Project
Alberto Peña Kay
Protecting the Santurban páramo from mining's damage
In the Andean region, high-mountain ecosystems known as páramos capture water from the fog and supply it to the lowlands. One such ecosystem is the Santurbán páramo, which provides fresh water to more than two million people in Colombia.
Santurbán, like the other páramos on the continent, also captures large amounts of carbon, making it a key ally in mitigating the climate crisis. It is also a refuge for hundreds of endangered species, including the iconic spectacled bear.
The land in and around the páramo contains gold and other minerals. This has put Santurbán in the spotlight of the multinational mining industry, which for decades has sought to establish large-scale projects in the ecosystem that threaten to degrade it.
The Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo—a coalition of environmental advocates—has thwarted these ongoing attempts, with support from AIDA and other civil society organizations.
Background
The Santurbán páramo is located in the heart of the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, in the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander, at an elevation ranging from 2,200 to 4,290 meters above sea level.
It covers an area of 129,743 hectares and is home to 57 lakes. It serves as a habitat for 457 plant species and 293 species of vertebrate fauna.
There are mineral deposits in Santurbán, primarily gold, but also silver and copper. This explains the region’s mining tradition, particularly in the part of the páramo located in Santander, in the province of Soto Norte. The communities in the area have built their culture and identity around gold mining, which is mainly artisanal and small-scale.
But since the 1990s, the gold deposits in the páramo have also attracted foreign mining conglomerates seeking to develop large-scale projects. This has raised concerns among the population that relies on the Santurbán water sources, who have mobilized in defense of water, their land, and life.
Although national and international regulations prohibit mining in páramos, the Colombian government has granted mining concessions to transnational corporations in Santurbán.
Photo: Keishpixl / Pixabay.
The long struggle to protect the páramo
One of the companies that sought to develop large-scale mining in Santurbán is Eco Oro Minerals Corp.—formerly Greystar Resources—a Canadian company that intended to establish the Angostura open-pit mine there to extract gold and silver. Between 1994 and 1995, the company acquired its mining titles and conducted exploration. And in 2010, it applied for a mining permit.
That was the year AIDA became involved in defending the ecosystem, supporting the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo. Our legal work helped convince the Colombian government to deny the mine an environmental permit in May 2011.
In January 2013, the government designated a portion of the páramo (11,700 hectares) as a Regional Natural Park. That year—together with the committee and partner organizations—we carried out a campaign and advocacy efforts to urge the government to recognize the entire Santurbán area as a páramo ecosystem through a delimitation based on scientific criteria. In December 2014, the Ministry of the Environment established a delimitation that protected 76% of the páramo (98,954 hectares).
Furthermore, as a result of a litigation supported by AIDA, in February 2016, Colombia’s highest court reaffirmed that mining in páramos is prohibited.
That same year, in December, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, decided to divest from Eco Oro Minerals. This achievement was the result of a process that began in 2012, when the committee—advised and supported by AIDA and international partner organizations—filed a complaint before an independent accountability mechanism, which concluded that the IFC’s investment in the Angostura project failed to take into account the project’s social and environmental impacts, thereby contradicting the financial institution’s internal policies.
Also in 2016, Eco Oro Minerals filed an arbitration claim against the Colombian government with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), arguing that it had been adversely affected by government decisions aimed at protecting the country’s páramos, including the delimitation of Santurbán.
In 2017, the Constitutional Court invalidated the delimitation because the affected communities were not consulted. The high court ordered that a participatory delimitation be carried out.
And that year, a new threat to Santurbán emerged when the Canadian multinational Aris Mining applied for an environmental permit for Soto Norte, a gold mining project located near the páramo. Following citizen protests and technical objections, in October 2020, the National Environmental Licensing Authority shelved the project.
Photo: Aztlec.
Current situation
In March 2025, the Colombian government designated the western flank of the Santurbán massif as a temporary renewable natural resource reserve area, delimiting and protecting an area of 75,344.65 hectares. This resulted in a two-year suspension of the Soto Norte project. However, Aris Mining's contract to formalize Calimineros' small-scale mining activities through the purchase and processing of mineralized material remains in effect.
In addition, the Canadian mining company continues to move the project forward. In September 2025, it released its prefeasibility study, revising the mine’s original design.
Meanwhile, members of the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo face threats and stigmatization because of their work. In March 2025, UN Special Rapporteurs and the Working Group on Business and Human Rights denounced these incidents in communications sent to the governments of Colombia, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as to the companies Aris Mining and MDC Industry Holding Company LLC, the former co-owner of the Soto Norte project.
Regarding the arbitration claim filed by Eco Oro Minerals, in July 2024, ICSID ruled in favor of the Colombian government and rejected the Canadian company’s claim for USD 1.1 billion in compensation.
Concerning the delimitation of Santurbán, in July 2026, the Ministry of the Environment issued a resolution introducing the concept of "progressive delimitation." On that basis, the government proposes to progressively demarcate the páramo, covering 29,199 hectares across 19 municipalities—those where the participatory agreements required by the Constitutional Court in its 2017 ruling have already been finalized. It also proposes two measures on the creation and expansion of reserves to restrict mining in the ecosystem.
Learn more about the impacts of mining on the páramos of Latin America (in Spanish).
