Can salt mitigate hunger? Inside the salt flats of La Guajira, Colombia

Inside the salt flats of La Guajira, Colombia

Manaure, Colombia – The coastal ponds stretched over the horizon, their shallow blue waters dotted with shimmering pyramids of white — each one a pile of artisanal salt waiting to be collected.

In the department of La Guajira, Colombia, this salt was once known as “oro blanco” or “white gold”, and its production sustained entire communities of the local Wayuu Indigenous people.

But now, the salt industry is struggling to survive — and revitalising it could be one of the great tests of Gustavo Petro’s presidency.

In May, Petro’s left-wing administration unveiled a plan to invest 61 billion Colombian pesos — approximately $15m — in La Guajira’s limping salt sector.

“The potential of La Guajira is immense in its wealth,” Petro said at a news conference in Manaure, a municipality in the region known for its salt production.

Petro’s plan is being debated in Colombia’s Congress. But local salt workers and advocates warned that, in order to succeed, the plan has to confront the mismanagement that has brought the industry to its knees.

A history of salt mining

Situated on a peninsula jutting into the Caribbean Sea, La Guajira is considered the northernmost region of South America.

There, a dry, desert-like climate prevails. The sun burns hot, rain rarely falls and strong winds whip along the coast.

But the harsh environment has forged ideal conditions for salt production, as water evaporates quickly. Even before European colonisation, the Indigenous peoples of La Guajira are believed to have harvested salt to trade for goods like gold.

Salt remains one of the only sources of income for Indigenous communities in the area. To this day, at the crack of dawn, Wayuu residents arrive at Manaure’s salt ponds with picks and shovels to mine the waters and rake up salt crystals.

Some men shield their faces from the sun with balaclavas. The women, meanwhile, wear traditional dresses that stretch past their ankles and paint their faces with a natural pigment — made of dark mushrooms — to protect their skin.

“This work is not easy. The sun is very hot, and the temperature high. We live day by day,” said Franklin Mendoza, a local who has worked in salt extraction for 20 years.

Mendoza lives on the outskirts of Manaure, in an informal settlement built over a disused salt pond. He estimated 170 families reside there in total — all of whom extract salt. They earn about $5 a day.

“When the harvest season arrives, we feel happy because we see there is an income source,” Mendoza said.

Deadly poverty

But poverty is endemic to La Guajira, despite its abundance of natural resources.

While the salt ponds in Manaure are capable of producing 1 million tonnes of salt per year, experts said the current output is drastically less.

Colombia’s National Mining Agency reported that the industry in charge of harvesting Manaure’s salt only produced 205,204 tonnes in 2023, amounting to $3.7m in profit.

Local advocacy groups and salt miners see the shortfall as a missed opportunity. In 2022, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) reported that La Guajira saw the largest surge in poverty of any department in Colombia.

That gave it the second highest percentage of poor residents in the country. More than 65 percent of La Guajira’s population was deemed to live in poverty, defined in the region as earning less than $76 a month.

The results have been devastating. The National Institute of Health found that, in 2023, 70 children under the age of five died from acute malnutrition in La Guajira, more than in any other region.

“Previously, we benefitted from the salt ponds. I studied and finished high school thanks to the salt extraction,” said Juan Carlos Epieyu, a Wayuu man in Manaure.

In the 1970s, salt production hit a peak. “But now, there is a lot of unemployment,” Epieyu explained.

Stretches of severe drought in La Guajira, including in 2019 and 2020, have only amplified concerns. Residents said they lack access to potable water, and crops have dried up, leading the Colombian government to declare a humanitarian emergency in the region.

“We are thirsty. Our animals are also dying of thirst. The dry season has been very strong,” said Epieyu, who herds goats. Five of his animals have died over the past few years.

Industry changing hands

Some critics point to mismanagement in the salt industry as part of the reason for La Guajira’s economic instability.

From 1941 to 2002, the national government was in charge of the salt mines, first through the Bank of the Republic and later through the Institute of Industrial Development (IFI).

But Indigenous communities chafed at the federal control. They asserted their rights to the territory and eventually struck an agreement with the government to create a new entity called the Maritime Salt Flats of Manaure (SAMA).

