on whether the planetary thaw stops, or whether hydrocarbons, converted into gases, CO2 stop being released into the atmosphere.

Humanity has not made the appropriate decisions, and this is leading us to extinction as a species. There will be little fishing in the sea, and in 60 years none. We have already lost 35% of the underwater species around Gorgona Island, and the press does not say this. But it must be said, 35%. And in 60 years there won't be any. It is from the Humboldt Current that the large fishing industries of Ecuador, Peru, and China take their fish. We do not arrive because we do not have boats to reach 300 kilometers beyond the beach, because we have stayed in artisanal fishing. So write this down for me, comrade William, meet with the Adaptation Fund and set up a temporary recovery project, for when another of those phenomena comes, for a temporary recovery of beaches.

Two, the plan that I requested four years ago is not how artisanal fishing is maintained, but how artisanal fishing advances from the associations that already exist, towards the industrialization of fishing in the hands of artisanal fishermen. Not losing space, as has happened in Colombia, but taking the step together. That implies something that is in the developments of this government, although stammering, which is putting cold chains to preserve fishing. Don't let the buyer come and offer any trifle and sell it at that price, because otherwise the fish will rot or a flying bird will eat it.

To preserve the fish and give it value, and maintain prices, industrialization is necessary. But the industrialization chain must be forward and backward. That is, the larger boats we have, the more fish we can catch. That is key if we reach the Humboldt Current, if we can go beyond the beaches of the Caribbean, towards international waters. We can do it, what is needed is to replace the canoe with one with fiberglass, so that it has more fishing capacity.

The only way to get out of poverty is for us to have more production capacity. And it is not for an industrialist like Vikings, which is what the company was called, to come and stay with the fishing because it uses much more powerful technology, with large nets, and takes all the fish to its cold rooms on large ships. And the fisherman is left hungry. So, we have to put together a program where, from a small perspective, and associatively, greater productivity can be achieved, and therefore greater wealth.

What I proposed, Harman, and what is being done in the Magdalena River, is that the fisherman can be at the same time a farmer, and perhaps a generator of solar electric energy. Because in general where there is fishing, there is sun. We have fertile lands in the river valleys and swamps, we have declining fisheries in the rivers and swamps, we have sunshine. I say this to answer some newspaper, we were defenders of the Cartagena-Barranquilla-Santa Marta train project, which can be combined with a train, which should reach the Cauca River valley to Córdoba, and thus extend the transversal to all the ports of the Caribbean.

There is already one along the Magdalena River that arrives from La Dorada, that is our work, and we want it to lead to a railway line to Barrancabermeja, a project that is being studied and that should end with cheaper transportation costs than going by tractor-trailer to Santa Marta. For this reason, a crossing through the Caribbean, along the coast, is needed. We have always said that the Cartagena-Barranquilla-Santa Marta route is key, the governors had proposed it, but they were irresponsible and to this date they have not delivered any study, but they blame us. The truth is that, if there is no study, construction cannot begin, there is no investment. And the project is disappearing, and that project cannot disappear.

Now there are certain trains that are called viaducts, like the supposed metro they are building in Bogotá. That should not be a viaduct, because it had to be underground. But that's politics in Colombia, a good project becomes its opposite. What they are building in Bogotá is a social Berlin wall, they call it aerial, but it is high, because aerial is an airplane. And a train is not a plane. Elevated is that it is in the form of a viaduct, and here the waters of the sea and fresh waters must be allowed to pass underneath, and that flow is what allows life.

So, Harman, there has to be a project here like the one you started, at my suggestion, in Honda (Tolima). There is an experience there, it must be completed, and the fishermen are very happy there. A fisherman can be a farmer, that is called the full dance. The alligator man is the representation of amphibious culture, that is, being in the water and at the same time being on land. A fisherman who becomes a farmer at the same time can maintain his standard of living or increase it, and this is also done with associations, companions, where Harman gives land.

I'm going to finish with something that is happening with the drinking water that I am trying to deliver to Santa Marta, so you can see how the technicians get involved: they were going to install the desalination plant, that is, use the sea water to purify it and make it become drinking water. And pump it, because it's obviously at sea level. So, we asked the mayor of Santa Marta for a lot, and the technicians did not realize that it was at the foot of the large hotel located after the airport. And to get the water to the city you have to pump a lot and pass a barrier that the Navy has there, and then it does reach the city.

