65 Tatiana López Piedrahita and Carlos Heiler Mosquera
Photo: Gino Cocchiaro
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The impacts of mechanised illegal mining.
nity to build a tool that articulates guidelines to ensure that any activity contributes
to the community’s own development
model, and where the relationship between
natural resources, culture, community and
external actors constitutes the fundamental pillars of management. In the words of
Wilson Murillo, Chairman of the Board of
ASOCASAN:
In the collective territory, the afro-descendant communities practice traditional
methods of production which sustain this
generation and those to come.
Territorial threats
The collective land has rich flora, fauna and
mineral resources which the community
depends on it for its livelihood – directly
(hunting, small farming, fishing, mining)
– and indirectly (use of non-timber forest
products and sale of surplus).1
However, there are external pressures
on and around the territory. Colombia’s
national development policy (2010-2014)
is based on the extraction of mineral and
natural resources. By 2010, the State
awarded 7,397 titles for open-cast mining
in the Colombian Choco bio-geographic
region, amounting to 844,000ha. Another
22,000ha were affected by illegal mining
by armed groups operating outside the law,
causing a loss of forest resources, drastic
changes in land use and pollution of water
sources. This also led to changes in the
community’s cultural values, through offers
of financial payments to diggers for gold
mining, and enticing young people to
abandon their studies and values to work in
the mines in inadequate conditions. It also
brought new local markets for food that
have led to a decline in traditional production practices.
Even though the State granted the right
to collective ownership of the ASOCASAN
territory, these rights are still being
violated.2 This is partly because the law for
black communities is not fully regulated
through proper implementing regulations,
due to the growth in illegal extraction activ-
1 Law 70 of 1993 recognises the traditional production practices and the right to collective
ownership by black communities who have been occupying uncultivated land in rural áreas
adjoining the rivers of the Pacific Rim.
2 INCORA Resolution 2727 of 27th December 2001.