On February 2011, an article in Canada’s Business Financial Post declared: “Colombia, whose rich gold deposits were once the source of the Spanish Empire’s power, is hot again… Seemingly overnight, its nearly dormant gold-mining industry has stirred to life, and the country has become a mecca for junior miners searching for the next big find.” (1)

Today, roughly 90% of the territory in the mountainous department of Antioquia has been licensed primarily for metal mining exploration. Despite ongoing peace talks attempting to end a brutal internal armed conflict spanning over 50 years, the new gold rush is dangerously fracturing new social divisions in a fragile State. (2)

The new gold rush has arrived seemingly overnight in southwest Antioquia, a traditionally agricultural region that has thrived from the production of coffee and livestock for generations...

See full photo essay here: http://www.mimundo.org/2014/01/10/2014-01-southwest-antioquia-microcosm-of-social-conflict-in-colombia’s-new-gold-rush/