Court suspends delimitation process of the Santurbán Páramo

Due to the little participation they have had in the process, the Second Family Court of Bucaramanga granted guardianship to the community that lives in the vicinity of the Santurbán moor to suspend the delimitation of space. In addition, it was indicated that all proceedings related to this case should be suspended.

It should be recalled that the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) filed the environmental license requested by the Minesa company for the exploitation of gold in the area of Soto Norte, in the vicinity of the Santurbán moor.

Similarly, last September the Oral Administrative Court of Santander opened an incident of contempt against the Minister of Environment, Carlos Eduardo Correa, due to the fact that the process of delimiting the wasteland had been paused, affecting the six communities surrounding the Santurbán moor, where it was sought to advance a project of mining of minerals.

In turn, the Administrative Court of Bucaramanga had warned by that time that legal action would be taken against MinAmbiente, due to the completion of three years of non-compliance to make the delimitation, and in parallel, the communities denounced the recurring delays in the progress of the process despite different judgments that have been brought in favor of the moor.

It was until the beginning of this year that the face-to-face meetings for the delimitation of the Santurbán moor were resumed. Among the points that are discussed with the residents of Ventanas and later with the inhabitants of the municipalities of Tona, Matanza, Suratá, California and Charta, are: the Monitoring System of Resolution Management, Body for Permanent Coordination, Guidelines for the Conversion and Replacement Programs, Model financing and parameters for the protection of water sources.

However, everything indicates that the meetings have not been fruitful, since the Second Family Court of Bucaramanga took the above-mentioned decision.

To aggravate the case, in February of this year the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Paramo denounced that some social, environmental and human rights leaders who make up this social organization have been victims of threats that seek to “silence their voice”.

The organization indicated, through a statement, that they have suffered the consequences of government measures, which it described as “perverse and corrupt”, which supposedly “seek to privilege the extractivist interests of multinationals over life and the protection of ecosystems in the country.”

According to the Committee, these decisions have been ordered by international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which seek to give priority to extractive projects in this protected area northeastern Colombia.

“We strongly reject all the threats and violent acts that have been presented against leaders of social and environmental movements, who have courageously accompanied social mobilization in defense of our rights to a dignified life with social justice and a healthy environment,” the organization said in the letter.

Despite this, they indicated that they would continue to defend the Santurbán moor and the eastern hills of the municipality of Floridablanca, which they assured are “threatened” by the C1-C2 highway project, which seeks to connect Pamplona with the Santander capital of Bucaramanga, and they also indicated that they would continue to express their rejection of the project that seeks to convert the Chocoa trail and the Iguanas canyon into a garbage dump, due to its impact on water sources.

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