Colombia bans all new oil and mining projects in its Amazon
An Indigenous woman from the Colombian Amazon holds Inirida flowers. Colombia has taken a groundbreaking step by becoming the first country to declare its entire Amazon region off-limits to new large-scale oil and mining projects.
Image: Joaquin Sarmiento / AFP
Colombia has taken a groundbreaking step by becoming the first country to declare its entire Amazon region off-limits to new large-scale oil and mining projects.
Graphic shows details of Colombia’s protected Amazon region.
Image: Graphic News
It’s 42% of Colombia’s territory. It’s 7% of the total Amazon rainforest. It’s the same size as Sweden, and it’s now free from future oil and mineral extraction.
The news that half a million square km of territory in the Amazon biome of Colombia was now limited only to renewable and regenerative economic activities came out of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.
Acting Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres made the announcement, and invited all South American countries to make similar commitments, and coordinate to protect the Amazon’s integrity when massive swaths of it are threatened by extractive activities, GNN said.
Graphic News