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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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 14, 2005 Judge Orders Measures to Protect Public Health in La Oroya In April of 2005, a Lima civil court ordered the Peruvian Ministry of Health (MINSA) and the General Directorate for Environmental Health (DIGESA) to take steps to alleviate a public health crisis in La Oroya, Peru, a city where the Doe Run company of Missouri operates a large multi-metal smelter. The court ruled that MINSA and DIGESA have failed to carry out the government’s duty to protect the population in La Oroya. In spite of numerous studies showing a severe health crisis in the city, the government has taken no action to protect public health. The Doe Run smelter emits large amounts of toxic heavy metals and sulfur dioxide into the environs of the city. According to a recent study by the company and health authorities, the contamination is so severe that 99.9 percent of the children in the neighborhood closest to the smelter—La Oroya Antigua—have blood lead levels that far exceed the permissible levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 30, 2005 CONTACTS: Rolando Castro, CEDARENA, (506) 283-7080, [email protected] Anna Cederstav, AIDA / Earthjustice (510) 550-6700, [email protected] LEGAL ACTION TEMPORARILY PROTECTS LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLES IN COSTA RICA SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — By admitting a suit filed by environmental organizations to protect the leatherback turtle, the Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rica Supreme Court has granted an injunction against construction projects in the Leatherback Turtle Marine Park. The defendants -- the National Technical Environmental Secretariat (SETENA), the Municipality of Santa Cruz, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Environment and Energy, are charged with violating the constitutional right to a healthy environment. The suit, brought by the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) and its Costa Rican participating organizations – the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center (CEDARENA), and Justice for Nature (JPN) – seeks the effective protection of the park. Specifically, the suit aims to halt construction of beach houses and tourist developments within the national park area, and to prevent the government from authorizing potentially detrimental construction before the lands dedicated to the park have been protected. The leatherback turtles are ancient reptiles surviving from the age of the dinosaurs. The species is highly endangered; with Pacific populations threatened with extinction within a decade, and as such is protected under various international treaties and the Costa Rican legislation. The presence of humans and particularly lights from houses, disturb turtles coming ashore to lay eggs and prevent the hatchlings from finding their way to the sea, thus posing a severe threat to the reproduction and future viability of the leatherback turtle. The Costa Rican Congress created the Leatherback Turtle Marine Park in 1995, to protect critical habitat where the leatherback turtle is known to reproduce. The park includes the most important remaining nesting beaches on the Pacific Coast of the Americas -- The Carbon, Ventanas, Langosta, and Grande beaches. In fact, eighty percent of the leatherbacks that nested in the 2001-2002 seasons in Costa Rica did so in the Park. Other Costa Rican nesting beaches, such as Flamingo, and Tamarindo, have already been destroyed by the lack of coastal environmental planning. “The Leatherback Marine Park should be protected from poorly planned development,” said Anna Cederstav, AIDA Program Director. “Costa Rica has an important opportunity to protect this species, which is not only part of our global environmental heritage but also a valuable economic resource for the nation.” In a 2004 report, the Costa Rican General Attorney’s office urged the authorities to not permit construction in the Park, citing impacts on the leatherbacks. The recommendation has not been heeded. The NGOs assert that the government has failed to fulfill their obligations to protect the Park and endangered marine biodiversity. The Santa Cruz Municipality should defend local interests and guarantee environmental protection within its jurisdiction. SETENA must ensure that development does not damage fragile ecosystems and protected areas. The Ministry of Environment is responsible for expropriating and conserving the land within the national park limits, and the Ministry of Finance is supposed to dedicate the necessary funds. “The injunction against construction and further permitting sends a clear message to SETENA and the Municipality that in the case of National Parks, governments must act with caution and not approve projects that threaten the ultimate goal for which the parks were established,” said Rolando Castro, attorney with CEDARENA. “We trust that the Constitutional Court will decide in favor of the leatherback turtle, a species that the court has previously determined to be a shared and highly migratory resource. The Park has great potential for scientific and tourism purposes and is an important source of local income.” This case will prevent irreparable damage to the area designated as National Park while the expropriation proceeds, and will establish an important precedent in that there are many other parks, not only in Costa Rica but throughout the Americas, that face similar threats.
