A green-and-red flag flew over a cluster of bamboo and tarpaulin tents on the frontline of an increasingly deadly struggle for land and the environment in Colombia’s Cauca Valley. It is the banner for what indigenous activists are calling the “liberation of Mother Earth”, a movement to reclaim ancestral land from sugar plantations, farms and tourist resorts that have gained momentum in the vacuum left by last year’s peace accord between the government and the left-wing guerrillas who once dominated the region ending, in turn, the world’s longest-running civil war. Despite two deaths in the past year, the Nasa Indians the biggest, most organised and most militant of the 20 indigenous groups in the valley have staged waves of monoculture clearance and occupation operations. Almost every other week hundreds, sometimes thousands, of machete-bearing activists join these communal actions, known as manga, which involves burning and hacking down swaths of sugar cane, then erecting camps and planting traditional crops including maize and cassava. The Nasa see this in historical, spiritual terms. For them, it is the latest phase in a centuries-old struggle for land and a clash between two contrasting worldviews: one that seeks harmony with nature, and one interested only in extracting as much profit as possible, regardless of the impact on the people and the environment. The Colombian government sees things differently. It says the state has a responsibility to protect legally recognised property ownership and that indigenous land issues should not be confused with environmental protection. However, it acknowledges that peace has brought a destructive surge into land previously deemed off-limits because of occupation by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC. Deforestation in Colombia rose 44% last year. Coca production has also risen rapidly. To tackle this, President Juan Santos has demarcated more conservation areas and promised to use the army and work with former FARC combatants to protect forests.
