audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - In Colombia, a 50 year civil war has wracked the region, between the Colombian army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The lack of infrastructure, transportation, and basic amenities has led to the only money for many local farmers being fields of cannabis. As the war has left the hills of the ToribÃo region in southwestern Colombia, an off-limits zone for authorities, the black market fields have expanded, lighting up the night sky. Now with rebels gone, Colombia is diving into the pot industry. The jungle around Toribio so-called 'lost city of marijuana' is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see. At night, the greenhouse lights glow like a sea of bioluminescent plankton. Historically, Colombia has received billions of dollars in American aid to end the drug trade, but now the government has begun giving licenses to some small overseas companies, under a new law that allows the cultivation of medical marijuana in a cannabis cooperative and in turn giving illegal growers a chance to come clean.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 15, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - SEBASTIAN, born in Toribio, is one of several inhabitants that grows marijuana illegally in Colombia. He sells his product to local clients who afterwards will either sell it nationally or export it to Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico or Panama.The jungle around Toribio in southwestern Colombia is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see. At night, the greenhouse lights glow like a sea of fluorescent plankton. Colombia's 50-year civil war devastated this region. Fighting between the Colombian army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) displaced 8,800 people in the municipality of roughly 30,000 inhabitants, and killed nearly 300, according to the government's victim registry. But it also gave the residents a way to earn a living. The fighting turned the hilly terrain around Toribio and adjacent municipalities into a no-man's land that government authorities dared not enter. The locals, most of them members of the Nasa indigenous people, tended the marijuana plantations while the army and the leftist guerrillas battled it out. The so-called 'lost city of marijuana.'
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 22, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - ROBEIRO climbs to the top of his greenhouse with electric cables that will power light bulbs to keep constant light for the first 3 months of marijuana growth. The jungle around Toribio in southwestern Colombia is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - ALBEIRO and his brother CARLOS help each other to close a bag with fresh marijuana plants that are headed to an oven to get dried.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - CARLOS, 13, carries several marijuana plants on his back and starts walking towards a neighbor's house. His neighbor is lending him his oven and will charge him a small commission for the usage.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - Marijuana branches that have been already dried are placed in the corner of an empty house used for workers to cut the leaves from the marijuana buds before being weighed and packed.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - MARIA cuts marijuana leaves out of the buds. Clients only buy buds without leaves which decreases the weight but gives more quality to the marijuana. Cutting leaves out of marijuana buds is a job only for kids and women in Toribio, since men decide to be more in charge of the sales and plantation.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 16, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - MACHIN and his neighbor start putting their client's logo (red skin indian) with tape on pre-vacuum sealed marijuana packs. The logo will help the delivery guys to know who is the client and where to make the delivery so the product doesn't get lost during the transportation.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 22, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - ROBEIRO, 26, was born in Toribio-Colombia. When he turned 18 he joined the Colombian military and served for 6 years. He returned home afterwards and with some money savings from his service he started his first marijuana field. Months after, the same government military people he worked for knocked on his door and pointed guns at him. They told him they were going to burn down the marijuana fields. Robeiro needed to save the harvest because with the income he makes out of it he manages to feed his own family. Robeiro offered 1 million pesos to the military to leave him and his family alone. A couple months after they returned and burned the place down. ''They were firing at our feet and humiliating us because we were trying to save the harvest,'' said Robeiro. Afterwards, in the National press, the military said they've taken around 15 thousand million Colombian pesos from the FARC guerrilla armed group. Robeiro does not work for the guerrillas or sell marijuana to them but he still was defined as one. ''This happens very often. The military comes to the mountain looking for guerrillas or Narcos and shoots at us when we're nothing but farmers''. Robeiro still grows marijuana and supports his family with it.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 21, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - The majority of lights in the image are illegal marijuana fields in the mountains of Colombia. Since marijuana needs constant light during the first 3 months of growth farmers tend to steal the electricity from street poles by hooking peeled cables to them and powering their own plantations. The jungle around Toribio in southwestern Colombia is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see. At night, the greenhouse lights glow like a sea of fluorescent plankton. Colombia's 50-year civil war devastated this region. Fighting between the Colombian army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) displaced 8,800 people in the municipality of roughly 30,000 inhabitants, and killed nearly 300, according to the government's victim registry. But it also gave the residents a way to earn a living. The fighting turned the hilly terrain around Toribio and adjacent municipalities into a no-man's land that government authorities dared not enter. The locals, most of them members of the Nasa indigenous people, tended the marijuana plantations while the army and the leftist guerrillas battled it out. The so-called 'lost city of marijuana.'
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 15, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - The view inside one of the homemade ovens to dry marijuana branches. The electricity is usually stolen from the electric poles by peeling the cables and hanging new cables that will power the oven. The oven has peeled resistence that heats up with electricity and allows them to dry the marijuana in 3-4 days.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - Some farmers invest in more luxurious spaces for their marijuana fields such as greenhouses which will keep the plant away from direct sun light and rain. This helps them to have a more controlled harvest.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 18, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - CARLOS, 13, helps his brother ROBERIO carry plants to the home made oven to dry the marijuana branches.The jungle around Toribio in southwestern Colombia is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 20, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - ALBEIRO cuts big plants inside a homemade oven. The plants need to be cut into several smaller branches so that they can be organized more efficiently. This particular oven dries up to 250 plants in 3 to 4 days. The jungle around Toribio in southwestern Colombia is filled with vast pot plantations that stretch as far as the eye can see.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 16, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - Marijuana farmers cut marijuana branches before drying them and replanting them to grow a new harvest. This way they don't have to spend money or time getting seeds from other plants and it makes the growth process faster.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Nov 17, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - JOSE EMILIO shows a plant that has been attacked by a fungus that turns the plant yellow and brown. The change of color makes the plant not sellable and has to be cut and burned.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Dec 1, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - EDWIN, 5, works cutting leaves out of marijuana buds to help his mom make a better weight so at the end of the day she gets paid more.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
Dec 1, 2015 - Toribio, Valle del Cauca, Colombia - SEBASTIAN poses in his room with an old rifle he uses to protect his farm from people trying to rob him. Light bulbs are the most common object to be stolen from farms since they're very expensive, around 3 dollars each bulb.
© Nicolas Enriquez/zReportage.com/ZUMA Wire
