Recognizing Land Rights for the Communities of El Bagre: A Struggle for Life and Against the Impact of Mining Companies on the Forest Reserve

Abstract

Prepared based on a workshop held with peasant, Afro-descendant, and Indigenous communities in September 2011, this piece presents the situation of communities inhabiting the El Bagre forest reserve (Bajo Cauca, Antioquia), where, despite the legal prohibition on individual land titling in place since 1959, more than 3,000 peasant occupants have been identified. The text documents the scale of illegal mining, with up to 300 backhoes operating simultaneously and extortion payments demanded by armed groups, and describes CORANTIOQUIA's forest management program, highlighting the achievement of collective land titling for more than 10,000 hectares granted to three Community Councils under Law 70.