It was conceived as a public-private partnership. The municipal government of Manaure holds a 24-percent stake in the company, while three Indigenous associations — the Sumain Ichi, the Waya Wayuu and the Asocharma — manage the rest.

But in the two decades since it took control of the salt industry, SAMA has faced criticism for failing to generate a profit, even after handing its administration to a private operator, the Big Group.

According to a 2023 decision from the Constitutional Court, SAMA has a debt of more than $5m. In 2020, workers held a strike that lasted more than 600 days to demand unpaid wages.

Robinson Ramos, the president of the Sintrasales salt workers union, accused SAMA of not actively producing salt but instead relying on its reserves.

“We worry every day that the company will arrive at a point that cannot sustain itself,” Ramos said. “This would generate a great economic and social impact in our municipality.”

Miguel Epieyu, a Wayuu leader who is part of the Sumain Ichi association, also noted that the machinery used to process, clean and transport the salt has fallen into disrepair. The local pier, for instance, has collapsed.

He said the problems began when the government turned over the salt plants to SAMA. A significant portion of the existing machinery has not been updated since 2002.

“There was a transition process when no maintenance was done to existing infrastructure, including the washing plant and the pier,” Miguel explained.

“The right thing to do would be to hand over an active industry, not a bunch of junk, ruins and decaying infrastructure.”

Questions of corruption

But critics said the mismanagement goes beyond bad business decisions and crumbling equipment.

On March 4, members of Asocharma, Sintrasales and other workers associations filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office and other entities, alleging that unauthorised individuals extracted salt illegally in La Guajira and sold it at prices lower than the production cost.

According to the complaint, reviewed by Al Jazeera, individuals affiliated with SAMA were among those profiting from the off-book sales.

But Ramos, who signed the complaint, said similar allegations have been circulating for decades. “Since 2010, we have been denouncing acts of corruption,” Ramos said.

Even the National Mining Agency noted in a June report that there were instances of “theft of salt”, amounting to 600 tonnes per day.

It claimed that members of the Sumain Ichi association — part of SAMA — were involved in the illegal trade.

But Elmer Altamar, a legal representative for the Sumain Ichi group, told Al Jazeera that certain individuals were driven to desperation because of the dire conditions they faced.

“Those Indigenous people are not stealing. They are surviving,” Altamar said.

He instead called on the Colombian government to provide social programmes to address the poverty in La Guajira — and consult more closely with local Indigenous communities before enacting any new plan.

Restarting the industry

President Petro’s administration is hoping an influx of capital can help jumpstart the industry and reactivate salt production.

By investing $15m in SAMA, the national government would gain a 50.1 percent stake in the company — a controlling interest.

In a news conference in May, Petro said he saw revitalising the salt sector as part of an economic plan that would also help address La Guajira’s water shortage and poverty.

“There was a balance between salt, potable water and life in Manaure that went bankrupt, and it never recovered,” Petro said.

The president had previously declared a state of economic, social and environmental emergency in La Guajira. But the Constitutional Court struck down the declaration, arguing that Petro’s government had not offered a sufficient explanation to justify emergency measures.

“Why was there so much opposition to resolving the problem of water in La Guajira? Because there is power behind it. Because it signifies votes,” Petro said.

Al Jazeera contacted the Ministry of Commerce to ask how the president’s strategy might mitigate the potential for corruption in SAMA and how it would ensure Indigenous representation.

In its response, the ministry said it could not answer those questions at this stage.

Congress will continue to discuss the project in the next legislative term beginning on Saturday. However, the outgoing Congress recently struck down a piece of legislation that proposed using financial returns from the project to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in La Guajira.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, SAMA should see financial returns in three years. Before that, the benefits to the communities in La Guajira would be restricted to generating employment and tourism.

Meanwhile, Miguel, the Wayuu leader, said transparency was necessary for the future of La Guajira’s salt industry. “We need to create a monitoring system to guarantee the aims proposed are achieved,” he explained.

He added that he felt there was little option but to embrace the government’s plan.

“Looking at the situation objectively, the dreams and hopes of our ancestors who fought for their rights [to manage the salt industry] are a failure. But we don’t have any other option. I just hope that the medicine is not worse than the illness.”