Through the sea and the land of the Guajiros, the Wayuu wind flies -Summary-

Leave us the sea!

“If they are taking all the land, why don’t they leave us the sea? Let us go without water and without energy, but DON’T let them take the sea from us!” With this phrase and with his eyes on the map of projects in La Guajira, a Wayuu fisherman closed the workshop on impacts facilitated by the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz) in August 2022 in the village of El Cabo de la Vela.

“Yes, let them leave us the sea,” they all strongly agreed.

Since The East Wind Comes with revolutions by Indepaz was published in 2019, a sequence of events has asserted its recommendations, which were intended to be an early warning of the conflicts that a disorderly and unplanned development of wind farms in the Wayuu’s ancestral territory would bring.

Nonetheless, after the publication, the companies have received carte blanche and support not only with tax incentives derived from laws 1715 of 2014 and 2099 of 2021, but also with the promotion of attempts to “speed up” prior consultations for those related to the wind farms and the ones related to transmission or energy evacuation lines. These attempts were given pompous names such as “Guajira consults and acts”. The aim of these efforts was to advance roundtables in order to avoid having to consult each of the communities in the areas of impact. In this new post, INDEPAZ opens the discussion about the impacts of these projects in Colombia, which must consider the multi-ethnic, multicultural and biologically megadiverse country.