'Deforested Bones'

A skeletal bird made from wood represents deforestation's impacts.

Colombia's immense biodiversity is going fast, in great part because many creatures' forest habitats are disappearing.

A deforested danta.

And the National University's Natural History Museum's current exhibition dramatically exhibits that with sculptures of wild animals made from sticks, pieces of bark and charred wood gathered in deforested areas.

Peace with Colombia's various outlaw organizations was supposed to strengthen protection of the environment. Instead, deforestation has accelerated the last several years, to an incredible 20,000 hectares per hour, or 178,000 hectares per year - about double the entire land area of the Dutch Antilles. According to the museum, half of Colombia's high-altitude wetlands and its foothhill forests are gone, as are 90% of its tropical forests.

With the forests, go all the species living in them.

Deforestation is driven primarily by the expansion of agriculture, both legal and illegal, including cattle ranching. Every time a new road or pipeline is cut thru forest, observers watch the deforestation radiate out from the initial line.

A deforested jaguar.

The museum's exhibition, called Deforested Bones, includes messages warning against consumerism. However, our unbridled consumption of natural resources is only one cause of a complex phenomenon. Other parts are poverty that makes farmers desperate to feed their families, wealth which enables landowners to corrupt government officials, and twisted government policies which routinely give natural resource extraction priority over environmental conservation.

A deforested sloth.

A deforested spider monkey.

The natural history museum also has permanent exhibitions about anthropology, evolution, archaeology and Colombian wildlife.

A museum visitor sticks his hand into a crocodile's mouth.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scaring Away More Than Bad Spirits

Perhaps two dozen of these crude scarecrows appeared on the National University campus today, most of them behind the Sociology Dept. building, on the lawn known as the Plaza de Freud.

The 'crows were created by sociology students in a symbolic gesture to scare away right-wing paramilitaries who, a student said, have been sending death threats to leftist student activists. Can scarecrows scare away paramilitaries? We can only hope.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Human Rights Under Killers' Gaze

'Where are my children?'

She cried out that the killers had come to her town, taking away the people and burning homes.

It was a theatre piece on the Plaza del Ché on the campus of the Universidad Nacional, but the story was one which has been repeated again and again during Colombia's long armed conflict. Altho such atrocities were committed by all sides, this play was undoubtedly aimed at the right-wing paramilitaries, who for many years did the regular military's dirty work.

But the far left also produced millions of victims, both in Colombia and abroad. So, it was a bit ironic watching this play under the gazes of Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, whose various regimes themselves committed wholesale human rights abuses.

The performance was part of the Summit for Art and Culture for Peace.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

'Childhood Without a Divine Treasure

Colombian artist Vicky Neumann has worked in the United States and Europe. But she came home to do the powerful exhibition about children, poverty and sexual exploitation on now in the National University's Art Museum, located near the Bogotá campus's Calle 45 entrance.

The exhibition, titled 'Childhood Without a Divine Treasure,' is scheduled to continue thru July 4.

The museum has a second exhibition, by Colombian artist Oscar Murillo, who lives in London, about capitalism and exploitation.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Seven From The Same Mold?

All from the same mold? Candidates for rector of the National University.

The Universidad Nacional, Colombia's largest university and one of its most respected ones, is in the process of selecting its next rector, to serve from 2015 - 18. The new rector is to be chosen from seven candidates by the High University Council, which has only one student among its nine members.

As always, the selection process is generating opposition - unsurprisingly on the far-left campus. Student activists want to have vote and voice on the selection. The students will proceed to hold a vote and choose a far-left candidate - and be ignored by the university administration.

I have a suggestion for the university. Take a look at the slate of candidates: They all appear suspiciously white, male and middle-aged. Why not encourage women and minority candidates to participate (there and also on the council), and perhaps the student activists will be more willing to believing that the administration is open to new ideas.

Colombia's largest public university has serious issues of infrastructure, tuition and access to education. Perhaps by bringing in people of different backgrounds, the university can find novel answers to its troubles.

Wall art on the National University campus calls for electing leftist, one-time sociology Prof. Miguel Angel Beltran as rector. Accused of being a FARC guerrilla agent on campus, Beltran was imprisoned for two years, released and recently stripped of his title as professor. 

Encapuchados, or hooded activists, express their position about the rector selection on the Plaza del Che.

A banner by the university entrance about the rector selection. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Paper Butterflies in La Nacho

Fold it this way.

During a bike tour today, we got a lesson from Alexei in folding paper butterflies, part of Bogotá's week against violence against women.

Look - I made a buttefly!

Participants wrote anti-violence messages on the butterflies' wings and glued them to the wall.

'Down with machismo!'

'Strong ovary!'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours