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).
Partners:
Related projects
Letter presenting Latin American civil society organizations' concerns on the dilution of the World Bank's safeguards policies
Latin American civil society organizations "strongly recommend that CODE members send the first draft back to Management. Without structural changes to the Safeguard Policy proposal, we question if the second phase of consultations and the review process will be meaningful". According to them, dilution of the current Bank Safeguards Policy is evident throughout the draft. Basic World Bank requirements to assess and manage environmental risks and impacts before approval are now relaxed by providing the unbounded deferral of appraisal of significant environmental and social risks or impacts to implementation. A second major concern is that the draft proposed Social and Environmental Policy and ESSs significantly shift responsibility for safeguards implementation to borrowers, but provides less clarity than current exists on when/how the use of borrower systems would be preferable and acceptable. It remains unclear how the proposed draft will help the Bank and Borrowers make decisions to prepare or use borrower systems to effectively implement safeguards in countries where major dilutions of national social and environmental frameworks are being proposed or recently approved. "The proposed draft misses opportunities to meet the highest international standards. The draft provides no binding language regarding international human rights standards and allows governments to "opt out" of compliance to the Indigenous Peoples Policy to protect Indigenous Peoples rights, which unequivocally undermines the international consensus regarding the specific and fundamental rights of indigenous peoples over their lands, resources and the course of their own development", the organizations argue.
Read more
Giving People a Voice on Hydropower Projects
Hydropower projects are on the rise in Latin America as governments seek to feed growing economies. But at what cost? The plants may harness the energy capacity of running water, a renewable resource. But poorly planned and implemented dams, especially large ones, can bring myriad harms to the environment and communities. They affect fish and water quality, and they increase emissions of methane, a gas that contributes to global warming. Flooding displaces people from their homes and communities. This costs them their jobs as farmers, fishermen and hunters – and for ethnic and peasant communities, even their cultures and traditions. AIDA works with individuals and communities to protect them from poorly conceived and developed projects by using the law to defend their right to a healthy environment. This month AIDA and other organizations submitted a brief (in Portuguese) to Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court. The information demonstrates that congressional approval of the Belo Monte Dam in 2005 is illegal because the government didn’t guarantee the affected communities in the Amazon their right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent. Some meetings were held after approval of the project, and then with just scant and incomprehensible information in foreign languages for the communities. There was also little forewarning to attend. It was like telling you that your front yard is to become a street after the diggers have already started removing the lawn. The dam – which is to be the world’s third largest – is under construction and already displacing people without anyone giving them a chance to say no to the project in their own front yard. This is the first time that our combined efforts have reached the Supreme Court for a final decision on Belo Monte, said AIDA attorney María José Veramendi Villa. If the court rules against the legality of the project, then construction will have to stop and the harms righted for failing to consult the communities beforehand. If the opposite happens, the project will continue – and so will we. We will continue to provide assistance to the Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office as it pursues more than a dozen other cases against Belo Monte. These are cases that can also advance to the highest court with the goal of protecting communities from this and other dams in the Amazon. Our efforts to help communities fight dam projects are gaining attention. The Personería of San Carlos (the municipal ombudsperson), a town in northwestern Colombia, contacted AIDA to provide expertise in international environmental and human rights law. They want help in preventing the granting of a license for construction of the El Porvenir II Dam on the Samaná Norte, the last undammed river in the area. AIDA attorney and human rights and the environment fellow, Ana María Mondragón, went there to speak at a public environmental hearing for the project. The good news is that the dam has yet to be approved, meaning that there is still time for the communities to find out what could happen and voice their concerns. The government will have to take the community input into consideration before approving the project, with the possibility that the developer may have to amend construction plans – or abandon them altogether. El Porvenir II will affect fishing, a main source of work and food for the largely poor people in San Carlos. It will also flood an area where many Colombians are seeking to recover the lands that they were forcibly displaced from as result of an internal armed conflict that started more than five decades ago. “We have entered at an early stage, before the project has been approved,” said Mondragón. “We intervened in the hearing to show the inconsistencies in the environmental impact assessment made by the company and the harms that the Porvenir II dam would have in the community. We hope this will help the authorities in their decision-making process to not grant the license.” With your help, we can keep assisting Latin American communities free of charge to exercise their right to say what happens on their land and defend themselves with the law.
Read moreOrganizations submit amicus curiae brief to Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, demonstrating that Congressional authorization of the Belo Monte Dam is illegal
The authorization violates national and international law because the communities affected by the project were not consulted. Construction of the dam continues, causing harms to people, communities and the ecosystem of the Brazilian Amazon. Brasilia, Brazil. Construction of the Belo Monte Dam continues. Meanwhile, biodiversity and the communities of the area already suffer severe damage. Civil society organizations submitted to the Supreme Federal Court an amicus curiae (in Portuguese) (friend of the court) brief that demonstrates that the Congressional decree authorizing the controversial dam is illegal because the government didn’t consult with the affected communities. The brief contains national and international law arguments for the protection of the environment and human rights. The arguments support a legal action filed by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público Federal), which seeks a Supreme Federal Court ruling that annuls the decree. The Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) prepared the document in cooperation with the Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (DEJUSTICIA), Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), la Associação Indígena Yudjá Mïratu da Volta Grande do Xingu (AYMÏX) and the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI). "The Belo Monte project was approved without the State having consulted and obtained the consent of the affected indigenous communities and traditional populations. This, alongside the environmental degradation that began with construction, has placed the individuals and communities in a situation of extreme vulnerability," explained AIDA’s attorney, María José Veramendi Villa. By not guaranteeing the right to free, prior and informed consent of the affected communities before authorizing the project, Congress violated the Brazilian Constitution and Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Even though public information meetings about the project were held, they did not constitute prior consultation because they were held after the project was approved. Additionally, information provided in the meetings was not translated into indigenous languages. Not all the affected people had access to the meetings and those who did received incomplete and last minute information about the project. As well as the issues related to free, prior and informed consultation and consent, the document reinforces the Federal Prosecutor’s arguments with regard to the right to access to justice. This right was violated when the government used a law known as Suspension of Security to suspend lower court decisions against the project and favorable to the affected population, ostensibly to protect public security and the economy. "If the Supreme Federal Court issues a favorable decision, the Brazilian State will have two obligations. Not only will it have to suspend the authorization it gave for the dam’s construction, but also it will have to remedy the past and ongoing harm inflicted on indigenous communities and other populations affected by Belo Monte," said Dejusticia’s international director, César Rodríguez Garavito. "Traditional populations affected by the dam are living in unacceptable conditions for democratic times. There is a judicial decision that recognizes that the right to prior consultation was violated, but at the same time another, preliminary and provisional, decision that authorizes construction to move forward," said Leonardo Amorim, an attorney with Instituto Socioambiental. "Consequently, this population suffers worsening health conditions and invasion of their lands. We hope that the Supreme Federal Court rejects this situation." This past Tuesday, the Xingu Alive Forever Movement (MXVPS), with the support of several organizations, requested a hearing (in Portuguese) with the President (Chief Justice) of the Supreme Federal Court to demand an immediate decision in this legal action, as well as in others that challenge large hydroelectric projects in the Amazon.
Read more