Colombia’s world-first recognition of rivers as war victims endangered

José Luis Rengifo grew up beside the Cauca in west Colombia. One of the country’s longest rivers, it is considered crucial to more than 10 million people. Now a community leader in his home town, Puerto Tejada, Rengifo is intimately aware of this relationship with the Cauca: “Our lives depend on it.”

Across his lifetime, the decades-long conflict between the Colombian government and various armed groups claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced many more. But it also took its toll on the environment, which Rengifo saw with his own eyes:

“We had never seen dead bodies floating down the river before.”

For years during the conflict, the Cauca was a mass grave. It was also a dumping ground for pollutants generated by illegal gold mining, which proliferated amid the violence. In areas such as Colombia’s southern Bajo Cauca region, the river became one of the most polluted basins in the country. The independent Colombian outlet Rutas del Conflicto says this made it impossible for locals to fish, wash their clothes or bathe in its waters. It quotes a community leader: “We didn’t return to do any of our traditional practices in the river. They damaged our community and our spirituality.”

After half a century of armed clashes, a peace agreement was finally reached in 2016 between the state and the country’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). This included rural reform plans, political participation for former combatants, and a transitional justice framework. The latter was led by the newly created Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).

Hundreds of thousands of human victims have been recognised by the JEP, including the murdered and the disappeared. But in 2023, the organisation recognised the Cauca river.

Dialogue Earth spoke to Raúl Eduardo Sánchez, a magistrate in the JEP’s amnesty and pardon chamber who worked on the case. “It is the first time in world history that a river has been accredited as a victim,” he says. The Cauca’s victimhood pays respect to its status as a lifeblood for millions.

Today, however, Renfigo is one of many who fear for the programme’s future. In May, Abelardo de la Espriella became Colombia’s president. He is opposed to the JEP, calling it “a tribunal set up to wash the blood off the hands of Farc members and persecute the country’s heroes.”

Community leaders in Colombia’s western municipality of Caloto. Alongside hundreds of thousands of people, a number of rivers have now been recognised as victims of the Colombian armed conflict (Image: Joel González / Presidencia de la República de Colombia, PDM)

Former president Gustavo Petro (in grey) and army officials visit the municipality of Buenos Aires, Cauca department, December 2022. The Petro government advocated for a policy of “total peace”, something Colombia’s new administration wishes to change (Image: Presidencia de la República de Colombia / Flickr, PDM)

A river, a symbol

The crimes investigated by the JEP include damages to territory and nature caused by illicit crops, illegal logging and mining, and the contamination of water sources.

The JEP’s mission is to clarify the truth, and implement a model of restorative justice for victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity, kidnapping and extrajudicial killings by security forces. Those who participate, admit their crimes and apologise to victims, are often ordered to carry out restorative acts instead of jail time. Such acts could include helping to locate missing people, supporting programmes to eradicate illicit crops, or reforestation and conservation campaigns.

The body has led the way in recognising the environment as a conflict victim, indicting Farc leaders operating in northern Cauca for environmental damage.

The process to name the river as a victim began at the request of local civil society organisations, including the community councils of the Cauca river basin, and the microbasin of the Teta and Mazamorrero rivers.

“The river is not merely a water resource providing livelihoods and sustenance, such as fishing; it also involves a relationship built on personal connections, tradition and customs,” explains Sánchez.

Sánchez and his colleagues were tasked with verifying and gathering evidence that demonstrated the river basin’s victimhood. The primary impact was its use as a mass grave.

Between 2000 and 2004, far-right paramilitary group the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) dumped thousands of corpses into the Cauca, with the alleged endorsement of public security forces. This affected “the water and species inhabiting it, deeply destroying the relationship that dozens of communities had with nature,” as per the decision that the JEP published in 2023.

The Cauca as it flows through the Sopetrán municipality, north-west Colombia. In addition to the pollution of illegal mining, locals say they have found human bodies floating in the river (Image: Luis Echeverri / Alamy)

“[Local fishers] were no longer catching fish; they were retrieving human bodies or remains,” says Sánchez.

The magistrate also points the finger at illegal miners operating near the river. Armed groups like the Farc levied extortionate “taxes” on dredges to allow them to operate, he says.

In 2024, the JEP also recognised Colombia’s primary river, the Magdalena, as a victim. Allegations include oil spills caused by attacks on the infrastructure of the national oil company, Ecopetrol, and the impacts of glyphosate spraying on nearby coca crops.

“It is a rather novel decision for the JEP, and obviously at a national and international level,” says Sánchez. The magistrate says the organisation has carried out “symbolic activities” to acknowledge the river as an affected entity, such as travelling to the territories and meeting with community councils – the JEP deems the recognition of damage to nature and the environment as essential to restorative transitional justice processes.

Concrete action … or concrete obstacles?

Some experts have praised these actions for treating environmental damage in a “holistic” way, in combining the rights of nature and communities. But it is far from clear whether this recognition will lead to greater protection for the country’s waterways going forward.

As Diana Zapata, law professor at Colombia’s University of Antioquia, and her colleagues point out in an article published by Periódico UNAL, such symbolic action must be paired with on-the-ground interventions. “Recognition of nature’s rights is, without doubt, a potent tool to configure our relationship with the environment, but it does require concrete actions.”

Despite President De la Espriella’s rhetoric regarding the JEP, it would be hard for him to dismantle or defund it. The institution is a part of the constitutional framework approved by the senate and is currently set to operate until 2038. However, some of his actions demonstrate a desire to undermine the peace process. For example, dismantling the office of the High Commissioner for Peace and the Peace Agreement Implementation Unit (UIAP), and shutting down the radio stations created under the peace agreements.

Critics also argue De la Espriella’s environmental agenda is following a pattern of disregarding conservationist policies. For example, the decision to reverse special protections against mining in the particularly vulnerable Páramo de Santurban zone.

Despite all of this, they are working to assess the precise environmental aftermath of the conflict to the river, together with Colombia’s Black Communities Process (PCN) and community councils. For example, assessing mercury levels among the population. They seek solutions that bring peace to this heavily impacted region.

For José Luis Rengifo, the recognition of the Cauca as a conflict victim is an act of hope – the first step towards “establishing a roadmap or an action plan that allows for measures to improve the Cauca river”.