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Claire McQue

@clairemcque

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Journalist in Colombia ✍️ 🎧 @theeconomist @theobserveruk @bbc_travel @natgeotraveluk @guardian @wanderlustmag @lonelyplanet. 🇨🇴 Guidebook @dkbooks

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In journalism, sometimes you turn up to write one story and end up reporting another.🦑 I travelled to San Andrés, a Caribbean island 750km north of Colombia, to investigate a story about migrant smuggling for @theeconomist.Instead, I met a growing number of Afro-Caribbean locals (Raizals) who were angry. “They have stolen the land from us”, one person told me, “we are a minority in our own ancestral territory.”San Andrés has the carefree feel of a holiday destination, but several Raizal fishermen, leaders and youths described their frustration with the island’s decline and what they see as the erasure of their culture. Many blame Colombians from the mainland. Behind the “sea of seven colours” that attracts more than 1m tourists a year, I saw a garbage heap rotting next to a prison that dumps waste into the sea. The US recently extradited two people charged with smuggling Venezuelan migrants from San Andrés to Nicaragua. 🇨🇴 Read my new story on why a growing number of Raizals are demanding greater autonomy from Colombia, and why that sits awkwardly with efforts by Petro’s left-wing government to decolonise the country. (link in bio) by @clairemcque

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3 months ago

On Earth Day, a time to reflect. I’ve just wrapped up a guidebook to Colombia for @dkeyewitness , so you can discover some of the wildest spots on the planet in an incredible and often misunderstood country. It’s a guide about the best people with whom you can horseride along beaches, dive on coral reefs, explore snowcapped mountains, and how to meet the indigenous communities who are generous enough to show you their way of life in the Amazon. Now that my pages are filed and the book on its way to the printer, I’m back to journalism! It’s time to write the stories I care about, rooted in nature and culture. This is why reporting in Latin America is such a privilege and a pleasure. I’m sharing one of my favourite environment stories in @theeconomist from last year, reported from Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Fishermen have been retrained as coral gardeners to protect the country’s reefs from the ravages of climate change. Few would expect Colombia to be such a pioneer in reef restoration! With huge thanks to the coral gardeners for the inspiration, and to @conservacioncolombia @agendacaf @centrodevidamarina for their support with this story. Got ideas for me? Please DM! 💙 by @clairemcque

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I’ve avoided writing about cocaine in the two years that I’ve been in Colombia. But the drug which many feel demonises and dominates their country’s reputation abroad has been at the centre of disputes between Colombia’s left-wing government and the Trump Administration.On assignment for @theeconomist , I joined Colombia’s impressive anti-narcotics @policiadecolombia , trained by the SAS and US forces, on a raid against a drug lab in the Amazon rainforest.I squeezed into a Black Hawk and we spun off over coca fields near Colombia’s border with Ecuador. It was devastating to see the deforestation of the Amazon, cleared to make way for cocaine production. “Woke coke” is a joke.The US has poured billions of dollars into a pointless war on drugs that has failed. With production, consumption, and seizures of cocaine at a record high, the market forces that drive cocaine production are clearly beyond one country’s law enforcement. 👉 You can read, listen and watch my reporting on why tackling cocaine is a social and economic issue that will not be solved through force alone. Just head to the link in my bio (economist.com, “The Intelligence” podcast & “El Boletín” newsletter) 🇨🇴 by @clairemcque

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📍Bajo Bushnell, 22 km from Isla FuerteMeet @albertojosecarvajalino an ocean guardian from Colombia 🇨🇴He’s a dive master, shark lover, and he’s turning a tiny island in the Caribbean into a powerful example of local-led conservation. 🦈“A shark alive is worth more than a thousand dead ones.”He opened @nautilusislafuerte dive centre and in 2024, created @aletasdevida working with fishermen to create sanctuaries on Isla Fuerte, home to 17 species of shark including great and scalloped hammerheads.By combining ocean conservation with sustainable tourism, he’s trying to reduce fishing pressure on sharks and restore the marine ecosystem around the island’s pristine coral reefs. 🪸It’s a story of how passion and purpose can unite to save the ocean.📽️@albertojosecarvalino📷Cover: @lavidaderox Produced: @clairemcque by @clairemcque

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Meet #colombia’s sand sisters.The Wayúu have survived this desert for centuries. Now their daughters are cycling through it.Thanks to their bicycle, these girls are staying in school, earning money and pedalling towards a more independent future. ✍️ in collaboration with @worldbicyclerelief and @intrepidtravel New story at the link in my bio! by @clairemcque

