Austin Landis

Medellín

Multimedia Journalist at Freelance

Multimedia journalist in Colombia 🇨🇴, covering migration & Latin America | Previously covered the Biden admin. for Spectrum News | @UFJSchool alum

Articles

How Trump’s US aid freeze has stymied Colombia’s immigration system

1 month ago | aljazeera.com | Austin Landis

Experts warn that the sudden lack of funds may spur further migration of Venezuelans beyond neighbouring Colombia. Medellin, Colombia – Fraymi Loaiza’s five-year-old daughter, Samantha, was refusing to eat. Instead, she lay in bed with a raging fever that her mother attributed to an infection she had been battling since before the family left Venezuela in December. Now in Medellin, Colombia, Loaiza agonised over whether to take Samantha to a local hospital.
Can Colombia’s ‘crazy’ cattle ranchers make beef an eco-friendly choice?

Dec 15, 2024 | theguardian.com | Austin Landis

On a humid dawn in Colombia’s livestock capital, Michael Robbin rides across one of his farm’s pastures, where tall green stalks brush his horse’s belly. When he bought the land outside Montería in 2020 he divided it into 125 smaller fields. His neighbours called him crazy at first. “That’s not how it’s done in this area,” he acknowledges.
Colombian ranchers aim to prove beef production can be good for planet

Oct 16, 2024 | voanews.com | Austin Landis

Scientists say beef production takes a heavy toll on the environment. Cattle produce methane, a powerful planet-warming gas, and forests get cut down for pastures. But one farm in northern Colombia hopes to show ranching can have a lighter footprint on the planet. Austin Landis travelled to Montería in northern Colombia for a closer look at what could be a revolution in sustainable cattle ranching. ShareColombian ranchers aim to prove beef production can be good for planet
Why Locals Are Leaving Medellin’s Most Popular Tourist Hub

Oct 11, 2024 | lazomagazine.com | Austin Landis |Cristina Maza

John Ramírez is moving out of Comuna 13, a vibrant, residential neighborhood turned tourism destination in the western hills of Medellin. Ramírez’s family moved there when he was only four years old. Growing up in the area in the 2010s, he watched it transform from a conflict zone to a creative cultural hub. He founded one of the area’s most well-known tour companies to show visitors around his home. But now, at age 35, he’s leaving.
Colombia’s Caribbean islands on front line of war on climate change

Oct 9, 2024 | voanews.com | Austin Landis

As representatives of the signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity prepare to meet in Cali, Colombia, this month, residents of some Colombian islands in the Caribbean are calling for action because rising seas are threatening their homes, families, and way of life. Austin Landis traveled to Santa Cruz del Islote to hear their story. Camera: Jorge Calle. ShareColombia’s Caribbean islands on front line of war on climate change
In a historic move, Colombia bypasses a patent to access a key HIV drug

Sep 13, 2024 | aljazeera.com | Austin Landis

Medellin, Colombia – It was pitch black when Ariel Villan awoke one night last December, startled by noises at the door of the home he shares with his husband on the coast of Santa Marta, Colombia. He held his breath and froze, thinking someone had broken in to rob them. But the sound was not real. It was yet another hallucination. Villan, 45, was taking efavirenz, an HIV treatment linked to side effects like abnormal dreams, suicidal ideation and insomnia.
July/August 2024 Table of Contents

Jul 1, 2024 | dollarsandsense.org | Austin Landis |Nick French |Justin Villamil

Is the Biden administration’s economic policy a break with neoliberal orthodoxy, or more of the same? | Order this issue or subscribe.
In a village divided, farmers stall massive copper mine in Colombian Andes

May 29, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Austin Landis

A group of farmers and villagers are resisting the construction of a large copper mine in Colombia’s tropical Andes, where agriculture is a key industry; they recently blocked the company from completing environmental impact studies required by the Colombian government. International gold mining giant AngloGold Ashanti has been working for more than a decade to obtain a license to extract nearly 1.4 million metric tons of copper from within the mountains surrounding the town of Jericó.
One of Colombia’s largest estuary ecosystems is drying up, communities warn

Apr 10, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Austin Landis

Decades of sediment pollution, contamination and government infrastructure projects have disrupted the natural flow of saltwater and freshwater into the Ciénaga Grande of Santa Marta, one of Colombia’s key wetlands and a major estuary on the Caribbean Sea. Fish stocks have also plummeted, with profitable, big species being replaced by smaller ones and leaving fishing communities without their livelihoods.
Violence, economic stagnation push more Ecuadorians toward US border

Apr 1, 2024 | voanews.com | Austin Landis

Tens of thousands of people have fled Ecuador in the last several months amid an unprecedented surge in gang violence. Rising crime, along with lack of economic opportunities, have more Ecuadorians setting their sights on a better life in the United States. For VOA, reporter Austin Landis caught up with a group of Ecuadorian migrants transiting north through Colombia. Videographer: Jorge Calle ShareViolence, economic stagnation push more Ecuadorians toward USborder