Colombia’s river guardians battle to protect the Atrato amid threats and abandonment

Illegal gold mining along the banks of northwestern Colombia’s Atrato river is causing severe contamination and deforestation for the small, impoverished riverbank communities made up of predominantly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous peoples

Sediment and pebbles are all that’s left on the earth around much of Bernardino Mosquera’s small riverside community in northwest Colombia’s Choco region.

Just a year ago, healthy shrubs and trees filled this important biodiversity spot teeming with species native to the land. But then illegal miners arrived, using their heavy machinery to dredge the riverbeds for gold.

“It’s just desert here,” said Mosquera. “Illegal mining affects the ecosystem in every way … it leads to degraded land. There are no trees. The water sources are drying up, it’s polluted by mercury.”

Mosquera is a river guardian, a title bestowed upon him and 13 others. The unpaid guardians serve as the eyes and ears of the Atrato River: They liaise with government institutions on environmental and social issues in the face of aggression from armed groups and hope to reverse the devastation they see along the river. But after eight years, they are increasingly disenchanted by the lack of support from institutions and growing threats from armed groups that control the region.

Colombia’s constitutional court declared in 2016 that the Atrato River running alongside this 2,500-person town was so important to life, it would have rights equivalent to a human. The region is home to thousands of species, with 25% of its plant and bird species endemic, according to the United Nations Development Programme. The river's legal status was a first for Latin America, and when the guardians were established.

“It’s an unbreakable marriage between its inhabitants and the rivers," Mosquera, 62, said. “That’s why we have to defend the Atrato.”

Illegal gold mining has become the fastest-growing criminal economy over the past decade in South America. The boom began in Colombia and Peru and expanded to Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil.

In Choco, illegal mining is rife

Paimado, like many towns in the Choco region, is an illegal mining hub firmly in the control of the largest criminal organization in the country, known as Gulf Clan. Early each morning, small wooden boats carry plastic gasoline containers to feed the mining machinery dotted along the Atrato, a river that snakes some 750 kilometers (470 miles) through northern Colombian jungles.

Dozens of illegal mines pepper the river between Mosquera’s home in Paimado, which lies on Rio Quito, the Atrato River's main tributary, and the state capital Quibdo.

Large wooden rafts propped on stilts reach deep into the riverbed to extract material that is sifted through the machine for gold. Deep inside the banks of the river, another type of mining takes place with heavier machinery. It is here that deforestation is glaringly evident.

Drone footage taken by The Associated Press shows large patches of empty land which stretch long behind the riverbanks.

“Many people think that because it looks very green there is no deforestation,” said river guardian and agronomist Maryuri Mosquera, 42.

High rates of poverty have pushed many into gold mining, work that destroys land and contaminates their river. That destruction then destroys the local economy, making communities even more dependent on mining.

Colombia’s human rights ombudsman’s office said in April the government is failing to protect the river, saying “there is no evidence of any progress" since the river gained personhood. It called on the environment ministry to comply with the 2016 ruling.

In a written response, Colombia’s environment ministry said its Minister Susana Muhamad has been coordinating efforts with the Ministry of Defense “to protect this important ecosystem." It added that a program will soon begin to work with the communities to restore the Atrato River basin and its tributaries.

A community lifeline destroyed

The Atrato River has long been an important source of water, food and transport for its rural, mostly Afro-Colombian residents who built communities on the riverbanks.

The tiny village of El Arenal along the Atrato is home to river guardian Juan Carlos Palacios, 33, who says that his role is a triumph for the Black communities who fought for the 2016 ruling.

“It makes me feel very sad when I see machinery pass by continually, without any controls. They arrive on our land and we can’t even say anything, because the miners come along with armed actors,” Palacios said.

For most of his life, even sometimes now, Palacios has been involved in artisanal gold mining. A short canoe ride to the other side of the river from El Arenal is his mother, bent over with a hoe and a wooden gold sifting pan. This has been her life since she can remember.

“I think that if I stop doing this, I’ll die quickly, because I’m so used to it,” said Ana Palacios Cuesta with a laugh. “The dredgers have emptied the whole river, so we hardly get anything anymore.”

The tiny amounts of gold sediment she collects are sold in the nearby town of Yuto, or in Quibdo, about 40 minutes away.

Mercury and arsenic offer the industrial-scale miners a low-tech solution to extract the gold. But they get pumped into the water, poisoning the river and the surrounding lands. The tactic has been killing marine life, changing the natural flow of the river, and further debilitating some of the most vulnerable communities in the country.

Palacios, who has a degree in biology, said fish in the river have been “highly contaminated” by mercury, which gets passed through fish to humans and can cause damage to vital organs.

“Of course we continue to consume them because we have no other option,” he said.

Local women and their children stand in the river to wash their dishes and clothes, something only the most rural and needy communities do nowadays over fear of the water’s contamination.

Guardians face violence and threats

The guardians have a precarious job in an area controlled largely by rebel and criminal armed groups, like leftist guerrillas the National Liberation Army and Gulf Clan.

Mining machinery along the banks are overseen by these groups and miners are forced to pay them protection money — known locally as “vacuna” — to be allowed to operate freely without becoming targets.

“The act of raising awareness and denouncing the situations that the Atrato basin is experiencing means we face certain risks,” guardian Maryuri Mosquera said, especially her guardian colleagues in more rural areas.

Guardian Bernardino Mosquera has a bulletproof vest provided by the state after he got multiple death threats over the years, the last one in March. He has been kidnapped by Gulf Clan and had bullet shells placed under his door on several occasions “as warnings.”

He almost quit.

“But I realized that if we pull out of the process, we are giving them strength ... no one is going to want to say what is happening, you’ll end up riddled with bullets,” Mosquera said as the tropical rain lashed the tin roof of his home.

“We must continue to make the process visible. It’s the only way for them (armed groups) to feel that we too are in the territory. So that stopped me and made me carry on ... And here I am.”

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Follow Steven Grattan on X: @sjgrattan

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