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Will a “Caribbean Trump” triumph in Colombia’s election?🇨🇴 On June 21st, Colombians will elect their next president. I’m on @france24_es at 7.20pm tonight, discussing the tight, polarised race that pits hard left against far right with @rosa_pm16 . It’s a referendum on peace and security in a country where violence linked to drug trafficking is rising. It’s a vote on how to tackle inequality in a country where the richest 10% hold almost 75% of the country’s wealth, a divide that fosters polarisation. In the first round on Sunday, the centre collapsed. The far-right, led by “El Tigre” Abelardo de la Espriella surged, winning almost 44% of the vote. Iván Cepeda, the left’s candidate, won almost 41%.If El Tigre wins, he will be among a wave of far-right political outsiders taking power across Latin America, from Javier Milei in Argentina to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. They offer quick fixes to complex problems. And voters look increasingly convinced. De La Espriella promises to throw narcos into 10 new mega-prisons he’ll build in the Amazon, solving Colombia’s organised crime in 90 days (something the US and Colombia have failed to achieve in more than 30 years of their War on Drugs.) 📺 Tune in on YouTube via the link in my bio.📸 From closing campaigns in Barranquilla by @clairemcque

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Surreal scenes off #Colombia’s Isla Fuerte last weekend with @nautilusislafuerte 🪸 📽️@albertojosecarvajalino 📍Bajo Bushnell, Colombian #Caribbean by @clairemcque

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A springtime hop across the pond to see some of my favourite people, celebrate the beautiful Lucy and Ben, and check out the bluebells! 💚💛 by @clairemcque

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10 months ago

Did you know Colombia has a desert? 🌵I travelled to the Wayúu heartlands of La Guajira, a wild, intoxicating place full of inspiring stories.Feature coming soon with @intrepidtravel @worldbicyclerelief 🚲 by @clairemcque

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She fled violence. Now she runs one of Colombia’s brightest bird reserves. 🦜This is Doña Dora. In the 1990s, she was displaced from her home in the department of Meta by the armed conflict. Moving close to Los Farallones National Park, north-west of Cali, she went on to set up a birdwatching reserve by protecting patches of forest around her new home. @donadorabirding has since become a fixture on birdwatchers’ circuits, the place to see striking scarlet birds. I was reminded of Doña Dora’s story when reading about hopeful new research this week. Studies conducted across two reserves in Ecuador found that rainforests recover much quicker than scientists previously thought. The consensus was that old-growth forests need around a century to recover. The new research tells a different, more hopeful story. Although rainforests are disappearing rapidly, deforested for cattle ranching and extractive industries, old-growth forests are also returning, along with their inhabitants. Ecologists found cattle pastures in the Ecuadorian jungle recovered to primary forest within four decades. In Doña Dora’s case, her small-scale conservation efforts have boosted birdlife: red Andean cock-of-the-rocks come to mate in the surrounding forest, in a region that shelters almost a third of Colombia’s bird species. And doesn’t she wear the best shirt?Last slide captured in a different forest ecosystem, but with the same feeling of peace. 🌳 by @clairemcque

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Foodie memories of a road trip that lives on in my mind…Bahía in north-eastern Brazil is the country’s cacao heartlands (the raw ingredient for chocolate.) The crop has shaped the region’s economy and social history, although today Brazil’s share of the global cacao market is relatively small. 🍫Travelling through coastal towns, you see cacao pods in coral, fuschia and ochre piled in wheelbarrows, on road stalls and atop bars, where shirtless bartenders scoop out the pulpy white flesh to make way for cachaça—a Bahían twist on Brazil’s classic caipirinha. (Although under Brazilian law, a true caipirinha must be made with lime.) 🍋‍🟩1. Cacao in all its splendour in Itacaré, next to Caju (the fruit of the cashew nut). The vitamin C content of caju is about 3 times higher than an orange. 📷 @laura.gusstarazona 2. Beach prawns and Pastel de Camarão from beachfront shacks—seafood is the backbone of Bahían cuisine, which has its roots in the enslaved Africans who restyled Portuguese food with their own culinary traditions. Prawns tend to be cooked in lurid red dendê oil, extracted from the fruit of the dendezeiro palm tree. 🦐3. Coconuts in all their forms: water, flesh, cocacada sweets (coconut stripped cooked in sugary syrup) on Engenhoca Beach w @svenjabunte1991 @laura.gusstarazona 🥥4. Fruity and fragrant coffee, açai with papaya at @tekoacafe in Itacaré5. Chocolate Da Bezinha @chocolate_da_bezinha —heavenly in a milkshake or as squares studded with cacao nibs. Helps to pass the time on long drives through Bahían countryside 6. South in Caraiva, plantain cooked over charcoal in leaves served a zingy spicy malagueta pepper chilli sauce 🌶️7. Iced-cold beer on the beach after a night of travel @wavepokeitacare by @clairemcque

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