Good catch MacBook. Here is the translation.

"To the surprise of the people of the cities, in Santurban we did not vote Petro. We voted Duque so that we do not move. He does defend the artisanal miner and responsible mining, "says Rodolfo Medina, a miner from the municipality of Vetas, Santander, where everyone depends directly or indirectly on gold mining. While a week before the elections, in Bucaramanga, Gustavo Petro spoke to urban citizens about the defense of the pramo and the water, assuring that he would not allow any extractive project to see a green light in Santurbn, in the municipalities where find the wasteland in Duke's speech. 

 

Miners and farmers in the region see in the now elected candidate someone who can prevent or delay the mining ban in areas of the pramo and, on the contrary, promote sustainable extractive projects. Someone who "would let work", as Mario Lizcano says, a miner since he was 18 years old. Luz Villamizar and her son Rodolfo Medina. "To the surprise of the people of the cities, in Santurban we did not vote Petro. We voted Duque so that they do not displace us "says Rodolfo. 

 

The support of Santurbn to Duque is given a few months after the Ministry of the Environment, in compliance with the ruling of the Constitutional Court T-361 of 2017, issued no later than this November 11, an administrative act that will be decisive for the thirty municipalities of Santander and Norte de Santander that have part of their territory within the pramo. The Ministry will re-define the pramo, since the delimitation that had been established in 2014 was found unconstitutional by the Court because it had not consulted the communities affected by the decision.

 

The decision could set a precedent for the protection of an ecosystem that is of vital importance to all Colombians. According to the Von Humboldt Institute, water that receives 70% of the country's population, from homes to industries and hydroelectric plants, comes from this 'dwarf forest', where its low-lying vegetation condenses atmospheric humidity and converts it in water In addition, pramos also retain carbon particles, a feature that makes them an important asset against climate change and the greenhouse effect. In the case of Santurbn, according to figures from the Von Humboldt Institute, there are 2'500,000 people who benefit directly or indirectly from their fluvial star. Its re-delimitation could set a new precedent with regard to the regulation of these fundamental and scarce ecosystems: they are only found in the equatorial zone of the planet and 50% of them are in Colombia. However, it is not only water that is found in Santurbn. Gold is the other treasure that lies within the mountain. Thousands of people who live within the pramo and who are in suspense and waiting for a new decision of the Court to balance the tension between the two resources, depend on him economically. In the country, water is protected by the right to its access and by the special protection provided by Law 99 of 1993, which established the environmental policy for the areas of pramo, subpramo and water sources. And gold is still the subsistence resource of many in the mining province of Soto Norte in Santander, made up of the municipalities of California, Charta, El Playn, Matanza, Surat, Tona and Vetas, and whose territory is partly located within Santurban

 

If the delimitation line is lowered, whose current height is around 3,100 meters, local and foreign farmers and miners could see their activities turned illegal, so the communities foresee a possible economic stagnation in the region. Part of their territories are already within the pramo so that agricultural and mining activities are prohibited. In the case of the municipality of Vetas, which is completely dependent on mining since its founding around 400 years ago, more than three quarters of its territory is already covered by the paramo line and several mining companies have stopped working. There, below the line, four mining companies operate, although in the region they are known as artisanal because they belong to people from the area, in fact they have a considerable degree of technology. Seen from a distance, the mining company Reina de Oro, one of the four that operates in the municipality of Vetas, Santander. 

 

The problem not only affects the mining municipalities of Santander. In Norte de Santander, where about 72% of the pramo is located, the peasants have also been affected by their economy since it is formally forbidden to cultivate in previously used areas. "We need to be allowed to cultivate or to propose a clear path towards the reconversion of agricultural activities," says Fredy Maldonado, a farmer from the municipality of Silos, Norte de Santander. The feeling of the majority of the population of the province of Soto Norte is that if the delimitation line is lowered, it is likely that thousands of peasants and miners will lose their jobs and move to the city. "At the traffic lights in Bucaramanga they will not want to receive thousands of people displaced from the pramo, they already have enough with the Venezuelans," said a miner who was waiting for the results of the elections in the central square of Vetas. 

 

Miguel Cortilla, who now works as a miner, came from Venezuela to Vetas, Santander, due to the convulsed situation of the neighboring country. In the photo he plays bowling, the day before the elections on June 17. Like the majority in Santurban, I expected Duque to win. Unlike many other parts of the country, where prior and popular consultations (which Duque has said should be limited) were a victory for the right of communities to speak out against mining interventions, in Soto Norte people say that to become one, they would vote in favor of mining. "Not only is our livelihood but it is the only thing we know how to do for generations, we want mining," says Ivonne Gonzales, director of the Association of Municipalities of the Pramo de Santurbn. If the Ministry of the Environment does not keep the line where it is currently, the miners and farmers in the area expect the Duque government to propose clear alternatives for the region, since there are few crops that occur between the haze and the steep slopes of the mountains.

