Description
This extensive report (written in Spanish, with an English abstract) focuses on the legal aspects of the EnviroSecurity Assessment case study in Matavén, Colombia, where the advance of illicit plantations towards the Matavén area, constitutes a major external physical threat to the indigenous communities and the environment. It analyses these environmental security issues mainly from a legal point of view.
The first chapters relate to the implementations of remote sensing data (RSD) in the strengthening of the indigenous communities and organisation of the Matavén area with regard to indigenous local governance and environmental protection. Then the focus is on how the Colombian judicial system protects the constitutional rights of indigenous Peoples.
Furthermore, the paper critically examines two legislative initiatives, supported by the World Bank. It shows that the possible ratifications of the proposed Water Law and the proposed Forest Law would both represent a significant setback in the advances that Colombia has attained in the environmental and indigenous legislation.
The paper identifies the fora that can be of great importance for the defense and protection of the biodiversity and the indigenous rights. The final chapter describes what are the most notable laws and jurisprudence that set the legal framework and the political principles by which the indigenous communities have on the one hand the rights to their own culture, language and territory, and on the other the right to govern their own territories based on their traditions and customs.
Information
- Author(s)
- Fundación Gaia Amazonas
- Publisher
- Institute for Environmental Security
- Place published
- The Hague
- Date / journal vol no.
- October 2005
- Pages
- 117
