Colombia

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).

The 4th National Conference and International Conference on "Paramos" (high plateau grassland ecosystems) and Cloud Andean Forests, which took place in Malaga, Santander, Colombia on November 1999 -including representatives from Colombia, Venezuela and Costa Rica- summarized its viewpoints in a declaration which is available in Spanish in WRM's web site: http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/tropical_forests/paramos.html

As a result of a long and difficult struggle against giant Occidental Petroleum and the Colombian government, the U'wa indigenous people have achieved a significant victory with the legal recognition of an area comprising an important portion of their traditional territory in the northeastern corner of Colombia. A recent resolution of the Colombian government, in agreement with the U'wa leaders, has increased their legally recognized territory in 120,000 hectares, which now comprises 220,275 hectares in the provinces of Boyaca, Northern Santander, Santander and Arauca.

Colombia, one of the megadiverse countries in the world, holds a total area of mangroves of 365,902 hectares, of which 80% extend like a green necklace in the Pacific Ocean coast.

The recent murders of three activists - Ingrid Washinawatok, a member of the Menominee tribe from New York, Terence Freitas, from Oakland, and Lahe'ena'e Gay, from Hawaii- who were assisting the U'wa indigenous people to protect their land from oil drilling, illustrate the high level of violence in conflicts concerning the use of resources and territorial issues in the South American rainforests and calls into question U.S. foreign policy (see WRM Bulletin 21)

The U'wa of the Colombian cloud forest are in a life-and-death struggle to protect their traditional culture and sacred homeland from an oil project slated to begin on their land at anytime. The U'wa are adamantly opposed to the drilling and warn that the project will lead to an increase in violence as seen in other oil regions of Colombia. Despite this, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and the Colombian government continue to move forward with plans to drill. The U'wa have made a call for international support; now is the time for us to answer.

Gloria Sofia Zapata, Hernando Duque and Eder Alexander Valencia were murdered on October 14, October 20 and November 9. They were members of the environmental organization "Hojas de Hierba" (Herb Leaves) of the municipality of Belen de Umbria in the province of Risaralda. Hector Ivan Escobar and John Jairo Lopez, of the same organization, have had to leave the country.

As in a number of other countries, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is now promoting the development of pulpwood plantations in Colombia. The bank has recently approved a "non-reimbursable" loan of 2 million dollars --through the Multilateral Investment Fund-- to support the creation of a Training and Technological Development Centre for the Pulp, Paper and Cardboard Industry (CENPAPEL).

Responding to the immediate and increasing threat of oil exploration on their lands, the U'wa people have issued a statement demanding that both the Colombian government and Occidental Petroleum recognize their right to refuse or accept oil activity on their land as a precondition to any dialogue about oil development. The statement also demands an immediate withdrawal of the military presence in U'wa territory, which has increased dramatically over the last month.