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.
Related projects
Belo Monte Dam controversy to be part of UN’s Review of Brazil’s Human Rights Record
Geneva, Switzerland. On May 25, the United Nations will examine the Brazilian government’s track record for human rights during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, Switzerland. Central to this debate will be the multiple claims of human rights violations surrounding the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric dam, slated for the Xingu River in Brazil. Many Brazilian and international groups have already sent extensive documentation to the UN highlighting the human rights violations suffered by the indigenous and rural communities in the dam’s path. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will present information from these and other reports as part of the review or the Brazilian government’s performance on its human rights obligations. Key to the controversy over the dam will be the lack of compliance with an April 2011 resolution from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an international human rights body of the Organization of American States. The Commission requested that the government halt the project and take steps to protect indigenous communities, including un-contacted tribes in voluntary isolation. Up until now, the Brazilian government has refused to either implement the IACHR’s resolution or dialogue with affected communities in the case. Two civil society reports sent by a coalition of Brazilian and international groups last November highlighted these and other problems with Brazil’s contentious hydroelectric project. The report concludes that the government did not consult with affected communities nor obtain their free, prior, and informed consent, as required by international human rights law. It also documents violations to the rights to life and health, and the possible forced displacement of nearly 40 thousand families. The two reports form part of a growing body of allegations regarding human rights violations related to the Brazilian government’s plans to push the construction of large dams in the Amazon region. “We hope that as a result of the UPR, the Brazilian government will take a hard look at the damage that its energy and hydropower policies are causing for the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples,” stated Astrid Puentes, Co-director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), which co-authored the reports. “Brazil has a great opportunity to change its development model toward one that is truly sustainable and respects human rights.” According to Andressa Caldas, Director of the Brazilian human rights NGO, Global Justice, Belo Monte is now synonymous with violations of indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental irresponsibility. “The Brazilian government will have to respond to these allegations and is already expanding its delegation for the UPR with experts specifically to defend the Belo Monte dam. But there is no way to justify such an absurd project.” What is the UPR? The Universal Periodic Review is a proceeding in which all UN nations are reviewed every four years by the UN Human Rights Council, which is made up of representatives from different countries. During the process each country is given the opportunity to demonstrate the steps it has taken to improve the human rights situation and meet its obligations under international law.
Read morePrior consultation: An opportunity for life, respect and diversity
By Héctor Herrera, legal advisor, AIDA, @RJAColombia Colombia’s ethnic groups have decrees and laws that protect their cultural persity, that defend the individual and collective livelihood of these native and traditional peoples and communities. Article 6 of Convention No. 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) stipulates that indigenous peoples have the right to prior consultation. That means that they should participate in defining the measures that could have a direct impact on them, whether legislative (such as laws or decrees) or administrative (environmental permits for highways, dams, mines, oil wells, and the like). The negotiations should be carried out in good faith and with the goal of reaching agreements on all sides. This has become very important in Colombia, a multiethnic, multicultural, and diverse country. According to the Luis Ángel Arango Library, 65 indigenous languages in 12 language families are spoken in Colombia, of which 34 have less than one thousand speakers. Traditional Afro groups speak two different Creole languages. Yet all of these languages are in danger. Colombia also is extremely diverse in biological species globally, ranking first in birds, second in amphibians and butterflies, third in reptiles, and fourth in mammals, according to the Humboldt Institute. Colombian newspaper El Espectador reported 2011 data showing that 10% of all biodiversity is found on 1% of the planet’s surface. In Columbia, 29.8% of this is collective indigenous territory and 5% is collective traditional Afro territory. Understanding this, prior consultation emerges as an opportunity to protect the cultural and ethnic persity of Colombia and defend the inpidual and collective livelihood of the many native and traditional peoples and communities. It is, too, an opportunity to protect the ecosystems that these ethnic groups inhabit as well as to protect life in all its forms. This does not mean forcing anybody to adopt a conservation, extractive, or development model. It simply means making sure that an effective space is provided for clear, honest, and intercultural dialogue with ethnic groups on measures that could affect them, whether legislative or administrative measures or national laws or extractive mining projects. This is completely in line with the stipulations of Article 6 of Convention No. 169 of the ILO . This right has also been recognized in numerous national and international legal documents. On the international level, we have the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007 (PDF file). In Colombia, we have the Political Constitution, which protects the rights of ethnic groups to their collective territory and the rights of all of society to a healthy environment. With the backing of international legal documents and the Political Constitution, the Constitutional Court of Colombia upheld the right to prior consultation for the “Embera indigenous people” in relation to the construction of the Urrá dam in 1998 and for Amazon indigenous peoples on the fumigation of illegal crops in 2003. In other cases, the High Court declared unconstitutional the National Development Plan of 2006-2010, the forestry law of 2006 and the mining code reform of 2010 because the proponents had not consulted with ethnic groups. There are yet more cases outside Colombia, such as Bolivia with the Multinational Constitution of 2009 and Ecuador with the Intercultural and Multinational Constitution of 1998, both of which recognize the right to prior consultation. So too Peru, where a law on this right was just passed this year. Culture, language and a view of the world – all of these can live on through time if we respect them and guarantee people’s rights, including the right to prior consultation. The protection of this right could also contribute to the protection of important ecosystems and of biological persity, both of which are vital issues as we face unprecedented climate change and environmental degradation.
Read more
Brazilian Government questioned yet again by international human rights body over Belo Monte Dam controversy
Brasilia, Brazil - On April 11, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), asked the Brazilian government to explain reports of poor water quality and forced evictions in indigenous communities affected by the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam in the Xingu River Basin, Brazil. This is the second time that the Inter-American Commission has asked the government to explain the health and human rights impact of construction since requesting precautionary measures in favor of indigenous communities in April of last year. The IACHR also repeated its request that Brazil detail specific measures designed to mitigate the dam’s impact. The commission gave Brazil 20 days to respond regarding the situation in the Xingu River Basin. “We hope the Brazilian government will react quickly to this latest resolution by taking steps to protect the human rights of affected communities,” said Jacob Kopas, legal counsel with the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). The IACHR is currently reviewing an international lawsuit filed by the Xingu River Alive Forever Movement (MXVPS), Para Society for the Defense of Human Rights (SDDH), Global Justice, and AIDA. The lawsuit highlights the damages the project is causing to the Paquiçamba and Arara da Volta Grande Indigenous Reservations. “The case before the IACHR aims for Brazil to meet its obligations under international human rights treaties,” explained Roberta Amanajás, lawyer with SDDH. “And in the Belo Monte case, there is abundant evidence these rights are being violated.” This past January, indigenous communities downstream of the construction site registered several cases of diarrhea and skin rashes associated with the sudden deterioration in the water quality of the river, on which they depend for drinking, bathing and cooking. In response, the Brazilian Federal Public Ministry conducted an independent water quality analysis but results have not been published yet. According to Public Ministry officials, constant water control tests are necessary to avoid the risk of contaminating the river’s waters. Another complaint under investigation by the IACHR concerns the forced eviction of impoverished, rural communities, in an area where most small farmers do not have formal deeds to their land. Fearing evictions without any compensation whatsoever, many families have accepted payments worth less than half the market value of their lands. This was the case of farmers from the Santo Antonio village, where only 26 out of 252 rural properties had a formal deed. In one case, a farmer received only $3,775 USD for a property that would have fetched almost $12,000 USD on the open market a few years ago.
Read more