El Chocó, Colombia—
Imminent Cultural, Social and Environmental Destruction

El Chocó is a department (province or state) of Colombia. Located in the northwest of the country, it borders Panama and has coasts on both the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Department is about halfway between the states of Maryland and West Virginia in size. Most of El Chocó is low-lying tropical rain forest (it’s one of the rainiest spots in the world), though in the south and east it starts to rise into mountains. The department is crossed by three great rivers, the Atrato, the Baudó and the San Juan, and literally hundreds of tributaries. It is a natural paradise, home to a huge diversity of plant and animal species.

Starting in the 16th Century, the Spanish conquistadors came up the Río Atrato, one of the principal rivers of Chocó, bringing with them African slaves, in a successful search for gold. At one point, they were driven from the territory by an uprising of indigenous peoples, but eventually they returned with a superior military force, and stayed.

The indigenous communities along the shores of the major rivers and their tributaries were pushed back into the forest, first by the Spanish, and later by the communities of liberated Afro-Colombians. El Chocó was essentially ignored by the national Colombian government and society until very recently. There are almost no roads in the department, and over the centuries a river-based society developed.

Out of this experience, a unique social fabric was created. A rich local cultural tradition developed and endured, with its local foods, musical styles, celebrations and festivals, alongside the existing indigenous culture.

For a very long time the people lived poor, but not miserable. Despite government neglect and occasional inroads by foreign corporations, they maintained themselves through economic activities that included fishing, hunting, modest sustainable lumbering, small-scale panning for gold and platinum, banana cultivation, and family gardens. An active flow of cargo and people along the river provided trade and interaction among the communities. Freight boats came upriver from the ports on the coasts to trade cloth, fishhooks, salt and other goods for local products.

There are various estimates of the current size of the population of El Chocó, depending on one’s source, but the estimates revolve around half a million persons. Of this number, about 2/3 live in the country or isolated small villages, the rest living in the small towns and few small cities of the department. In general, whether they live in isolated houses, villages, towns or cities, the people live close to one of the rivers, and the rivers are always present in the activities and consciousness of the people.

Today, about 80-85% of the population is of African ancestry, the descendants of slaves brought by the Spanish to work in the gold mines of the area in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Another 10%, approximately, are indigenous peoples of various Embera and Waunnan ethnic groups.

This ethnic make-up is certainly distinct in Colombia, and together with the isolation of the department, it may help account for the neglect of the area.