https://theecologist.

org/2017/nov/03/colombias-jaguar-corridor-highlights-fragility-countrys-
protected-areas

Colombia's jaguar corridor 'highlights fragility of country's protected areas'

| 3rd November 2017

The Colombian environment minister (seated right in blue shirt) being shown a plan of the
Yerbabuena site by Yesid Blanco (pointing at the map). The photo was taken by the
environmentalist organisation Corporacion Yaregueis two days before the minister left for London.

A scandal-hit development in Colombia's jaguar corridor highlights flaws in country's

environmental protection laws. ROBIN LLEWELLYN investigates

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be in London this 10 November to receive the Kew
International Medal for his "work to protect the biodiversity of Colombia".

According to Richard Deverell, Director of the Royal Botanical Garden Kew, by 2018 Santos will
have "doubled the area under national environmental protection from 13 million hectares at the
beginning of his government to 28.4 million hectares in 2018".

The extent to which these areas are really protected and the means by which the state monitors
them, is, however, being questioned by local environmentalists involved in a test case at the heart
of the future of Colombia's protected areas.
Damaging activities

Last month Colombia's environment minister Luis Murillo was also in London, promoting his
government's protection of Colombia's biodiversity.

Two days before he had left Colombia he announced he would explore the possibility of listing the
wetland of the Cienega of San Silvestre under the Ramsar Convention, an area vital to threatened
species and from which 300,000 people in the neighbouring city of Barrancabermeja source their
drinking water. 

But the area had already been protected: in fact, it formed a vital part of the ‘jaguar corridor', an
international network of protected areas.

It had been established that the big cats passed through the wetlands having swum across
Colombia's longest river, the Magdalena, to reach neighbouring populations that in turn link
towards Venezuela and the Amazon.

The protected area was known as the "regional district of integrated management of the wetlands
of San Silvestre", in which damaging activities were banned.

Public functionaries

But in 2014 the local environmental authority, the Autonomous Corporation of Santander(CAS)

consented to local company Rediba in allowing a zone within the centre of this protected area - to
be de-protected so a rubbish dump could be built. Law 838 of 2005 otherwise bars the
construction of dumps in protected areas. 

Esteban Payán, the regional director of Panthera, the big cat charity that has spearheaded the
jaguar corridor concept, described the decision to build the project as "absurd". Locals appealed to
the Constitutional Court claiming the dump was contaminating local water sources.

While the Constitutional Court ruled that the site had "put at risk the local population, who have
been exposed to pollution from the project", it only ordered Rediba to improve its handling of
waste.

In June, it gave the CAS until 20 December to consider whether to close the site permanently. The
mayor of Barrancabermeja has meanwhile declared a state of "sanitary emergency" which allows
the Yerbabuena site to remain in use while CAS decides how to respond.   

Oscar Sampayo, of the local environmentalist association GEAM, told The Ecologist: "The minister
is touring Britain and talking about protecting biodiversity and expanding protected areas, while
here the jaguar corridor is being degraded by the inactivity of public functionaries."

At best naïve

For Sampayo, protection means "that the dump be closed, that its licence be revoked, and that the
polygon [the "de-protected" area] be re-integrated so that the fragile ecosystem of San Silvestre
can be protected."

The head of the CAS at the time the licence was issued, Flor María Rangel, is in
jail awaiting charges of corruption.  
The current director of the CAS, Gabriel Alvarez Garcia, told The Ecologist: "This authority has the
right to grant permits to infrastructure projects that will impact the natural environment: the CAS
director at the time [of Rediba's solicitude] decided that the request from the mayor of
Barrancabermeja was necessary and complied with the law."  

Lawyers acting for local residents describe the Constitutional Court ruling as at best naïve.

Local paediatrician and environmentalist Yesid Blanco says: "The CAS has demonstrated itself to be
a corrupt entity, working against the laws and principles it should defend.

Rubbish dump

"There needs to be a profound reform of the way that all regional autonomous corporations are
formed and controlled. At the moment there is no entity that regulates them".  

He added that the expansion of protected areas is proceeding as a requisite of agreements made
with the European Union as part of their support for peace accords with the FARC guerrillas, but
this expansion is taking place without providing the finances needed to make such protected areas
operative.

"This situation in Barrancabermeja is so important because the government needs to enforce the
norms of protection for the jaguar corridor because this part is so important, it's the only link
between the populations in central and south America.

"Europe needs to make sure that the government is abiding by its promises of protecting areas of
special environmental importance, rather than putting a rubbish dump in the centre of the jaguar
corridor.

"It's clear that the CAS is not acting as an organ of control, which leaves us with little hope for the
future of our environment."

Social objections 

Luis German Naranjo, Conservation Director of WWF Colombia, told The Ecologist that the
performance of the regional environmental bodies (which are tasked with making the promises of
President Santos and Minister Murillo a reality across Colombia) varies depending on their funding
levels.

He added that their dual responsibility - that of issuing licences for economic and infrastructure
projects, and of protecting the environment - could be "a potential source of conflict". 

The "regional autonomous corporations" such as CAS gain the most significant part of their
funding through the fees, fines and licences tied to economic activity within their jurisdiction,
meaning that increasing such activity can become privileged over rural monitoring.

The irregularities surrounding the Yerbabuena site have continued to make the news. On 13
October Rediba manager Liliana Forero Cala was placed under house arrest while
prosecutors investigate her in relation to the site for procedural fraud, environmental
contamination, damage to natural resources, concealment and destruction of evidence, and
invasion of private property.
Whether such processes will influence the future of the site remains unclear. The president of CAS
assured The Ecologist that the organisation would consider all environmental and social objections
raised by the community before deciding on whether or not to close the site.

Environmentalists across Colombia will be watching with some scepticism to judge whether the
Yerbabuena site will serve as a turning point for environmental protection in Colombia.