El pueblo indígena wounaan ha hecho frente a la tala ilegal de palo de rosa y a siglos de explotación con sabiduría y belleza

For generations, the Wounaan people of Panama and Colombia have carved ceremonial staffs from cocobolo rosewood — until global demand, fueled partly by China's real estate boom, sent prices soaring past thirteen thousand dollars per cubic meter by twenty twelve, drawing illegal loggers into forests the Wounaan have inhabited for generations without formal legal title. The Conversation (US) reports the incursions turned deadly: a logger killed a Wounaan traditional authority, and community members killed the logger in return, a violent turning point in the fight over the land. By twenty nineteen, cocobolo's conservation status had been upgraded from vulnerable to critically endangered. A new book, 'Interwoven Rosewood,' co-produced with Wounaan communities, aims to tell that history through their own knowledge and resistance rather than as a simple tale of loss.

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