Investment Disputes from Below: Whose Rights Matter?
Publisher: International Institute for Environment and Development
Author(s): Lorenzo Cotula
Date: 2020
Topics: Extractive Resources, Governance, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
Countries: Colombia
Shreds of clouds drift low over the rugged ridges and the yellow-green glens, leaving behind moisture that saturates the marshy moorlands. The scattered frailejon shrubs almost burst with water, ready for their roots to release it into a triumph of streams, lakes and rivers downhill. An ancestral silence lies beneath the water’s gentle burble.
Colombians call this misty Andean ecosystem páramo. A precious carbon sink, the páramo of Santurbán has sustained social identity and cultural fabric for centuries. As we trek on a winding dirt track some 3,800 metres above sea level, Victor – a slim, quiet 50-something from the nearby village of Vetas – recounts the many generations whose lives unfolded on these slopes: the indigenous Chitareros; the European conquistadores, founders of Vetas; the gringos who over a century ago came searching for gold; and the artisanal miners whose livelihoods today depend on the gold hidden in the belly of these mountains.