Project
Preserving the legacy of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Heart of the World
Rising abruptly from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta reaches 5,775 meters (18,946 ft.) at its highest points, the peaks of Bolívar and Colón. It is the highest coastal mountain system in the world, a place where indigenous knowledge and nature’s own wisdom converge.
The sheer changes in elevation create a wide variety of ecosystems within a small area, where the diversity of plant and animal life creates a unique exuberant region. The melting snows of the highest peaks form rivers and lakes, whose freshwater flows down steep slopes to the tropical sea at the base of the mountains.
The indigenous Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa, and Kankuamo people protect and care for this natural treasure with an authority they have inherited from their ancestors. According to their worldview the land is sacred and shared in divine communion between humans, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and the spirts of their ancestors.
Despite this ancestral inheritance, development projects proposed for the region have failed to take the opinions of these indigenous groups into consideration. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is currently threatened by 251 mineral concessions, hydroelectric projects, agriculture, urban sprawl, and infrastructure projects.
Many of these concessions were granted without the prior consultation of the indigenous communities, which represents a persistent and systematic violation of their rights.
Mining, which implies the contamination and erosion of watersheds, threatens the health of more than 30 rivers that flow out of the Sierra; these are the water sources of the departments of Magdalena, César, and La Guajira.
These threats have brought this natural paradise to the brink of no return. With it, would go the traditional lives of its indigenous inhabitants, who are dependent on the health of their land and the sacred sites it contains.
The Sierra hosts the archaeological site of la Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, known as Teyuna, the cradle of Tayrona civilization. According to tradition, it is the source from which all nature was born—the living heart of the world.
The four guardian cultures of the Sierra are uninterested in allowing this natural and cultural legacy to disappear.
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ECO/Climate Action Network We are very happy to be in Lima, and ECO is ready to get right to it. COP20 needs to deliver on enough confidence building measures to ensure climate action and a successful outcome from next year’s COP in Paris. The wheels have already started turning: The Peruvian COP presidency has shown commitment and substantial effort to guide the negotiations onto the right track. The US-China climate announcement, on the heels of similar action by the EU, has injected positive impetus into the political aspect of the negotiations – and is pressuring significant laggards and defaulters, who can no longer claim inaction by the G2 to wiggle out of doing their part. The IPCC is shining clear light on the latest science, pointing urgently to deeper climate action as well as the fast-rising costs of delay. The GCF is seeing some light at the dim end of the climate finance tunnel with pledges at $9.7 billion for initial capitalization – though that’s welcome, it must not distract from the pressing need to scale up finance within the new agreement. Are these announcements and developments enough to create the right confidence building measures across countries, cement the foundation for greater political will and achieve success in Paris? ECO surely hopes so – but let’s be clear, this opening round of mitigation announcements must not be a resting place but rather a starting point that Parties will broaden and expand. The agreement in Paris is going to rest on three key decisions here in Lima: the elements of the 2015 agreement, the iNDC upfront information requirements, and ways to ramp up pre-2020 ambition. These outcomes are going to define the contours of the new global agreement. So let’s look a bit closer. The elements text must include a long-term goal of phasing out all fossil fuel emissions and phasing in 100% renewable energy as early as possible, but not later than 2050. We also expect to see goals for public finance along with a robust and honest MRV regime for them; a global adaptation goal that enables adaptation to be mainstreamed; and a strengthened two-year work plan to immediately operationalize the Warsaw loss and damage mechanism and to ensure that loss and damage has its appropriate place within the 2015 agreement. Not so easy, right? Well, don’t worry, as always, ECO is here to help. And with that in mind, we also look forward to seeing the inclusion of an enhanced role for civil society in the text. To be clear, we have high hopes for the iNDC text. The iNDCs should include mitigation with regular 5-year cycles of contributions, starting with countries putting forward their contributions for the 2020-2025 cycle, provision and mobilization of finance as part of countries’ fair share of the global effort, and voluntary adaptation contributions. Not only that, all current and future contributions must undergo a sound, robust equity and adequacy assessment phase to help drive up ambition and ensure that low ambition is not locked in by any country. The first round of iNDCs will set the tone for the