80% of Une, Cundinamarca, would be left unproductive due to the delimitation of the Cruz Verde - Sumapaz moor, led by the Ministry of Environment

The inhabitants of the municipality of Une, in the department of Cundinamarca, are seriously concerned due to a resolution by the Ministry of the Environment stating that the Cruz Verde-Sumapaz moor will be delimited and therefore declared a nature reserve.

According to the inhabitants of the region, this resolution would leave them with virtually no economic activities that would allow them to sustain themselves and generate employment, since 80 percent of the municipality is located on the moor and they have been cultivating all kinds of products for several decades.

For Mayor Fredy Cubillos, the measure will have “the impact will be negative for the region's economy. There are 432 properties in the Ramal, Llanitos, Sachets, Mundo Nuevo, La Mesa and Raspados villages, they will be seriously affected and of course 380 families will have to leave their territory in order to protect the environment”.

He added that the problem will have an even greater impact on the department of Cundinamarca: “There is an interesting occupation of labor, since more than 100 people are being employed in each crop and under this resolution we would be leaving more than 500 people without the daily wage. There is also an impact on the economy, since people make their purchases of markets and inputs here in the territory and stop producing, because of course the economic loss is quite large.”

Mayor Cubillos was emphatic in ensuring that the municipality is not opposed to the conservation of the environment; on the contrary, it seems to him that it is necessary to do so, however “it cannot be that an environmental solution will be given and they generate a gigantic social problem for us.”

Farmers and producers agreed that protecting the wasteland is very important by ensuring that they are willing to listen to the Ministry to reach an agreement that is favorable to all parties.

For Emiro Rojas, a grower of more than 30 years in the region, this measure is a head-on threat to his heritage because not being able to cultivate his farm he would lose value and would not have a sustenance to take his family.

“Here we can tell the Government that we are willing to keep the wasteland, what is more, we are willing to commit ourselves to leaving part of our farms as a conservation area, but they cannot believe that we can surrender the entire property overnight and stay with our hands folded,” he answered to the question of how these changes would affect your municipality.

Mayor Fredy Cubillos questioned that “to date the Ministry has not socialized these activities that are going to be carried out, nor has it given us a concrete answer as to what will be done with these properties. What is going to be done with the people who live there in these lands? What is going to be done with crops that were once developed and in exchange for what? Is there going to be a purchase of those properties? Is there going to be a payment for environmental services? Are the 'ranger families going to be generated? '

ON THE RESOLUTION THAT WILL DELIMIT THE PARAMO DE CRUZ VERDE-SANTURBÁN

In its order, the court gave the Ministry of Environment a year to issue a new resolution delimiting the wasteland within the framework of a participatory, comprehensive, effective, deliberative procedure taking into account the applicability of Law 1930 of 2018 and the rules set by Judgment T-361 of 2017, regarding the phases for its development and the issues that must be inescapable of being addressed in the process.

In the case of Une, the entity has 11265 hectares of paramo located that would be declared as a reserve area and 16 more municipalities in Cundinamarca and part of Bogotá are known to be part of the process.

Recently, the Forty (40) Administrative Court of the Circuit of Bogotá — Fourth Section issued a judicial decision in response to a guardianship in which it ordered that Resolution 1434 of July 14, 2017, delimiting the Cruz Verde — Sumapaz moor was terminated on the basis of technical, social, economic and environmental issues developed by the Corporations with jurisdiction in the wasteland and the reference area delivered by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Biological Resources Research.

With the decision, the court upheld the Fundamental Right to Equality, Minimum Vital, Petition and Environmental Participation, arguing that the ministry ignored the minimum content of participation based on the provisions of that resolution.

KEEP READING: