Miners, farmers protest COP16 host Colombia's nature protection plans
Demonstrators used tree branches and held up long lines of trucks to block roads in the northwestern department of Antioquia, Santander (in the northeast) and central Boyaca.
The government of leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has made environmental protection a priority, in January decreed several new nature reserves that will be off limits to mining and agriculture.
"Do not fool the people, do not deceive us by saying this is for the environment... that this is 'peace with nature'," Santander mining association president Ivonne Gonzalez said on Blu Radio, referring to the slogan of the COP16 summit taking place in Cali until November 1.
At the previous biodiversity summit in Montreal in 2022, 196 countries pledged to place 30 percent of all land and sea areas under protection by 2030.
Progress is being measured at COP16, with measures under discussion to speed up delivery.
"We have to reach an agreement, a consensus (on) how to eradicate mining from certain territories that have strategic ecosystems," Mines and Energy Minister Andres Camacho told W Radio.
Several armed groups at war with each other and the Colombian state engage in illegal gold mining and cultivation of coca -- the main ingredient in cocaine -- to fund their efforts.
Legal mining made up about 28 percent of Colombian exports in 2023.
Petro has launched a plan to reduce Colombia's dependence on petroleum and coal, but critics are calling for a gradual phasing out that won't hurt subsistence incomes or the state coffers.
Host Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world.
But the country has struggled to extricate itself from six decades of armed conflict involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug gangs, and state forces.
The summit is being guarded by about 11,000 police and soldiers after threats from a guerrilla group.
Hours after the summit kicked off Monday in Cali, soldiers some 150 kilometers (93 miles) away were targeted with a bomb, but no injuries were reported, the army said.
Guerrilla attacks near COP16 host city in Colombia
Cali, Colombia (AFP) Oct 22, 2024 -
Colombian authorities on Tuesday announced reinforced security around the city of Cali, host of the COP16 UN biodiversity summit, after guerrillas at war with the government targeted soldiers with a bomb overnight and shot dead civilians traveling in a car.
The EMC rebel group, engaged in stop-start peace negotiations with Bogota, had told international delegations not to attend the UN meeting after its fighters were targeted in a military campaign, warning the conference "will fail."
Security was stepped up, with some 11,000 Colombian police and soldiers deployed to safeguard the event with the backing of UN and United States security experts.
The EMC, or Central General Staff, is a splinter group of the FARC guerrilla army that disarmed under a peace agreement with the government in 2017.
On Monday night, just hours after the official start of the high-stakes negotiations in Cali on ways to stop humankind's rapacious destruction of nature, EMC fighters targeted a military vehicle with a bomb.
The attack happened at El Bordo, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Cali, the army reported on X.
"The explosive charge was detonated about 100 meters ahead of the truck... Fortunately there were no injuries," regional army commander General Federico Mejia told Blu Radio.
In response, the army "reinforced" its "offensive" in the Cauca department, he added, against the guerrillas that control crops of coca -- the main ingredient in cocaine, of which Colombia is the world's largest producer.
Also on Monday night, three civilians driving together in a car were shot dead in Suarez, in the same department, some 45 kilometers from Cali.
The victims were two men and a woman from the same family, Suarez Mayor Cesar Ceron told Blu Radio, in an area controlled by an EMC sub-group.
Some 23,000 people including about a dozen heads of state and 100-plus ministers are accredited for COP16 -- the biggest UN biodiversity conference yet, running until November 1.
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