The window is open now, time is of the essence, and capital is needed to return Duanama and surrounding ancestral lands to the Kogi People.
The four tribes of the Sierra Nevada de Colombia, seek to regenerate nature, cultivate a sacred place for teaching, learning, and for the repair the flow of Mother Earth’s energies.
Support is needed for the rematriation of Duanama to its original stewards -the guardians of the Heart of the World- and to reverse the extinction prophecy of the Kogi Mamos.
What is Duanama?
Deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta de Colombia, the highest coastal mountain range on Earth, home to the most endemic bird species of any comparable region on the planet, there is a place the Kogi People call Duanama.
The Mamos, the spiritual authorities of the Sierra, say, “this is where we study the Seshizha, the Black Line, the living network of sacred sites that covers the entire body of Mother Earth. All the guidelines at a global level are contained here.”
Duanama, a living intelligence system and place of ancient stone formations, is recognized in Kogi cosmology as the Great Knowledge Book and the Brain of the Earth, which holds the encoded memory of water, forests, flora, fauna, sun, light, time, and life itself.
For four thousand years, the Kogi and the other tribes of the Sierra, the Arhuaco, Wiwa, and Kankuamo, have tended to this knowledge through their stewardship of nature.
The Opportunity
Today, Duanama is privately owned and a small window exists where it can be returned and protected in the Kogi Reserve. The Sierra Nevada’s unique and rich landscape is experiencing rapid decline, pollution, irresponsible and illegal mining, rapid deforestation, corruption, and sacred site deterioration due to private property, development, and land grabs.
When land is in the hands of its original stewards, biodiversity returns, soil heals, water cleanses, and energy is reactivated. Entire systems regenerate.
Sacred Sites and the Kogi
Since the Spanish Conquest, the Kogi survived by moving high into the Sierra. Here they sheltered in forests and caves for four centuries, isolated from the outside world, learning the greatest secrets of nature.
Their sacred sites, the places where they make offerings, transmit the signals of the living earth, and pass knowledge to the next generation, have passed into private ownership. Duanama is the most important of these.
The Mamos say it’s imperative these sites are returned.
When asked his vision for the future in 2023, Mamo Alejandro said:
"It's human extinction in 15 years if we don't act now."
The Kogi know the Sierra Nevada as the regulatory system for the living body of our planet.
When its sacred sites cannot be tended, the system cannot be maintained. Duanama holds the codes for water, fertility, and natural law across ecosystems far beyond Colombia.
There is currently a path to purchase the land. The legal team is currently forging ahead.
Our partners at Love Mother Earth Foundation in Colombia, who are experts in frameworks for the legal Rights of Nature, are working closely with the tribes to ensure absolute alignment.
The Ask:
What is urgently needed is the capital to secure this important site into the Kogi Reserve before this opportunity passes into other hands.
🌿Phase One: $32,500 needed to reach our initial raise of $60,000 for the preliminary work to ensure rematriation.
🌿Phase Two: Funding for the Resguardo (Kogi Arhuaco Malayo) to acquire the whole of the ancestral land where Duanama lives.
🌿Phase Three: Building materials for forest and soul regeneration, building materials and support for building the Earth Wisdom School.
Phase two is conditional upon phase one at which time we’ll have more details.
Your support in any amount is acknowledged as a prayer, a pagamento, a sacred offering toward this endeavor and is deeply acknowledged and honored.
For bank transfers, larger offerings, or to discuss partnership in the full acquisition, contact Stephanie Trager directly at s@stephanietrager.com. We can arrange a personal conversation with the team and, where appropriate, with members of the Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa communities.
*Dream Change is a US 501(c)(3). Contributions are tax deductible.
The Mamos Vision for Duanama
"I am very happy to be able to build a Nujué in Duanama, to care for and protect, to make offerings, and to educate our children." Mamo Alejandro
The Mamos say that Duanama gives the instructions for what comes next.
When Duanama is returned to the stewardship of the Kogi and the four tribes of the Sierra Nevada, the following becomes possible:
Restoration of the Sacred Site The Mamos will resume ceremonial offerings and energetic maintenance of the land, that has been interrupted, restoring the water, activating power and connecting with Shikwalala (energy paths of Mother Earth) to restore the ‘Shikwa’ the flow.
In Kogi understanding, these are not symbolic acts. They are the functional maintenance of the living systems that govern water, soil, climate and human flourishing across the region.
The Nujué: An Earth School The vision for Duanama centres on building a Nujué: a sacred house of knowledge, ceremony, and transmission. Nujué, will transmit wisdom, make offerings, and teach both indigenous children and the wider world how to live in right relationship with Nature.
This will serve as an educational centre for the children of the four tribes, and a place where the living knowledge of the Sierra can be shared responsibly with the wider world.