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By Yeny Rodríguez, Claudia Velarde and Rosa Peña* The UN Water Conference 2023, held March 22-24 in New York, was organized in response to the need to evaluate the fulfillment of global goals and targets in the areas of water and sanitation, about which there is growing concern. AIDA participated in the Conference to position key messages from Latin America and the Caribbean that should be made visible and included in the discussions and that should now be part of the fulfillment of the Water Action Agenda, which was adopted at the global meeting. What follows is our take on the important event and what we hope will come of it in the future. The Advances An agenda for urgent action The Conference concluded with the adoption of the Water Action Agenda, a plan that included 689 commitments—collected from the official sessions and side events—as well as pledges of $300 billion dollars in financing to drive them forward. The commitments cover capacity building, data and monitoring systems, and improving infrastructure resilience, among other actions. The online platform hosting the Agenda will remain open for submissions. Overall, the Conference served as a global call to protect water and the water cycle as a global common good and a fundamental human right. The international community was also alerted to the need for urgent action to address the water crisis—which translates into shortages and droughts, contamination of water sources, degradation of strategic ecosystems and serious governance problems— which today particularly affects the world's indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and rural communities. It’s important that the commitments made be incorporated into climate discussions, since the water crisis and the climate crisis are closely interconnected. The drive for fair water governance Innovative initiatives for the protection of ecosystems and for fair water governance were launched at the Conference. Water governance involves decision-making processes, as well as institutions and power relations that influence the flow, quality, use, availability and distribution of water (fresh or salt, surface or subsurface). One such initiative was the Transformative Water Pact, built collectively by a diverse group of more than 40 civil society organizations and academia, including AIDA. The Dutch NGO Both ENDS and the International Water Knowledge Institute (IHE-Delft) spearheaded the initiative. The Pact proposes an alternative vision of water management based on the principles of environmental justice, equity and care. It proposes frameworks for action and strategic priorities to guide decision-making. It is a response to the continued overexploitation and degradation of freshwater ecosystems, human rights violations, and the extreme power imbalances that characterize current water management around the world. The Inspiring The role of women and indigenous peoples The presence of civil society at the Conference was mostly female. This both revealed the intersectional nature of the inequalities that women experience on a daily basis in their struggles for water, and vindicated their important role in water management. Women possess and transmit traditional ecological knowledge for the care of water, lead struggles in its defense, and are more frequently exposed to risks and threats to their lives. Yet their voice is often disregarded, and they are not often invited to participate in environmental decision-making spaces. Similarly, important indigenous leaders from across Latin America and the world attended the Conference. This showed how much we have to learn from indigenous ancestral practices for the care of water, as well as the decisive role that indigenous and traditional communities play in the care of 80 percent of the planet's biodiversity and in the mitigation of the climate and water crises. The parallel events in which these actors participated made the world reconsider and reevaluate what the West has understood from science, making it clear that the ancestral knowledge system of indigenous peoples is specialized and sophisticated, and therefore must be prioritized in any policy of integrated and fair water management. The unity of civil society for water justice Although largely absent from official UN spaces, civil society had a strong and inspiring presence at the Conference. Organizations, activists and water advocates from around the world held important conversations and called for effective participation, with their own voice, in these spaces. 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Hearing youth leaders speak passionately about the importance of caring for the planet for generations to come was encouraging. As the youngest member of AIDA, I found inspiration in meeting other young people advocating for the ocean and its biodiversity. In my daily work I’m surrounded by news and numbers about the damage humanity has caused to the ocean and being part of this conference helped me see the other side of the coin. Those of us who are actively working for a healthier, cleaner and more protected ocean are part of the change and, in large part, it is thanks to us that high officials have stopped to look at the evidence and take concrete action. It is this generation that will inherit the management of the ecological crisis, whose voice deserves to be reflected in commitments to improve the way we relate to the ocean. The positive Support for seabed defense AIDA co-hosted a side event on deep-sea mining with the not-so-simple task of bringing together decision-makers to support a moratorium on deep-sea mining and seabed protection. Thanks to the impetus of a group of co-organizers—including young people from Comms Inc, The Oxygen Project, Only One and SOA—Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka attended the event. High-level representatives from Latin American and European countries also attended. It was a space for dialogue between civil society and invited authorities that resulted in encouraging commitments, including France's commitment (seconded by Germany) to invest in scientific research of the seabed and to stop investments in industrial processes related to deep-sea mining. World-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle touched the audience with her love for the ocean and her undying commitment to its protection. 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Ecuador called on the other countries that make up the Pacific Marine Corridor—Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia—to take similar measures to preserve one of the most biodiverse spaces in the ocean. What's next? Nations are now expected to comply with their announced commitments. In the region, Panama and Ecuador must expand their protected territories, ensuring the adequate monitoring of biodiversity and the sustainable management of resources. Similarly, it is expected that the countries of the Pacific, Latin America and the European Union that have declared their support for halting deep-sea mining will continue with actions consistent with that position, including active participation in meetings of the Seabed Authority, supporting the moratorium or precautionary pause on extractive activity. While there is certainly a long way to go, each decision announced at the conference in favor of preserving marine biodiversity provides some hope and motivation for our work. We will continue to collaborate with governments and communities to preserve the ocean, the planet's largest and most diverse ecosystem.
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