Colombia

Bulletin articles 7 April 2006
Following the adoption of the Forestry Bill in Congress, it was sent for presidential sanction on 13 December 2005. President Alvaro Uribe objected to 12 of the articles of the Law and it was expected that the text would be returned with the objections for discussion by Congress as set out in the procedure.
Bulletin articles 8 January 2006
Perhaps no other Bill in Colombia on environmental matters has given rise to such diverse opinions and to such commotion as the discussion in the Colombian Congress of the General Forestry Law adopted by this institution last December. The strength of the arguments and the response of Colombian environmentalism, social movements and even part of the mass media have been such that for the first time President Alvaro Uribe Velez returned a Bill to the Congress of the Republic.
Bulletin articles 12 November 2005
The forests of the Colombian Pacific, the Pacific Region Territory, one of the areas of greatest biodiversity in the world, have been inhabited for many years now by Afro-descendent riparian communities. Their members were the last Colombian citizens to gain recognition of their right to the ownership of the territories that they possessed and used for centuries.
Bulletin articles 14 August 2005
Forests provide for the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people worldwide and particularly in the tropical areas. Whatever activities are carried out that imply deforestation or forest degradation will therefore impact directly on the means of survival of those people and thus also on their health.
Other information 14 August 2005
Thousands of indigenous peoples are displaced from their land, which is militarized and expropriated in an unending genocide. Oil exploitation is carried out – causing damages that go uncompensated – without consulting the communities and with the connivance of the government of the time. Transnational companies such as Shell, Repsol, and Maxus appropriate territorial spaces under the pretext that they are of “public utility”, they contaminate bodies of water and river beds, they deforest virgin forests and generate impacts destroying the future.
Other information 14 August 2005
The herbicide glyphosate was identified in 1974 by John Franz, a scientist working for US-based agro-industrial multinational Monsanto. Today Monsanto boasts that its glyphosate products, which include the herbicide Roundup, are "among the world's most widely used herbicides". Glyphosate works by interfering with the metabolism of the plant and a few days after spraying, plants wilt, turn yellow and die. Glyphosate herbicides also contain chemicals which make the herbicide to stick to leaves so that the glyphosate can move from the surface of the plant into the plant's cells.
Bulletin articles 20 May 2005
The Colombia Plan has proved to be functional for oil palm economic groups (see WRM Bulletins Nos. 47 and 70). Military and para-military operations for the protection or promotion of the agro-industrial project have raided collective territories, built highways, felled forests and dug artificial canals. All this has been done in a setting of impunity and violation of Human Rights.
Bulletin articles 27 October 2004
The Nukak are a nomadic people from the Colombian Amazon, officially contacted in 1988. The present population is estimated at 390 people, distributed among 13 local groups, located in the inter-fluvial area between the Middle Guaviare and the High Inírida. Nukak as a tongue is understood by the Kakua or Bara from the Colombian Vaupes and both are classified as part of the Maku-Pinave linguistic family.
Bulletin articles 29 July 2004
It seems important to learn why for the past few years the issue of forestry in Colombia has been at the hub of the main debates and the government agenda. This article endeavours to reply to this question and to show some political elements that allow us to affirm that the issue of forestry and its environmental services are just another business, not only at national level but also at a global level.
Other information 4 April 2004
The Uitoto peoples in the Araracuara region, in the mid course of the Caqueta River show some common socio-cultural characteristics, among which a production system based on the sustainable use of three spaces: the forest, the river and the “chagra” (a clearing in the forest used for poli-culture plantation).
Bulletin articles 13 December 2003
In 1998, the author Joe Broderick finished his research on the Smurfit Carton de Colombia company, publishing his book “El imperio de cartón: impacto de una multinacional papelera en Colombia” (The Cardboard empire: the impact of a multinational paper company in Colombia). In this book he provides details of the serious social and environmental impacts caused by the activities of a branch of the Irish transnational company, Jefferson Smurfit in that country.
Other information 30 June 2003
During the late seventies Carbocol, a State coal company, revealed the existence of major coal deposits in the Guajira peninsula. The deposits were located in the territory traditionally inhabited by the Wayuu community, an indigenous nomadic people that moved along the region bordering with Venezuela. Following a long controversy on the advisability or not of exploiting this fossil fuel, the State finally gave its authorization to this company under the argument of regional development of energy.