‘No fish, no money, no food’: Colombia’s stilt people fight to save their wetlands

A Nueva Venecia resident watches fish being unloaded from a canoe. There are now viable catches from barely a quarter of the 56 species once sold at market Photograph: Euan Wallace/The Guardian

From the porch of her family home in Nueva Venecia, Magdalena, Yeidis Rodríguez Suárez watches the sunset. The view takes in the still waters of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta wetlands. Pelicans dip their beaks into the lagoon, ripples breaking the glassy surface. Distant mangroves turn from green to deep purple in the dying light.

The 428,000-hectare (1,600 sq mile) expanse of lagoons, mangroves and marshes in Colombia has been a Unesco biosphere reserve since 2000. Yet, for Rodríguez, 27, the natural abundance is little more than an illusion.