Where South America juts like a finger into the Caribbean ocean, sheets of salt roll out into the sea, made bright white under a scorching sun.
In the coastal town of Manaure, home to Colombia’s largest salt deposits, salt miners of the Wayuu indigenous group shuffle their flip-flops over a slush of salt, sand and seawater that sears the soles of their feet. They shovel the salt into 100-pound sacks that they sell to the company down the road.
Despite the paltry earnings and grueling work, artisan mining is vital to Manaure’s Wayuu people. They see the mines as key to determining their own economic and social development.
But the piles of salt have become subject to a decades-long struggle between the Wayuu, whose territory is home to the salt reserve, and the government, which has resisted one court order after another to cede control.
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