Colombia to repair major ecological damage caused by Barranquilla-Santa Marta highway

Colombia plans to transform the highway between Barranquilla and Santa Marta, repairing environmental damage caused when the road was built about seven decades ago. The project will restore 17,000 hectares of mangroves and revive the water connection between the Magdalena River, the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta and the Caribbean Sea.

The Environment and Sustainable Development Ministry called the initiative “Vía Milagro.” It described the project as Colombia’s first green-gray infrastructure, combining transport works with ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation.

The plan includes recovering former waterways, building wildlife crossings and restoring the natural exchange between fresh and salt water. That exchange is essential to the ecological balance of the Ciénaga Grande and the Isla de Salamanca National Natural Park.

Built between 1956 and 1960, before environmental licenses became mandatory, the highway blocked Caribbean seawater from reaching the mangroves of Isla de Salamanca, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The island, known as a “road park,” allows travelers to view mangrove forests, wetlands and beaches from the route to Ciénaga.

The Ciénaga Grande is Colombia’s most important lagoon complex and one of the Caribbean’s largest mangrove systems. The government says the intervention will also strengthen productive activities among communities that depend on fishing and other ecosystem resources.

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The initiative, called Vía Milagro, will turn this road corridor into Colombia's first green-gray infrastructure, a model that combines transport works with ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation.