When José Luis Iguarán walked out of his home in La Guajira in northern Colombia, he encountered a towering wind turbine of No. 10, spanning the terrain of the cactus strewn towards the Caribbean Sea.

The Wayuu indigenous groups belonging to Iguarán have lived in the arid peninsula area for centuries, grazing goats, leaning towards crops, mining salt and fishing.

With the most powerful winds in Colombia, La Guajira has now become the center of the country's shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

However, this green ambition is both facing resistance and reflection from the locals, whose territory is closely related to culture, tradition and far-reaching connections to nature.

Mr. Iguala said: "You woke up and suddenly you no longer see the trees. Instead, you see and hear the turbine."

His community now shares the land with Guajira 1 - one of two operating wind farms in Colombia. La Guajira has 15 wind farms under construction and more plans are available.

Mr Iguarán added: "At night, the noise of the turbine disturbs our dreams. For us, dreams are sacred."

Wayuu, which is approximately 380,000 people in Colombia and expanded to Venezuela, has different traditions and beliefs. Dreams are the bridge to the spiritual world, and they receive messages from ancestors interpreted in their families.

Despite the cultural disruption, Mr Iguaran said his community benefited from Guajira 1. The energy company behind Columbia Isagen paid, and they paid, and they could use clean drinking water, better roads and solid brick houses that replaced some mud and cactus and cactus.

Owned by Brookfield, Canada, Isagen also pays annual fees for wind farms to three local communities, with annual electricity revenue of 20% and carbon credit sales of 20%. These are purchased by companies looking to offset their carbon emissions.

Mr Iguarán believes that such energy projects could help bring important developments into the second-largest region of Colombia. But not everyone shared his passion.

“Wind farms generate clean energy, but they create divisions within the Wayuu community,” explains Wayuu Fisherman, who lives in the coastal village of Cabo de la Vela.

His community is currently in consultation with wind farms built nearby. He saw other people affected by the project complain about lack of transparency, poor compensation, disrespect for cultural norms and corruption.

He added: “There were bad negotiations and the resources provided (to us) were not well managed by locals.”

These concerns have led to controversy with energy companies and even clashed within the Wayuu community. Some people oppose the project, while others feel excluded from negotiations, thus benefiting them.

"There is still the idea that if it's green, it's going to be automatic," said Joanna Barney, director of environment, energy and community at Columbia think tank. It has extensively studied the energy shift and its impact on Wayuu.

“In Colombia… there is no reliable legal framework for correctly assessing environmental impacts – social impacts are immeasurable.”

In December 2024, Spanish company EDPRENO Váveis ​​shelved plans for two wind farms in La Guajira, saying the projects are no longer economically viable.

One factor is the doubled of local indigenous communities, who say they will be affected by 56 to 113 and therefore need compensation.

EDP’s decision follows the export of Italian multinationals from another planned wind farm in May 2023. Enel attributes its departure to "continuous protests" that ceased more than half of the buildings between 2021 and 2023.

Guajira 1 is also hurt by obstacles, a common way for locals to protest in La Guajira when they feel unheard of.

Think tank Indepaz documented attacks against energy company employees, including armed robbery and kidnapping. In some areas, it found cases of displacement and violence between local communities disagreeing with local communities adjacent to wind farms.

"We call it 'Wind War'," Ms. Barney said.

For Colombian anthropologist Wieldler Guerra, there is a clear disconnect between Wayuu and the wind farm company.

“There are two worlds talking about that, and they haven’t managed to understand each other yet,” he said.

This gap extends to their feeling about the wind – the core of these projects.

"For Wayuu, wind is human. It's not wind, but wind. There are eight different winds in Wayuu culture, mythology and the beings of ancestors, with unique temperaments that shape the surrounding environment and must be respected."

In contrast, the company and the Colombian government view the wind as a resource that utilizes environmental progress, profits and meets the country's energy needs.

Although Colombia has a relatively clean domestic power matrix, and nearly two-thirds are from hydropower, the country remains vulnerable to low reservoir levels, which poses the risk of energy shortages. Wind energy currently contributes only 0.1% of the energy mix.

For energy companies investing in the region, the risk of conflict with locals is a worrying prospect.

AES Colombia company is developing the country's largest wind energy cluster in Lagazila, with six wind farms.

The company insists it maintains open dialogue with the community, provides fair compensation and ensures benefits such as clean drinking water and carbon credit stocks.

But it says good community relations are not enough.

“We can’t complete these projects alone,” said Federico Echavarría, general manager of AES Colombia. “The government must help resolve conflicts among communities.”

Mr Laguna said on the wind sweeping beach in Cabo de la Vela that La Guajira has been historically ignored by the state.

Education and health care are poor, and most rural communities do not have running water.

There are still some people walking for hours every day to collect water from Jagüeys - a reservoir filled with rain.

His community has a small saline treatment plant that produces fresh water, and it hopes the company plans to build nearby wind farms to expand it, thus benefiting more locals.

Despite talking about progress, he points to the lingering paradox. "The worst thing is that even the electricity generated here will not receive a thousand kilowatts," he lamented.

The plan is to transfer power from the wind farm elsewhere, at least in the medium term, the village will continue to rely on generators.

Although there may be bright and clean energy in the future, many Wayuu are still anxious and they will remain in the dark.