Colombia wind farms carry a promise and pain for the root group

When Jose Luis Higuran steps in front of his home in La Guajira, Northern Colombia, he is greeted with a line of 10 rising wind turbines stretching through the terrain strewn by the cactus to the Caribbean.

Wayuu’s root group, to which the Higuran belongs, has lived in the area of ​​the Dry Peninsula for centuries, goats, prone to crops, mining salt and fishing.

With some of the most powerful winds in Colombia, La Guajira has already become the epicenter of the country’s passage from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

But this green ambition faces resistance and reflection by the locals whose territory is deeply bound by the culture, tradition and deep connection to nature.

“You wake up and suddenly no longer see the trees. Instead you see and hear the turbines,” says G -n Higuran.

His community now shares his land with Guajira 1 – one of the two operational windpowns in Colombia. Currently, 15 more wind power plants are being built in La Guajira and there are plans for dozens more.

“At night, the noise of the turbines breaks our dreams. For us, dreams are sacred,” adds G -n Higuran.

Wayuu, which numbers around 380,000 in Colombia and extends into Venezuela, has different traditions and beliefs. Dreams are a bridge to the spiritual world where they receive messages from their ancestors, which are interpreted in the family.

Despite the cultural disturbances, the Higuran says that its community has benefited from Guajira 1. The energy company behind it, the Colombian company Isagen, has paid for them to have access to clean drinking water, better roads and healthy brick houses that have replaced some of the mud and mud.

Isagen, which is owned by Canada Brookfield, also pays three local communities for an annual wind power charge to be there, a percentage of annual electricity revenue and 20% of carbon loan sales. They are purchased from companies who want to compensate for their carbon emissions.

Mr. Higuran believes that such energy projects can help vital development in the Colombia region for the second bera. But not everyone shares their enthusiasm.

“Wind power plants produce clean energy, but they create a division in Wayuu communities,” explains Aaron Laguna, a Weyu fisherman, who lives in the coastal village of Cabo de la Vela.

Currently, his community is in the process of consultation over the wind power plant, which must be built nearby. He saw others affected by projects complained of a lack of transparency, poor compensation, disrespect for cultural norms and corruption.

“Bad negotiations are being held and resources (to us) are not well managed by the locals,” he adds.

These concerns led to disputes with energy companies and even conflicts in Wayuu communities. Some oppose projects, while others feel excluded from negotiations that can bring them benefits.

“There is still this idea that if it is green, it is automatically good,” says Joanna Barney, director of the environment, energy and communities in Colombian cerebral trust independent. It widely explores its energy transition and its effects on the road.

“In Colombia … there is no solid legal framework for proper environmental impact assessment – and social impacts are immeasurable.”

In December 2024, the Spanish company EDP Renováveis ​​postponed plans for two wind power plants in La Guajira, stating that projects were no longer economically viable.

One of the factors was the doubling of local local communities, who said they would be affected and therefore needed compensation from 56 to 113.

The EDP decision was followed by the release of the Italian Multinational Enel of May 2023 from another planned wind power plant in the region. Enel attributes its departure to “permanent protests”, which stopped construction for more than half of the working days between 2021 and 2023.

Guajira 1 was also darkened by road blocks, a common way to protest in La Guajira when locals felt unheard.

And Think Tank Indepyaz has recorded cases of attacks on energy companies, including armed robbery and abductions. And in some areas, he detects cases of displacement and violence between local communities that disagree with neighboring wind power plants.

“We call it” Wars in the Wind, “says G -ja Barney.

There is a clear interruption between Wayuu for Colombian anthropologist Wieldler Guerra and wind farm companies.

“They speak two worlds and they have not been able to understand each other,” he says.

This precipice extends to the way they perceive the wind – the element central to these projects.

“For the road, winds are humans. This is not the wind, but the winds. There are eight different winds in the culture of Weyu, mythological and ancestors with different temperaments that shape the environment and must be observed.”

In contrast, companies and the Colombian government view the wind as a resource for bringing environmental progress, profit and dealing with the country’s energy needs.

While Colombia has a relatively clean internal electric matrix, with nearly two -thirds coming from hydroelectricity, the country remains vulnerable to low levels of the tank, which creates the risk of energy shortages. Currently, wind energy contributes only 0.1% of the energy mixture.

For energy companies investing in the region, the risk of conflict with local people is an alarming perspective.

One such company, AES Colombia, develops the largest wind energy cluster in La Guajira, with six wind power plants.

The company insists that it maintains an open dialogue with the communities, offering fair compensation and providing benefits such as clean drinking water and shares in carbon loans.

But it is said that good relations in the community are not enough.

“We can’t do these projects on our own,” says Federico Ekhavaria, AES General Manager Colombia. “The government must help resolve conflicts between communities.”

On the beach of the winds in Cabo de la Vela, the Lagoon says that La Guajira was historically overlooked by the state.

Education and health are poor and most rural communities do not have running water.

Some people still go for hours every day to collect water from Jagüys – reservoirs filled with rainwater.

Its community has a small wastewater treatment plant that produces fresh water and wants the company to plan to build a nearby wind farm to expand it so that more locals benefit from.

Despite talking about progress, he points to a constant paradox. “The worst is that we won’t even get a single kilowatt from the electricity produced here,” he complains.

The plan is to send the electricity of the wind power plant elsewhere and that the village will continue to rely on generators, at least in the medium term.

While the future may look light for clean energy, many Wayuu is still worried that they will remain in the dark.