Colombia

The U'wa indigenous people are maintaining a long conflict with the Colombian state and the oil company Occidental Petroleum in the defense of their traditional territories. The permit granted to the company and the beginning of the works of oil prospection at the Bloque Samoré, located in the premontane forest region along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, constitutes a threat por the U'wa's life and environment. To the U'wa culture, oil is Mother Earth's blood, and to drill it would be a desecration.

Fundación Beteguma is a Colombian NGO, with headquarters in Quibdó at the Pacific coast region, which seeks to promote the social, cultural and environmental development of the Biogeographic Chocó through activities of research, conservation and sustainable production involving local communities. The Chocó is one of the few biodiversity hotspots in the world and is suffering a process of environmental degradation because of illegal logging and mining, as well as abuses to human rights.

Aerial spraying to control and eradicate illegal crops in Colombia are creating severe problems to rural communities and forests, similar to those provoked by the crops themselves and by the chemicals used in drug production. Coca and poppy crops in Colombia have increased in forests despite the eradication policy that began to be applied against marihuana cultivation in 1978. In 1980 an operation to combat marihuana crops at Guajira and the aerial spraying with glyphosate resulted in the worst ecological and sanitary disaster ever experienced in the region.

From March 15-21, 2000, an International Mission, summoned by the major authorities of the Embera-Katio and U'wa indigenous peoples, visited Colombia to observe in the field their situation concerning the long conflict in which they are involved to defend their territorial and cultural rights. The mission was conformed by representatives of indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Panama, the World Rainforest Movement, Oilwatch, Friends of the Earth, International Rivers Network, Rios Vivos, and other human rights and environmental organizations.

As part of their struggle to prevent the occupation of their lands by Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), a group of about 200 members of the U'wa indigenous peoples established in November 1999 a camp in the area where the company is planning to drill the oil well "Gibraltar 1" with the approval of the Colombian Environment Ministry, which all along this conflict has disregarded the U'wa's rights and defended the interests of Oxy (see WRM Bulletin 30).

During the long conflict that has involved the U'wa indigenous people -with the support of national and international NGOs and social organizations- and Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), there have been constant comings and goings. For almost a decade, the U'wa people have successfully prevented Oxy from exploiting oil -that they consider the Earth's blood- in their traditional territory.

The Urra hydroelectric dam megaproject in Colombia is causing negative impacts on the Embera Katio indigenous people, ancestral dwellers of the affected area. With the support of Colombian and international NGOs, the Embera Katio are bravely opposing the project boasted by the government, which menaces the permanence of their livelihoods and the survival or their entire culture (see WRM Bulletin 29).

In a new chapter of their seemingly endless struggle to defend their land rights, a group of two hundred U'wa indigenous people -including women, children and tribal elders- established on November 14 a permanent settlement at the site of Occidental Petroleum's planned oil well Gibraltar 1. Their aim is to block the drilling planned to begin operating in the near future, thus avoiding that their Mother Earth be profaned. Hundreds of more U'wa and other supporters are expected to continue arriving to the settlement in upcoming days to reinforce this action.

The Urra hydroelectric dam megaproject on the Sinu River, at the Cordoba Department in the Atlantic region of Colombia has provoked concern and resistance since its very start in 1977. The Embera Katio indigenous people, ancestral dwellers of the affected area, who live on fishing and hunting, and whose livelihoods and existence are severely menaced by this project are fighting an unequal battle against both the company Urra and the Colombian government which openly supports it.

Colombian forests are undergoing a severe process of destruction. The civil war that is devastating the country can be considered one of the main causes of deforestation. Due to the prevailing state of violence in Colombia, entire rural communities are obliged to leave their homes and lands. Additionally to their effects from a social and cultural point of view, forced displacements also create conditions for further negative impacts on forests.

  From the Spanish Conquest onwards, the Colombian Pacific Region has been subject to the relentless extraction of its natural resources -such as gold, clay, balsam and several precious woods- in a process that did not generate any benefits to local people. When big logging companies entered the region in the sixties, a period of social, cultural, economic and environmental devastation started.

The recent resolution of the Colombian government, in agreement with the U'wa leaders, according to which their legally recognized territory was increased in 120,000 hectares -now comprising 220,275 hectares- was celebrated as a great victory. Nevertheless, the consideration by the Ministry of the Environment of a request of environmental license for exploratory drilling by Occidental Petroleum just outside the newly created Unified U'wa Reservation is a pending menace on them (see WRM Bulletin 26).