Oil palm, cattle and coca take a toll on Colombia's indigenous Jiw

[Judi Lynn]

Powerful armed groups have deforested and taken over sections of indigenous land in Colombia’s Meta department.

BY MARIA FERNANDA LIZCANO ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2019 | TRANSLATED BY SARAH ENGEL
Mongabay Series: Endangered Environmentalists, Global Forests

In the Caño La Sal reservation in central Colombia, the Jiw indigenous community lives on a shrinking amount of land. Several armed groups have begun taking over their territory to grow oil palm and coca and to raise cattle. The residents of Caño La Sal, in Puerto Concordia municipality, Meta department, experience water shortages and food insecurity due to the growth of oil palm as a monoculture.

In response, the Constitutional Court of Colombia prepared a list of 34 ethnic groups, including the Jiw community, at risk of disappearance. “The Caño La Sal reservation is exposed to the dynamics of armed groups and the dispossession of their territorial rights, which could lead to the physical and cultural extinction of the ethnicity. The priority of the institutions should be to guarantee them their land,” said Ana María Jiménez, the defense lawyer for the people of Meta.

Palm owned by no one
A team of journalists from Mongabay Latam traveled to Caño La Sal to uncover the problems facing the Jiw community. Thousands of acres of palm surround the roads leading into town. Members of the Jiw community and leaders in Meta say some of the palm is crossing over into their territory. The exact amount of their land being invaded is unknown because the indigenous community’s territorial boundaries must first be verified by the National Land Agency (ANT) of Colombia.

“We don’t know if it’s 1, 2, or 10 hectares, but we are sure that they are on our land. We don’t know who it is because there is lots of palm without an owner. We believe that it could be the paramilitary groups, because they may have brought it here when they arrived,” said David*, a member of the Jiw indigenous community.

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/oil-palm-cattle-and-coca-take-a-toll-on-colombias-indigenous-jiw/