The Tairona Heritage Trust is a small British-based NGO which, since 1990, has been working on behalf of Gonavindua Tairona. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the highest coastal mountain in the world, and the indigenous groups which live on it – the Kogi, the Arhuaco and the Assario – are the descendants of the Tairona civilization which flourished there at the time of the Spanish Invasion. Gonavindua Tairona is the political organisation founded by the the Mamas (priests) of the three tribes in 1987 in order to represent their interests in the face of increasing Western pressures. The three tribes refer to themselves as ‘The Elder Brothers’, and to Westerners as ‘The Younger Brother’.

Tomorrow a Kogi Mama, Jacinto Zarabat, is visiting London to help promote a film about the Tairona heritage and offering a poignant message for the western world about respecting and conserving the Earth. He will be the first Kogi Mama ever to visit the UK.

If you want to see and hear Jacinto Zarabat speak about the Kogi and why they are making a new film, and ask him questions, you can do so at a special webcast on 22nd Sept You have to sign up for it at: en.esoguru.com/spiritual-world-of-the-kogi-mamos

Image: A meeting of Kogi mamas, in Lawka River basin. Photo courtesy of Organizacion Gonawindua Tayrona.