Recently it became known that the National Environmental Licensing Authority approved a pilot fraking plan in Puerto Wilches, Santander. This caused discomfort to the community in general because this practice is against the environment and natural resources.
In addition, the decision to approve the pilot named Kalé would not have been consulted with the Afro communities in that area of the country, so the Afro-Colombian Corporation of Puerto Wilches (Afrowilches) decided to bring a guardianship action that seeks to stop this activity.
Together with human rights organizations, this Thursday, March 31, guardianship was filed in a Circuit Court against the Ministry of the Interior, the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) and Ecopetrol, for the violation of Afrowilches' right to prior, free and informed consultation.
This tutelage seeks to suspend both the environmental license granted last Friday by ANLA for the Kalé fracking pilot project, and the ongoing licensing procedure for the Platero project. The foregoing, until the respective consultation is made with the communities at all stages.
For her part, Lizeth Gómez, lawyer for the Podion Corporation and the Colombia Free Fracking Alliance, “this action is a reflection of the arbitrariness of ANLA and Ecopetrol in their desire to obtain environmental licenses for fracking pilots Kalé and Platero before the end of this government, so we seek the guarantee of the rights of the Afro-Colombian communities that have opposed the development of these projects in Puerto Wilches”.
Human rights organizations and Afrowilches assured that the authorities must be fair and stop these processes, in order to protect the rights of Afro communities that could be, together with their ancestral territories, seriously affected by such invasive practices that have been strongly rejected by experts and defenders of the environment.
ANLA green light for fracking pilot in Puerto Wilches
The National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) granted Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol the license to start the pilot research project (PPI) to be implemented in Puerto Wilches, Santander, despite the rejection of environmental activists from the eastern region of Colombia.
The Kalé pilot plan aims to gather technical, environmental and social information, the results of which could be the scenario that allows the implementation of fracking as an oil exploration practice in the country.
This project, which was approved by a resolution signed on March 25 by ANLA, will drill a 200-foot (60.96-meter) well that will have a trajectory of up to 4,000 feet, or 1,219 kilometers.
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