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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Read moreColombia’s Ministry of Environment unveils the demarcation of the Santurbán Páramo without specifying details of the measurements
With the water supply of millions of people at risk, we urge the ministry to publish details of the demarcation and ensure that this fragile ecosystem remains free of large-scale mining operations. Bogotá, Colombia. Colombia’s Ministry of Environment announced the delimitation of the Santurbán Páramo, a high-altitude wetland ecosystem that supplies water to millions of people in the country. While the ministry disclosed some aspects of the measure to the media, it has not released full details. These include the full extension of the demarcation, exact coordinates and which mining operations are inside or outside of the defined area. The ministry stated that the protected area would increase from 11,000 hectares to 42,000 hectares in the department of Santander. However, according to the Colombian Humboldt Institute’s atlas, the ecosystem has a surface area of at least 82,000 hectares in the departments of Santander and North Santander. “We do not know if the protected area covers the total area of the páramo in both departments. Nor do we know the coordinates or what mining titles will be affected. We do not even know if there is a written draft of the official decision. This seems incompatible with the right to access accurate and impartial information, as enshrined in the Colombian Constitution,” said lawyer Carlos Lozano-Acosta of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). The páramo of Santurbán supply water to nearly two million people, including the cities of Bucaramanga and Cúcuta. As is common for this ecosystem, the páramo of Santurbán has a diversity of flora and fauna and is important for storage of atmospheric carbon, helping to mitigate climate change effects. According to the law, the demarcation of this ecosystem should be formally and clearly defined in order to prevent harmful activities such as large-scale mining, which could cause irreversible damage. According to the Ministry, companies with mining concessions and environmental licenses will remain in Santurbán. The ministry said that the demarcation affects only 10 of 29 mining titles, including those of the Canadian firm Eco Oro Minerals. It did not provide any further details. Without the exact coordinates of the ecosystem, it is not possible to know precisely the extent of the demarcation and the ongoing threat that large-scale mining poses to this water source. Eco Oro has threatened to pursue legal action if the final decision affects their investment, presumably basing its arguments on the free trade agreement between Colombia and Canada that would allow the company to sue Colombia in an international tribunal. “Colombians should not pay a company for investing where it should not, much less if it threatens their water supplies. Colombian law prohibits mining in páramos. We call on Eco Oro to respect Colombians’ right to water instead of threatening legal action to protect their investment,” said Jennifer Moore of MiningWatch Canada. Kristen Genovese of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) said, “Eco Oro is not only violating Colombian law with regard to mining in the páramo, but the project is inconsistent with the social and environmental standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is financing the project. We believe that an investigation now underway regarding the IFC’s investment in Eco Oro will confirm our analysis.” According to the Ministry, the decision will not be adopted immediately, and no date has been set to implement it. “The participation of citizens in the demarcation process has not been adequate. We do not know, for example, if the Ministry used rigorous technical studies provided by the Humboldt Institute. Nor is much known about how public participation took place regarding this decision,” said Miguel Ramos of the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo. Also unknown is how Andean forest ecosystems, or cloud forests, located at altitudes of 2,200 to 2,600 meters above sea level, will be protected and managed. These are also vital to ecosystem health and water regulation. Similar to Eco Oro’s approach in Santurbán, the mining company AUX plans to carry out underground mining in these ecosystems. To date, more than 19,000 people have signed a petition (in Spanish) urging the Colombian government to protect the water of Santurbán according to scientific criteria. The government received (in Spanish) 16,000 of those signatures in November 2013. Organizations and environmentalists have also asked (in Spanish) the Colombian government to properly define the limits of the páramo ecosystem. The demarcation of Santurbán will set a precedent for protecting the country’s other páramos. Colombia is home to half of the páramos in the world, which supply water to 85% of its population. The demarcation process must take into account the minimum projected area of the páramo in the Humboldt Institute’s Atlas and its technical studies at a scale of 1:25:000. “If the Santurbán Páramo is adequately defined, it would set an important precedent for the protection of all the páramos. This would lead the way, taking another step toward respecting the right to water of all Colombians” said Carla Garcia Zendejas of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). AIDA, CIEL, the Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo, MiningWatch Canada and SOMO -- as allied organizations -- ask Eco Oro to refrain from threats of legal action in an attempt to influence the demarcation of the páramo, and ask the Colombian government to provide full, truthful, and impartial information about the process and final decision.
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