future. We’ve really got to get it right on this one – it is no exaggeration to say the future of human civilization is weighing on all our shoulders. And every step counts. The effectiveness of the post-2020 agreement to be reached in Paris next year depends on the progress we make between now and 2020. On pre-2020 finance it’s simple: developed countries have to present a credible roadmap on how they are going to meet their $100 billion promise, deliver additional pledges to the GCF (this means you, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Iceland and Ireland) and also not let the Adaptation Fund dry up. We need finance and a full set of means of implementation and support to unlock untapped potential in countries and sectors that can deliver greater ambition for reducing emissions, as well as assisting vulnerable communities that are already facing impacts from climate change. On mitigation, what has the latest IPCC report taught us? All countries need to increase their pre-2020 mitigation commitments, and deliver on them through real mitigation actions. As session after session has shown, climate impacts do not stick to UNFCCC timelines; the atmosphere sees what we do, not what we think. The pressure is on but ECO is confident we can respond. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and there is no time to lose. Archivado en: English
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Each year, representatives of a variety of nations unite with one purpose: to spur international action to combat climate change. However, in the 20 years that these meetings have been taking place, the international community has yet to reach a definitive agreement. The topics covered are many, but the most important demands are that the nations commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, and that they assist in the creation of a joint economic fund that will help to mitigate the impacts of climate change in developing countries. With the purpose of informing and representing civil society, AIDA‘s team will be present in Lima to take part in the activities of the COP20 and the People’s Summit. We will be closely following the themes of climate finance, the Green Climate Fund, human rights and climate change, dams and fracking. Thank you for following along with us! Archivado en: English, Noticias
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"There we were – men and women, boys and girls, elders and community leaders – who dared to reject the burning of our homes on the river’s edge, the theft and loss of our things, the mistreatment, the insults, the humiliation from the police, the Army and public companies of Medellín, who forcibly emptied the river banks to make way for development." With these words, Isabel Cristina Zuleta gave testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights last month, describing the situation that she and thousands of Colombians have been suffering through. Zuleta, the leader of Movimiento Rios Vivos (Living Rivers Movement), is a victim of forced displacement – caused by the Hidroituango hydroelectric project in Colombia – and she is not alone. AIDA’s Co-Executive Director Astrid Puentes participated in the hearing alongside Rios Vivos, Tierra Digna, Asoquimbo, Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, Corporación Jurídica Libertad, and other partner organizations from Colombia. She argued before the Commission that, in Colombia, forced displacement caused by development projects, such as mines and dams, is not recognized as a human rights violation by the State, which leaves affected communities unprotected. During the hearing Puentes introduced the three primary causes of forced displacement from these projects: the close relationship between armed conflict and major development projects; the flexibility and violation of rules in their authorization and implementation; and the direct impacts of their operation. She asked the Commission to urge the Colombian State to guarantee rights to the victims, repair damages, and take appropriate measures to prevent displacement in the future. Puentes described human rights violations caused by specific projects, such as El Quimbo dam, which displaced hundreds of families in Huila Department, and coal mines in La Jagua de Ibirico, in Cesar Department, where air pollution displaced entire communities. The inadequate implementation of development projects in Colombia, and in the region, also violates Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR), especially the right to a healthy environment. In this regard, AIDA and organizations from the region participated in a hearing called by the Commission to analyze the situation of ESCR on the continent. In it, Maria José Veramendi Villa, a senior AIDA attorney, noted that States mainly fail to protect the right to a healthy environment by implementing mining, energy, and infrastructure projects. The problem has only worsened in recent years. "The Commission has found different manifestations of this problem over the course of at least 40 hearings, conducted over the last decade, which have illustrated the serious territorial, cultural, and environmental conflicts created by the violations of ESCR," said Veramendi during the hearing. We need an Inter-American Human Rights Commission that is firm and decided in its position towards development projects that violate human rights and that brings justice to those who cannot find it in their countries.
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