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PARA PUBLICACIÓN INMEDIATA: 8 de febrero de 2005 Contactos: Carlos Chirinos, SPDA, +51-4211394, [email protected] Eliana Ames, LABOR, +51-2616515, [email protected] Anna Cederstav, AIDA, +1-510-550-6748 (EEUU) RIESGO DE SALUD EN LA OROYA ES MAYOR DE LO PENSADO: PLOMO Y COMPUESTOS DE PLOMO CLASIFICADOS COMO CANCERÍGENOS. LIMA, PERÚ – El 31 de enero de 2005, el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de los Estados Unidos publicó el Informe Semestral sobre Cancerígenos, el cual incluye por primera vez el plomo y todos los compuestos con contenido de plomo como sustancias que probablemente causan cáncer en seres humanos. Este informe enlista las sustancias cancerígenas en dos categorías, aquellas “conocidas como cancerígenas para el hombre,”y aquellas “con probabilidad razonable de ser un cancerígeno para el hombre.”Debe resaltarse en este Informe la inclusión del plomo y de los compuestos del plomo en la categoría de “probabilidad razonable de ser un cancerígeno humano”. Esta nueva clasificación de plomo y todos los compuestos de plomo se ha basado en datos epidemiológicos de estudios en humanos y en evidencia sustancial de estudios en animales experimentales. Por ejemplo, se demostró que la exposición al plomo aumenta la presencia de tumores en los riñones, el cerebro, el sistema hematopoyético y los pulmones en ratas y/o ratones (IARC 1980, 1987). Todavía no se entienden completamente los mecanismos por los que el plomo causa cáncer, pero los estudios realizados en seres humanos que estuvieron expuestos por su ocupación al plomo, han sugerido que el plomo daña los cromosomas o el ADN, lo cual puede causar cáncer (ATSDR 1999, NTP 2003). El plomo es liberado en el ambiente predominantemente por procesos industriales. Dentro de estos procesos, las fundiciones de plomo por sí solas son actualmente la fuente principal de las emisiones de este metal pesado, contabilizando más del 78% de todas emisiones de plomo en 2001 en los Estados Unidos (EPA 2003). Además de incluir el plomo y sus compuestos en la clasificación de sustancias con “probabilidad razonable de ser un cancerígeno para el hombre”, en noviembre de 2004 la Agencia de Protección Ambiental (EPA) de los Estados Unidos anunció el inicio de un proceso de recopilación de información necesaria para revisar los estándares de calidad de aire respecto del plomo. El estándar actual de los Estados Unidos de 1.5 ug/m3 como promedio anual, el que sirvió de base a los estándares fijados para el Perú en 2003, no ha sido revisado en más de veinte años, por lo que no toma en cuenta la información científica más reciente y esta alejado de los estándares internacionales. De hecho, el estándar de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) es de 0.5 microgramos de plomo por metro cúbico en el aire, siendo hasta tres veces más estricto que el de los Estados Unidos. Estas ultimas dos acciones del gobierno de los Estados Unidos evidencian la rigurosidad necesaria con la que se viene asumiendo el tema del plomo, debido al alto riesgo que este conlleva para la salud humana. En contraste, en el caso peruano resulta particularmente preocupante la situación de ciudades como La Oroya y otras poblaciones ubicadas en áreas de influencia minero metalúrgicas en donde se producen concentrados de plomo, por las altas concentraciones de este contaminante, que claramente representan un riesgo para las personas. No hay duda entonces de la urgencia de implementar medidas eficientes para evitar el aumento del riesgo para la salud humana, incluso la posibilidad de sufrir cáncer, que enfrentan las personas que viven y trabajan en estos lugares.
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