Essay and Audio by Rosío Ariza Bautista

Cundinamarca mining activity

Audio: Here

Cundinamarca is a department that has located the Colombia center, this has 116 cities and towns, the most important is our country capital Bogota. Between the main characteristics in this department there are natural diversity and resources for the climate. In the rural area the main economic activity is the agriculture and livestock. However these activities have been moving down for the mining activity whereby the gain increased and the contamination too. In this moment there are alarm because have been conferred mining titles in moorlands, places where the water is born. In the Espectador[1] article there are data about some of the places hardest hit by this situation:
El Peñón and San Miguel (located at 2,900 meters above sea level), in the municipality of Sibaté; San Jorge (located to 3.250 m.s.n.m.), in Soacha, and the rural area of Choachi, near moorland Cruz Verde and the Natural Park of the Sumapaz.
Currently the Cundinamarca people are sick, the crops and the resources quality are being affected because the civilian authorities haven’t control over the legal agreements when exist mining processes and to this problem you have to add the places with  illegal mining activity. The Ombudsman Office has been investigating about that and assured:
"There is mining in ecosystems with vegetation of the moor and areas are water births."[2] And the situation is worst because if we affect the water, that is a vital element, all the activities and the people life will be affected
We are in front of a worried scenario, because the authorities has giving the massive granting of mining titles will be accomplices in the expansion of this activity and they are forgetting that the water is the most important resource for the life overcome the economic benefits, the unique solution is that the population will join in order to assert their rights nd protect their land.

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