Gustavo Adolfo Guerrero Ruiz, delegate attorney for Environmental Affairs, pointed out that the Public Ministry has requested the Administrative Court of Santander to review whether the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development has been in contempt of the participatory delimitation of the Pramo de Santurbn, ordered at the time by the Constitutional Court, through Judgment T-361 of 2017.
"The term set by the Constitutional Court was one year and five years have elapsed since the issuance of the sentence without the process having been completed," said Guerrero.
"First of all, the high court is asked to rule confirming that the agreement stage in the municipality of Vetas-Santander has been completed, since, as proven in the file, the phases of summons, information, consultation and initiative so that the community of Vetas issued an opinion, judgment and analysis of the alternatives for the delimitation of the paramuno ecological niche in the framework of sessions, hearings and meetings based on the serious and pertinent studies in force at that time", The Public Ministry said in a statement.
Vetas became the first municipality to sign a delimitation pact, to comply with Ruling T-361 of 2017 of the Constitutional Court.
In this regard, the Attorney General's Office warned "that the request of the Ministry (of the Environment) to carry out new studies in the municipality of Vetas is inopportune, extemporaneous and irregular and warned that the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, when questioning The Vetas agreement is generating mistrust in the communities, which could affect future consultations and compliance not only with this sentence but with others referring to the delimitation of pramos, and the effective protection of ecosystems of special ecological importance recognized in the jurisprudence and in the law".
What happened to the delimitation?
The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development summoned the inhabitants of March 22, 23 and 24 to achieve progress in the concertation of the delimitation of the pramo, which is already five years behind schedule.
However, no agreement was reached and there was no significant progress, for which the inhabitants feel cheated, they said in the statement.
In October 2022, inhabitants of California (Santander) also denounced the delay in the delimitation of the pramo because the Ministry of Environment rescheduled the meetings for the delimitation of the pramos of Santurbn, Pisba and Almorzadero, in Santander, in order to review the requests that were made at the public hearing in Bucaramanga.
"Months ago, when she visited the area, the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, stated that some visits would be made to the properties adjacent to the pramo, which to date has not been done," they said at the negotiation table. .
Given this, the former mayor of California and current president of the Firmes Foundation, Holmes Valbuena, publicly denounced that “there are no guarantees for the communities and they continue to impose a delimitation to their accommodation, since the agreements of the tables or previous meetings are never made. They had told us that they were going to visit farms and they come here to a new table without having done so, now, when we ask them about the issue, they answer that they supposedly visited farms, but they do not tell us which ones and what conclusions they drew”.