Colombia’s wind farms bring promise and pain for indigenous group

When José Luis Iguarán steps outside his home in La Guajira, northern Colombia, he is met with a line of 10 towering wind turbines stretching across the cactus-strewn terrain toward the Caribbean Sea.

The Wayuu indigenous group, which Mr Iguarán belongs to, has lived on the arid peninsula region for centuries, herding goats, tending to crops, mining salt, and fishing.

With some of Colombia’s most powerful winds, La Guajira has now become the epicentre of the country’s shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

But this green ambition has faced both resistance and reflection from locals, whose territory is deeply tied to culture, tradition, and a profound connection to nature.

“You wake up and suddenly you no longer see the trees. Instead, you see and hear the turbines,” Mr Iguarán says.

His community now shares its land with Guajira 1 – one of Colombia’s two operational wind farms. Another 15 wind farms are currently under construction in La Guajira, and there are plans for dozens more.

“At night, the noise from the turbines disturbs our dreams. For us, dreams are sacred,” Mr Iguarán adds.

The Wayuu, who number around 380,000 in Colombia and extend into Venezuela, have distinct traditions and beliefs. Dreams are a bridge to the spiritual world, where they receive messages from their ancestors that are interpreted within the family.

Despite the cultural disruptions, Mr Iguarán says that his community has benefited from Guajira 1. The energy company behind it, Colombian firm Isagen, has paid for them to have access to clean drinking water, better roads, and sturdy brick houses, which have replaced some of the mud and cactus ones.

Isagen, which is owned by Canada’s Brookfield, also pays three local communities an annual fee for the wind farm to be there, a percentage of annual electricity revenues, and 20% from the sale of carbon credits. These are bought by companies wishing to offset their carbon emissions.

Mr Iguarán believes such energy projects can help bring vital development to Colombia’s second-poorest region. But not everyone shares his enthusiasm.

“The wind farms produce clean energy, but they create division within the Wayuu communities,” explains Aaron Laguna, a Wayuu fisherman, who lives in the coastal village of Cabo de la Vela.

His community is currently in the process of consultations over a wind farm due to be built nearby. He has seen others affected by projects complain about a lack of transparency, poor compensation, a disrespect of cultural norms, and corruption.

“Bad negotiations are made, and the resources given [to us] aren’t well managed by locals,” he adds.

These concerns have led to disputes with the energy companies, and even conflict within Wayuu communities. Some oppose the projects, while others feel excluded from negotiations that could bring them benefits.

“There is still this idea that if it is green, it is automatically good,” says Joanna Barney, director of environment, energy and communities at Colombian think tank Indepaz. It has extensively researched the energy transition and its effects on the Wayuu.

“In Colombia… there isn’t a solid legal framework to properly assess the environmental impacts – and the social impacts are immeasurable.”

In December 2024, Spanish company EDP Renováveis shelved plans for two wind farms in La Guajira, saying the projects were no longer economically viable.

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

EDP’s decision followed the May 2023 exit of Italian multinational Enel from another planned wind farm in the region. Enel attributed its departure to “constant protests” that halted construction for more than half of the working days between 2021 and 2023.

Guajira 1 was also marred by roadblocks, a common way of protesting in La Guajira when locals feel unheard.

And think tank Indepaz has recorded cases of attacks against employees of the energy firms, including armed robberies and kidnappings. And in some areas it has found cases of displacement and violence between local communities who disagree over neighbouring wind farms.

“We call it the ‘wind wars’,” says Ms Barney.

For Colombian anthropologist Wieldler Guerra, there is a clear disconnect between the Wayuu and the wind farm companies.

“There are two worlds talking, and they have not managed to understand each other,” he says.

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

“For the Wayuu, the winds are people. It is not the wind, but the winds. There are eight different winds in Wayuu culture, mythological and ancestral beings with distinct temperaments that shape the surrounding environment and must be respected.”

By contrast, companies and the Colombian government see wind as a resource to harness for environmental progress, profit, and to address the country’s energy needs.

While Colombia has a relatively clean domestic electricity matrix, with nearly two-thirds coming from hydroelectricity, the country remains vulnerable to low reservoir levels, which creates a risk of energy shortages. Wind energy currently contributes just 0.1% of the energy mix.

For energy companies investing in the region, the risk of conflicts with local people are a worrying prospect.

One such firm, AES Colombia is developing the country’s largest wind energy cluster in La Guajira, with six wind farms.

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

But it says good community relations are not enough.

“We cannot do these projects alone,” says Federico Echavarría, general manager of AES Colombia. “The government must help resolve conflicts between communities.”

On the windswept beach in Cabo de la Vela, Mr Laguna says La Guajira has historically been neglected by the state.

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

Some people still walk hours each day to collect water from jagüeys – reservoirs filled with rainwater.

His community has a small salt-water treatment plant that produces fresh water and it wants the company planning to build the nearby wind farm to expand it, so that more locals benefit.

Despite the talk of progress, he points to a lingering paradox. “The worst thing is we won’t receive even a single kilowatt of the electricity produced here,” he laments.

The plan is for the wind farm’s electricity to instead be sent elsewhere, and that the village will continue to rely on generators, at least in the medium term.

While the future might look bright for clean energy, many Wayuu are still anxious they will be left in the dark.