• In La Calera, Colombia, a Coca-Cola subsidiary was extracting thousands of litres of water during a drought, while citizens were forced to ration it and pay more for it.
• A group of local activists launched a campaign to protect water resources and guarantee fundamental rights for citizens.
• The action resulted in a reduction of the company's water extraction rate and the number of springs it can draw from, as well as the possibility of suspending the concession in the event of severe drought.

When in 2024 a severe drought struck La Calera, a small town near Bogotá, Colombia, many of its residents found themselves forced into strict water rationing for drinking, cooking and farming. Yet because the area is home to the Chingaza reservoir, which supplies around 70 per cent of the Colombian capital's drinking water, citizens began examining the management of water resources and discovered that Indega, a subsidiary of Femsa – the world's largest Coca-Cola bottling company – was continuing to bottle thousands of bottles of water a day to sell under the popular mineral water brand Agua Manantial.

Several protests erupted across the town, and some activists launched a fight against this system. As the Guardian reports, after a hard-fought campaign marked by intimidation, abuse and death threats, the activists achieved a victory for the environmental cause: in April 2026, local authorities reduced Indega's water concession to its lowest level since the company began operations in the 1980s.

The battle for water in La Calera

The battle of La Calera began more than a year and a half ago. The town is one of 11 municipalities in the Chingaza National Park, an area historically rich in water, where the reservoir system was nonetheless drained between 2023 and 2024 by an extreme weather event linked to El Niño, leaving it just 15 per cent full – the lowest level ever recorded. While investigating Indega, the community discovered that the company not only enjoyed privileged access to water, but was also paying just 120 pesos per cubic metre to pump and sell water, while families in La Calera were paying between 697 and 3,720 pesos (15–78 pence), depending on their income.

Outrage over Indega's water use turned into action: some residents joined together to oppose the company's request to renew its concession ahead of its expiry date in December 2024, submitting a petition and running social media campaigns to bring La Calera's plight to national attention.

Not all residents, however, embraced the environmental cause. Some sided with Indega, which provides employment and invests in local infrastructure. The activists faced serious threats (Colombia recorded the highest number of assassinated environmentalists in the world between 2012 and 2024) and attempts to smear them on social media. Municipal councillor and local indigenous community leader Javier Cifuentes was labelled a "fake indigenous drug addict".

Thanks to the actions taken by the activists, in April 2026 the regional Autonomous Corporation decided to renew the concession, but drastically reduced Indega's water extraction rate from 3.23 to 1.9 litres per second. It also reduced the number of springs the company can exploit from seven to four, halved the duration of the concession from 10 to 5 years, and introduced the possibility of temporarily suspending it in the event of severe drought.

Concerns remain, particularly regarding how authorities will monitor Indega's water use, but for the activists this nonetheless represents a "first step" in an existential battle to protect water resources.