Well, that water was going to reach first all the fine hotels between the airport and the Naval, passing through Gaira and Pozos Colorados. And then, why does the State make an investment, if those who are going to benefit do not even live in Santa Marta, but rather the owners of the large hotel chains, to give water to tourists? That's why I stopped the project, and we lost some time, but it was my turn. At this moment the lot is already there, now it is in the north of the city, and we hope that the purchase of the desalination plant is completed so that the north of Santa Marta and the city receive drinking water and it stops being a problem.

Obviously, that can be done here as well. And everything can be done in La Guajira, which needs it, just like the entire coast. Some regions have more Caribbean water than others, where the large rivers flow. I say this because the Ciénaga Grande, which was much better before and with more fishing and better water quality, etc., now reaches Pueblo Viejo, almost without water, because it is drying out, a product of the climate crisis. Although I believe that it is a product of the people who live there, or who do not live there, but produce from that land: it is a product of the banana plantations, which keep the water and do not give it to the people.

Those bananas go for export, like in Urabá, and by exporting bananas we are exporting the water we need. That implies a pact in the region, because if there is too much banana plantation, then that plantation must be cut back, in such a way that the water can flow here, and be at the service of the human being who lives here, because it is the priority for the human being. Then, for business.

Previous governments have understood this very little, which first put the business and kill the human being. How many dead already? That is why we must be a little careful in elections, we vote for life or we vote for death. But I get there, so that they won't prosecute me. Life is not the name of a candidate, neither is death, but we have to think about it, because otherwise what they do is kill our own children. It's already happened, I'm not talking cart.

Regarding the territorial planning that this municipality needs, the Ministry of the Environment is required to give some guidelines around the POT, which is basically the planning of the population around water, leaving space for water. It is similar to what happens in Córdoba, and Harman has a responsibility there, which is not only to recover the water, but to expand the space that the water had and that the Urra dam removed, leaving hundreds of thousands of hectares flooded, which was aggravated by the phenomenon of the Arctic front, the most affected region, I believe.

There is some money there for which I need an answer, because the Constitutional Court finally decided to leave those money, it did not remove the emergency, the Court was finally with us this time and therefore an immediate investment must be made. And what I want to ask is if we can finance the adaptation of the beaches with that resource, to leave something concrete before we leave.

So, Harman, I need immediate action from the Minister of Agriculture, the Ministry of the Environment, and above all from the AUNAP. I know that time has been lost, that there are projects delayed, due to clientelistic issues. Patronage only gives alms for votes, to see if they get votes that way.

The prosperity project is longer and more permanent; instantaneousness is not the same as permanence. Modern life is now instantaneous but not permanent, it is nothing more than watching the networks or the songs. Who remembers the outfits from three years ago? It is a dialectical contradiction too, but we must go to the permanent rather than the instantaneous, because it is what can benefit the people in a growing and non-reversible rise of popular enrichment, that is, to escape poverty.

Here is a table that has just been published, I cannot project it, we do not have those luxuries here, but for the first time, gentlemen of the press, let's see if they publish it, for the first time in statistical time the middle class today is a larger proportion of the Colombian population than the poor class. That already happened in Bogotá, we made the population in Bogotá more middle class, removing the poor, improving their economic and social conditions. And boom! They changed the political agenda and left us out, because it was better to see how the car moves faster on the streets than how to get a home, because they get housing, but on a loan. Now, the same thing is already happening at the national level, this achievement occurred for the first time in 2024.

If in 2024 Colombia finally has more people in the middle class than in the poor class, we have made progress, because we have taken millions of people out of hunger, out of absolute poverty, to live more or less in the conditions that the middle class lives. This is an achievement, and I therefore hope that these people continue to think that we must continue with the effort so that one day there will be zero hunger, zero extreme poverty, zero poverty. That must be the goal of a society that progresses. And it's not that, if I'm already better, then I don't look at others.

How about people from Miami trying to expel the Colombians who just arrived, being Colombians themselves? This is called breaking the ladder, so that no one else climbs. And that is selfishness.

Well, I thank all of you for coming, I wanted to listen to you. We must pay tribute to a fisherman from Santa Marta who was killed by a missile offshore, Alejandro Carranza, who should not have died. And they owe us the explanations.

With him there are many more, we don't even know their names, because they have murdered 200 boatmen in the Caribbean Sea and perhaps many of them were Colombians, but we don't know. We do know about Alejandro Carranza. They called him a narcoterrorist, since Alejandro only wanted to pay for his daughter's college and, seeking that, with dreams if you will of disastrous limelight, he ended up killed by a missile that fell on his boat. That is not fair, it is not human, it has nothing to do with divine justice or human justice. So I leave my complaint, my voice protests, because Alejandro Carranza should not have died and his family should be compensated as soon as possible.