Press Release: The People of the Centre are Opening a Path of Understanding with the Colombian Government to Jointly Safeguard the Future of Life in the Amazon

Read the press release in English and Spanish

Bogotá, 27 October 2023

During the week of 23-27 October, our delegation of traditional authorities and delegates representing the indigenous Amazonian Pɵɵsiɵhɵ (Andoke), Nonova ɨɨni (Nonuya), Feenemɨnaa (Muinane) and Nɨpode-speaking Uitoto peoples were in Bogotá to demand that different national government authorities guarantee our direct and effective participation in the forest policy instruments and agreements ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice under Ruling 4360/2018.  Our peoples are the traditional owners of territories of life in the departments of Amazonas and Caquetá. We are known as the ‘People of the Centre’ and we make up the Association of Traditional Authorities of the Regional Indigenous Council of the Middle Amazon (CRIMA). The primary objective of our visit to Bogota has been to obtain guarantees for our fundamental rights, including the right to exercise self-government, and our rights to prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent, among others.

The Colombian Supreme Court ruling ordered that concrete mechanisms to stop deforestation and mitigate climate change be established, in order to safeguard the future of life in the Colombian Amazon and the rights of future generations. Five years have passed since the ruling, yet, we, the indigenous Amazonian peoples who inhabit the Middle Caquetá River Basin, who identify ourselves as the ‘People of the Centre’, have not been informed in a timely manner about the process and, even less, consulted in our ancestral and traditional territories.

This situation is of immense concern to us. We, the ‘People of the Centre’, are the ancestral owners of our territories, which cover almost 3 million hectares. We are concerned about the expansion of the agricultural frontier, and we are dismayed that the Colombian state has not been able to control it, thus violating the fundamental rights of our future generations.

Given our apprehensions about threats to the Amazon forest and the violations of our fundamental rights, we, the ‘People of the Centre’ requested a hearing with the High Court to express our serious misgivings in relation to STC 4360/2018. This hearing was held on 25 October in the presence of state institutions with which we also met during the week, including the Administrative Department of the Presidency, the Ministries of the Interior, Agriculture and Rural Development, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ombudsman's Office and the Amazonian Institute for Scientific Research SINCHI. We consider this hearing to be historic, as we are the first Amazonian Indigenous Peoples who have given evidence and presented petitions directly to this Tribunal overseeing implementation of Judgment 4360/2018.

We presented directly to the hearing our concerns regarding climate change and the uncontrolled advance of the deforestation frontier, which have affected our territories of life in various ways, including increasing temperatures, alteration of crops in our traditional fields, loss of soil fertility and disruption in the reproductive cycles of species such as fruit trees in the forest and fish in our rivers. All the above violate our fundamental right to life, and are threatening our health, food security and future survival. Forest destruction and climate change also endanger the health of our Mother Earth. Our Mother is sick, and her sickness affects her human children and all other beings in nature.

In order to assert our rights and sustain the life of future generations in our ancestral and traditional territories, we presented our concerns and proposals relating to ruling 4360/2018 to the state bodies and to the High Court, including, among others:

1. The national government must guarantee us a process of prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent, with adequate guarantees and resources, before formulating and implementing any plan or action that could affect our territories of life. These rights must be triggered in relation to all plans, programmes, projects, measures, ordinances, contracts, international treaties, conventions and judicial decisions that have been taken and may affect our traditional and ancestral territories. These fundamental rights are protected under the Colombian Constitution and in jurisprudence derived from the decisions of the higher courts of Colombian. They are also recognised in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO Convention 169 and other international human rights instruments.
2. The National Government, the Supreme Court of Justice and the High Court of Bogotá must guarantee our rights of access to information and full, effective and direct participation in all actions, decisions, measures and initiatives relating to this court ruling and subsequent court orders that may potentially impact on our territories and fundamental rights. This must be enabled through the establishment of a new intergenerational space or mechanism which allows us to influence all the relevant processes of the STC 4360/2018, that may affect us and our generations.
3. We must be guaranteed the exercise of our rights to govern, control and administer the territories of the four peoples of the ‘People of the Centre’ in any national or international plan, programme, measure or initiative associated with the Judgment, which may have a (direct or indirect) impact on our cultural and territorial rights and integrity.
4. To ensure the future of life in our traditional and ancestral territories in the Colombian Amazon and to benefit future generations, Law No.2 of 1959 must be repealed or at least amended, in order to establish solid legal guarantees for our territorial rights. In addition, adequate public resources must be made available to strengthen self-government and support the territorial environmental management practices of the ‘People of the Centre’.
5. The National Government, NGOs along with international climate and environmental funds must ensure direct funding and technical assistance for our peoples, in order to maintain our ancestral knowledge systems and support our self-determined initiatives to care for our territories of life. Our priority is to construct our own Life Plans according to our Word of Life to guarantee the survival of our present and future generations.

With respect to these concerns and proposals, we will be waiting for the Court to make a decision in the next 15 working days (as we were assured during the hearing). Life in the Amazon depends on the decisions that are taken in bodies such as this one, so we hope that our claims will be accepted and that we will be shown the will to build a path of understanding with the Colombian government in order to guarantee our fundamental rights, safeguard the Amazon, our territories of life and future generations.