Susan Abad.
Thanks to the Constitutional Court, native forests are safe⦠for now
The potential liberation of kidnapped persons by Colombia guerrillas at the beginning of the year caused news on the Constitutional Court to pass unnoticed when a law that put native forests at risk was declared unconstitutional.
On Jan. 23, the Constitutional Court declared the Forest Law of 2006 unconstitutional for âhaving omitted in its expedition the requisite of consulting indigenous and tribal communities, as stated in Article 6 of Convention 169 in the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Indeed, this 53-article law was not discussed with the indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities who are collectively owners of between 43 and 53 million hectares (106 and 131 million acres) that comprise the greater part of the 65 million hectares (161 million acres) Colombia is estimated to have in natural forests, but for experts this political decision really saved Colombias native forests.
Attorney General Edgardo Maya had already warned about the serious consequences that the Forest Law would bring to the Colombian ecosystem because âit revokes norms established in 1959 on the creation of national parks that protect water-producing glaciers and hydrographic basins in [Colombia], considered one of the greatest water potentials in the world.â
Motive: Timber exploitation
In turn, Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo, of the Independent Democratic Pole party, hit the nail on the head when he stressed that the principal purpose of the law was to exploit timber: âThe project does not intend to do anything besides handing over management of forest reserves and natural forests to multi-national loggers, introducing elements today outside of relevant legislation, such as the concession and association to manage forest areas, which it puts in reach of the multi-national companies financial interests,â Robledo said before Congress.
But the laws inability to be enforced not only saved the native forests, but also managed to put the tremendous crisis â which forests have been suffering for decades â back on the table.
âThe greatest deforester is not coca, but rather the very government that legalizes deforestation, naming illegal settlers owners of the land,â claimed Professor Orlando Rangel of the Natural Sciences Institute in the National University of Colombia.
âThe countrys deforestation rate, according to government statistics, for illicit cultivation is approximately 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) annually. The other cause of deforestation is the yearly introduction of 320,000 hectares (790,400 acres) of new land to agriculture and the annual use of 257,000 hectares (617,500 acres) of native forest for wood. This means 580,000 hectares (1,432,600 acres) are deforested each year,â Rangel claims, according to his own calculations.
âThe most serious issue,â he adds, âis that Colombia does not have a natural vegetation map and we are always talking based on what we suppose exists. We urgently need a cartographic map.â
In addition, guerrillas, drug-traffickers and most of all, Colombian paramilitary have developed an âagrarian counter-reformâ and have usurped some 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of land. According to the United Nations, a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of these stolen lands belong to indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, which triggers fears that a law not taking this phenomenon into consideration could legalize lands that were obtained illegally.
Another issue that must be considered is the governments fervent desire to turn Colombia into a biofuel producer, as reflected in President Ãlvaro Uribes âdreamâ to cover 6 million hectares (14.8 million acres) with African palm.
Uribe has said on other occasions that Colombias cold lands âcan cause the agricultural front to grow enormously and there is land for everything. There is land to increase food production and land to produce biofuels.â
Source & Photo: http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5612