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🇨🇴 Colombia /Environment & Climate

Court suspends Petro government’s ‘express’ Santurbán moorland delimitation

From El Tiempo · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Documents & data In the courts
  • An administrative judge in Bucaramanga suspended the partial delimitation of Colombia’s Santurbán moorland issued under Gustavo Petro’s government.
  • The court said the Environment Ministry violated communities’ rights to effective environmental participation, public information and due process.
  • The ministry must restart the delimitation process with the participation of 40 municipalities in Santander and Norte de Santander.

A judge in Bucaramanga has halted the “express” delimitation of the Santurbán moorland issued during Gustavo Petro’s government. The Administrative Court’s decision suspended Resolution 0992, dated August 6, 2026, which covered 29,199 hectares across 19 municipalities in Santander and Norte de Santander.

The judge said the Environment Ministry had violated communities’ fundamental rights, including effective participation in environmental decisions, access to public information and due process. The ruling found that the measure had been adopted just 19 days after a consultation meeting, without answering or assessing citizens’ observations and without publishing the technical studies, maps and minutes supporting the decision.

Manifest opposition to the law

· Administrative court rulingThe court’s description of issuing the delimitation resolution while recusals remained pending.

The court also questioned the ministry’s decision to issue the resolution while recusals remained pending against then-acting Environment Minister Irene Vélez and other officials. The ruling described the move as a “manifest opposition to the law,” a finding that allows the administrative act to be directly revoked.

The previous government decided to disregard the agreements with the municipalities, without legal or technical basis, and only as an ideological whim.

· Angélica María GarcíaThe mayor of Vetas criticized the suspended delimitation process.

Angélica María García, mayor of Vetas, welcomed the judgment and criticized the previous government. “The previous government decided to disregard the agreements with the municipalities, without legal or technical basis, and only as an ideological whim,” she said. “We hope that this new government will carry out a more thorough participation process.”

The Environment Ministry must now resume the delimitation process in line with Constitutional Court ruling T-361 of 2017. That ruling requires the process to include all 40 municipalities in Santander and Norte de Santander and to provide participation, transparency and guarantees of access to information.

We hope that this new government will carry out a more thorough participation process.

· Angélica María GarcíaThe mayor expressed her expectation for the next delimitation process.
About this summary

Originally published by El Tiempo in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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