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Sierra Grande Case – ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE IN PROTECTION AND FOREST SUITABILITY ZONE

Writer's picture: julianm08julianm08

In February 2019, the second instance judgment issued by the HONORABLE COUNCIL OF STATE was notified in the POPULAR ACTION process instituted by Julio Enrique González Villa (founding partner of GONZÁLEZ ABOGADOS SAS), as Popular Actor, against the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Negro and Nare River Basins (CORNARE), for having violated the collective right to enjoy a healthy environment.


In this ruling, the plaintiff Julio Enrique González Villa prevails and the protection of the collective rights invoked is upheld. This decision of the highest administrative litigation court in Colombia becomes one of the essential decisions when studying protected areas of forest protection and the limits of human urban intervention.


The popular action was instituted in 2016 against CORNARE because it allowed the construction of houses and civil works of the so-called Sierra Grande Residential Unit within protected areas classified as "forest protection and forestry suitability ."


Although the Regional Autonomous Corporation and the developer of the residential unit claimed that the areas in which the latter was built were not protected areas, but areas with “environmental determinants”, the Council of State made an important dissertation on what protected areas, protective forest reserves and protected lands were, and concluded that part of the residential unit had been built on land legally classified as protected areas, specifically, protection and forestry areas.


In this case, the Council of State drew attention to the reprehensible nature of the merely formal compliance with environmental regulations, allowing the irreversible deterioration of protected areas.


The Environmental Authority was ordered: (1) to prepare, execute and finance a management plan for protected areas called protection and forestry suitability zones; (2) to carry out a formal education campaign aimed at municipal administrations and the neighboring population; (3) to review each and every one of the urban planning licenses granted that have authorized anthropogenic activities that could damage the environment; to design and implement a consultation platform for granted environmental and urban planning licenses; to register the different protected areas in the registration folios of the affected properties, and to publicize this decision.


Our law firm has been at the forefront of the full compliance of the popular action ruling within the verification committee that is promoted within the process.


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