About Los Alpes

The Los Alpes community is located in the Tablon de Gomez municipality in one of the most famous coffee-growing areas of Colombia, Nariño. It’s an area where coffee has made an immense and positive difference in quality of life. To get to Los Alpes we first have to fly to Bogota, then take a local flight to Nariño. In Nariño we board a pickup—one of few vehicle types that can pass through the muddy dirt roads ahead—and ride for another 2 hours.

With approximately 280 people, Los Alpes is a very small community with a deeply-rooted tradition of ecological protection. All Los Alpes producers preserve part of their farm as untouchable forest. They also leave native plants untouched in places where waterways originate, and keep livestock out of those areas. They are hyperaware that climate change is a real problem and that as it worsens, their community and others like it will bear the earliest and most severe consequences.

The producers here focus primarily on coffee, intercropping with other fruit trees that they use for shade like avocado and lemon. They also raise free-range animals such as chickens, pigs, and guinea pigs, whose manure and consumption contribute to the integrated ecosystem. The coffee-growing area of ​​Los Alpes reaches between 1750 and 2000 meters above sea level, but the mountains of the community reach extreme elevations up to 3500 masl—hence the name of Los Alpes, Spanish for “The Alps.”

The producers here tell us that many years ago the area was not nearly as productive and the community members’ economic situation was worse. Back then, producers grew mostly peanuts and corn and few fertilized their land. This all changed as families switched over to growing coffee and were introduced to fertilizer, both of which have improved the community’s financial and ecological wellbeing immensely.

Los Alpes shares a culture of peace and respect between neighbors. In August, everyone gets together to celebrate San Ezequiel, their patron saint. On this holiday, each house puts together a troupe at the door of their houses to join the general celebration by sharing fried guinea pig and liquor.