Reforestation and Water Restoration 900+ acres of land returned to Indigenous stewardship means active regeneration: forest recovery, restoration of water flows, reconnection of the Shikwalala, the energetic pathways of the living earth that the Kogi tend as a sacred practice and that science increasingly recognises as foundational ecological infrastructure.
A Model for the World Indigenous-managed lands protect 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity while covering 25% of its surface. The Kogi's regenerative outcomes consistently exceed those of government-managed protected areas. Duanama, returned and activated, becomes a living demonstration of what conservation rooted in natural law can produce, measurable, replicable, and precedent-setting.
Support for the Rematriaion of Duanama
Many individuals and organizations have been engaged in this effort for several years including:
Organización Gonawindúa Tayrona (the OGT): the formal representative body of the Kogi people, whose traditional authorities have formally sanctioned the acquisition of Duanama and whose Mamos hold the spiritual mandate for its restoration.
Resguardo Kogui Malayo Arhuaco (RKMA) An official indigenous led governing body whose mandate is to protect the Heart of the World, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia.
Love Mother Earth Foundation (Colombia): our legal and community partner on the ground in Colombia, providing the legal expertise and territorial knowledge required to handle all aspects of the acquisition process.
Alliance of International Earthkeepers, Philanthropists & Donors: a growing informal international cohort of individuals working closely with the four tribes.
Dream Change: a US 501(c)(3) has been in relationship with the Kogi People for more than ten years. Since 2023 we’ve held commitment for the rematriation of Duanama and have been stewarding offerings from early donors for this very moment - when all aspects align for the full process to be seen through.
The relationships, the mandate, and the moment are all here. Join with us to see this process through.
These sacred stones are ancient Kogi scriptures with importance for the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Colombia, including the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa, and Kankuamo - and also for humanity.
Conservation
For donors and institutions whose mandate includes conservation, climate, and biodiversity, the case for Duanama is measurable and significant.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is classified by the IUCN as the most irreplaceable nature reserve on Earth. It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site containing over 3,000 vascular plant species, 120 mammal species, 142 amphibian and reptile species, and 132 migratory bird species, more endemic species than any comparable region on the planet.
Climate Impact
Indigenous forest management is among the most effective natural climate solutions, offering measurable carbon sequestration, watershed protection, and biodiversity recovery and the Kogi repeatedly demonstrate exceptional regenerative outcomes as integral to their relations with mother earth.
The Kogi practice of tending sacred sites, including the pagamentos that Duanama makes possible, is not separate from their process of ecological management, operating through a four-thousand-year-old system of knowledge that modern conservation science is only beginning to understand.
Conservation
The acquisition of Duanama permanently protects between 400 and 900+ acres of one of the world's most critical ecological and cultural sites from development, fragmentation, or speculative land conversion. It anchors a broader network of land protection across the Sierra Nevada that a growing coalition of Indigenous and international partners, is working to formalize and resource.
Carbon sequestration, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, water purification, and the recovery of Indigenous knowledge systems are overlapping outcomes. The Kogi will ensure protection, regeneration, and activation of sacred sites and energies connected to the Duanama stones.
Systems Balance and Natural Law
From the Kogi perspective, land is not a resource but a living system governed by natural law. Restoring Duanama restores relational balance, between water, soil, species, and human responsibility, producing long-term resilience that no extractive model can replicate.
Education and Ancestral Knowledge
The Kogi intend to use Duanama as part of a future Indigenous education and wisdom and earth, school, ensuring that ecological knowledge, cosmology, and stewardship practices are transmitted to future generations and shared responsibly with the wider world.
Life Economy & Technology
The proliferation of artificial intelligence and technologies that cause resource depletion around the planet are contributing to a death economy which means we need balance, regeneration, restoration, and the generation of ancient life giving technologies to be honored with precedence.
Duanama is a life giving technology and a learning place for the four tribes of the Sierra Nevada and other aligned 'siblings,’ for the purpose of expanding consciousness, harmonized innovation, and our capacity to work with the energies of Mother Earth.
Be part of this mission and support the rematriation of Duanama.
Your Offering Helps this Happen
All contributions are tax-deductible through Dream Change, Inc., a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
For bank transfers, offerings from a Donor Advised Fund (DAF), checks, larger gifts, or to discuss partnership in the full acquisition: Contact Stephanie Trager directly at s@stephanietrager.com. We can arrange a personal conversation with the team and, where appropriate, with members of the Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa communities.
"By recovering this site, we recover all the information for healing and caring for Nature, because it holds the data of the Mother of Flora and Fauna, of the Sun, of Light, of Time, of Everything."
- Kogi Elders, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