 

The temperature and the number of times that it goes down from zero degrees throughout the year not only prevent trees from growing in the highlands, but give little more than potato and onion crops. Mario Lizcano, a miner since he was 18, looks at the results of the presidential elections on June 17. He also voted for Ivn Duque. The solution to the socio-environmental conflict would be in the design of programs of conversion or substitution of productive activities that took into account the particularities of the area, both the environmental and anti-mining sectors and the Constitutional Court agree on it. For its part, the Court established with sentence 305 of 2016 that the CARs and the Ministry of the Environment should draw up plans to reconvert the agricultural activities in the pramo areas, but to date none of the two entities has given know some program of economic reconversion for areas of pramo. 

 

Beyond the reconversion of agricultural activities, the Court has not mentioned the conversion of mining activities and the bill that hopes to create a public policy on the conservation of paramo and high mountain ecosystems is still being processed and has not been consulted enough with the affected communities. Ivonne Gonzlez and her sister Aura Gonzlez, who are co-owners of a mining company, look at the coverage of the presidential elections on June 17. At the rate at which the process of re-delimitation advances, the Ministry of the Environment may take longer than expected to issue a new resolution. Only three of the seven steps of the process have taken place. There is still a need for concertation between the actors involved and the authorities, for all those involved to be able to present observations against the delimitation proposal, for the ministry to take into account the contributions of the various actors and finally issue a new resolution which will be implemented with the participation of the community. 

 

In addition to that the process advances at a slow pace, according to the first report of the Attorney General's Office and the Ombudsman's Office on compliance with the provisions of the Court, the right of participation of the communities - which was violated with the issuance of the previous delimitation and gave rise to the new process- would be being violated again, at least partially. The report states that "it could not be confirmed that the academic sector, mining associations or cooperatives and agribusiness associations had been formally convened" and that the municipal councils of Bucaramanga (whose mayor is against mega mining in the pramo), Girn, Floridablanca and Villa del Rosario. So things and faced with the lack of a clear program of conversion or replacement at the doors of the new delimitation, Vetas decided to pray for 30 hours so that the next president would allow them to continue extracting gold from the mountain.

 

"Ask the powerful: Illuminate the minds and heads of those officials who have the earthly authority to make some decision in the review of the delimitation of the ecosystem of the Pramo de Santurbn" said Orlando Rodriguez, who is a miner, at the exit of the Blanca Mora and her son look at the coverage of the elections, she says that she and her family were the ones who gave her the 16 votes that Gustavo Petro won in the first round, because they believe in the proposal of the Human Colombia. decided to give his vote to Ivan Duque because his daughter aspires to win a quota of the program Ser Pilo Paga, a program that Petro had promised to finish.At the same time as the vigils ended in Vetas, in Bucaramanga a protest organized by the Mayor of Bucaramanga and the Committee for the defense of water and the Pramo de Santurbn.

 

The coincidence highlighted the division between two groups that claim to be the ones who really lead n the defense of the pramo. On the one hand there is the urban citizenship that manifests itself and, on the other, the miners, who affirm that if it were not for them, illegal mining led by groups outside the law would have already finished part of the ecosystem. (Both the Committee and the law firm that filed the guardianship that led to the previous delimitation of the pramo fell, preferred not to comment for this article because they considered that their cause could be politicized). 

 

The protest was protesting among other things to protect the entire area of the pramo, because although its area comprises 129,743 hectares, the Ministry of Environment divided it into three following socio-environmental criteria: a preservation zone of 98,994 protected hectares, one of restoration of 25,257 hectares and another of 5,502 hectares destined for sustainable use. A few meters from the latter is where the multinational Minesa, which is defined as "Colombian mining company" -but owned by the state investment fund of the United Arab Emirates, Mubadala- plans to develop the project "Soto Norte", the Colombia's largest underground gold mine "The Minesa multinational carries out education, employment and infrastructure improvement programs in the province of Soto Norte, where it has a mining concession. In the photo, inhabitants of Vetas, Santander, meet in the municipal park after having voted in the presidential elections on June 17. As with the re-delimitation process, which will decide the fate of peasants and miners who hold mining titles in the different areas of the pramo, (including the one of restoration in which, according to the delimitation of 2014, mining activity is permitted), the The National Environmental Licenses Authority's response to the request for an environmental license by Minesa is still to be known. Since its concession is only a little over a hundred meters from the area defined as pramo, Minesa technically would not exploit the pramo. 

 

However, the negative effects of an eventual mega-mining project are multiple. The integrity of the pramo and the water that emerges from it, as well as that of any ecosystem, depends on its continuity and its relationship with neighboring ecosystems such as the subpramo zone. To date, the mining company has received the backing from the Democratic Center and the Minister of Mines, and its well-made mining speech goes hand in hand with that presented by Duque during his campaign. Time will tell, no later than November 11, if the pramo line goes down or not, if Santurbn continues to set a precedent regarding the delimitation of the pramos of Colombia, if the socio-environmental conflict that the region is going to face will have a prompt solution and if Minesa could be enabled until 2044 to extract an estimated 9 million ounces of gold. Inhabitants of the municipality of Vetas, gathered on June 17 in front of the polling station in the town square. Until then the future of the pramos will not be known with certainty. The truth is that here, in Vetas, in front of the televisions of the bakeries, the inhabitants of the mining municipality were very happy with the official announcement that Ivn Duque would be the next president of Colombia. They clapped and celebrated. One of them, visibly enthusiastic, sentenced: "Yes, Duke president! Now if we are going to fix the walk. "