This article examines water grabbing in the Alto Cauca in Colombia as a form of accumulation through ethnicised and racialised environmental dispossession in the capitalist system. Characterised by privatisation and historical trends of exclusion, this violent accumulation model has shaped a particular form of environmental racism leading to negative impacts experienced in historically marginalised Afro-descendant local communities. Analyzing two development projects in the upper watershed of the Cauca river – the Agua Blanca Irrigation District Project and a Project for Diverting the River Cauca – the article concludes that many actors are responsible for the negative effects of the regional development model. These include the state, national and foreign private companies, and powerful international economic stakeholders.