Environmental archives in Colombia are sites of both aspiration and uncertainty when it comes to accountability in environmental matters. While they hold the promise of transparency, they are also spaces where information overload fuels constant rumor, speculation, and doubt. This paradox reflects the ways in which extractive industries shape the very data infrastructure that governs licensing and enables capital-driven operations. As a result, entire landscapes are subjected to an intense process of archivization. With energy transitions increasingly relying on and amplifying similar knowledge and data practices, licensing archives reveal a deep link between the extractive and renewable industries. This article explores this connection through nine months of archival and ethnographic research across three environmental archives (ANLA, Corporación Autónoma del Cesar, and Corporación Autónoma de La Guajira), situated at the heart of Colombia's emerging energy frontier in the departments of La Guajira and Cesar.
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