Colombia’s wind farm brings words and pain for a local group

José Luis Iguarán is met with 10 tower wind turbines in the Caribbean in the Kactus-Strown area in the northern Colombian city of La Guajira.

Mr. Iguarán, for centuries for centuries, the crosses in the Digin Peninsula region, plants, mining salt and fishing, lived in the region of the Greek Peninsula.

With the strongest winds of some Colombia, La Guajira has now become the country’s epicenter from the country’s residual fuel.

However, this green ambition was reflected and reflected in the reflection of both resistance and local residents, the cultural, tradition, tradition and local residents, which are in a deep connection to nature.

“You wake up and don’t see more than one trees. Instead, you see turbines and hear,” Mr Iguarán said.

The society now shares its lands with Guajira 1 – one of the two operating wind farms in Colombia. Another 15 wind farms in La Guajira are built and there are plans for more than dozens.

“The noise of the turbines in the night breaks our dreams. Dreams are holy for us,” Mr Iguarán said.

Wayuu, which has about 380,000 in Colombia and to Venezuela, different traditions and beliefs. Dreams are a bridge to the spiritual world they receive a message from the ancestors commented in the family.

Despite the cultural disorders, Mr. Iguarán says that the society has benefited from Guajira 1. The energy company behind this was paid for the Colombian firm, providing solid drinking water, better roads and cactations.

ISAGEN, owned by Canada, also pays 20% from the sale of annual power revenues and carbon loans for three local communities, and three local communities. They are taken by companies that want to replace carbon waste.

Mr Iguarán believes that such energy projects can help in the second poor region of Colombia. But everyone does not share his enthusiasm.

“Wind farms produce clean energy, but” Cabo de la Vela’s coastal village “Aaron Laguna, Aaron Laguna, a Wayuu Fisherman living in the coast village of Cabo de la Vela.

At present, his society is in the consultations on a nearby wind farm. The lack of transparency of others affected by the projects has seen that compensation and cultural norms have complained about the lack of contempt and corruption.

“Bad negotiations are carried out and are not governed by the local residents,” he said.

These concerns have caused controversies with energy companies and even confrontation in Wayuu communities. Some oppose the projects, others feel excluded from negotiations that can benefit them.

“This idea still has this idea, the passage of the energy and explored its effects.

“In Colombia … There is no firm legal base to properly assess the effects of the environment – and social effects are measured.”

In December 2024, Spain’s EDP Company EDP Renováveis, LA guajira plans for two wind farms, projects are no longer economically favorable.

A factor was a double increase in local local communities, which said that he would be affected, and therefore need compensation between 56 and 113.

EDP’s decision was watched by the Italian multinational Eneli in May 2023 from another wind farm in the region. Enel burned the “permanent protests”, which stopped construction for more than half of the work days between 2021 and 2023.

Guajira 1, a common way in La Guajira, LA Guajira, where local residents felt hearing, was also broken by a common road.

Thinking tank celebrated the attacks of energy companies, including armed robberies and thefts. In some areas, there were detachable and violence between local communities that are not satisfied with neighboring wind farms.

“We call it ‘wind wars’,” said MS Barney.

For Colombian Anthropologist Wieldler Guerra, there is a clear connection between the Wayuu and Wind Farm companies.

“Two world speaks and could not understand each other,” he says.

This gap wind is extends to the wind that the center of these projects are adopted.

“Because the winds are people. Not the wind, but the winds.

On the contrary, the government and the Colombian government sees the wind as a resource to solve the environmental progress, gain and energy needs of the country.

Although Colombia has a relatively clean internal electric matrix, which has about two-thirds of the hydroelectric power plant, the country remains sensitive to low reservoir levels. Wind energy is currently only 0.1% of the energy mixture.

The risk of conflicts with local people for energy companies investing in the region is a concern.

Such a company, AES Colombia, which is six wind farms, develops the country’s largest wind energy group in the country.

The company conducts an open dialogue with communities, offers fair compensation and provides benefits such as shares in clean drinking water and carbon loans.

But it says good community relationships are not enough.

“We cannot do these projects alone,” says Federico Echavarria, CEO of AES Columbia. “The government must help resolve conflicts between communities.”

In the wind beach in Cabo de La Vela, Mr. Laguna says that LA Guajira was historically neglected by the state.

Education and health are weak, most rural communities do not have flowing water.

Some people still walk every day to collect water from Jagüeys – reservoirs filled with rainwater.

There is a small salt water cleansing device that produces fresh water and expanding the company’s nearby wind farm, so there is some more local residents.

Despite the progress, shows the stretching paradox. “The worst thing, we will not receive a kilowatt of electricity produced here,” he said.

The plan will be sent to another place, instead of the wind farm, instead, and the village will continue to rely on the generators, at least in the middle period.

Although the future looks bright for clean energy, many Wayuu will still remain in the dark.