During his visit to Jericó, Antioquia, President Gustavo Petro made an important announcement: The Government will stop mining projects that are currently developed in the municipality.
(Read: ANM resumes control of Pine mining projects in Antioquia).
“The territory’s water cannot be endangered. There are aquifers in the territory and part of the population lives on that (…) It is a territory with a lot of water inside the bowels. Precisely what we have found is that exploration The mining company was located where the aquifers are, so we have a danger“said the president.
He also explained that certain studies have shown that there is a danger between the proposed mining in the territory and the water. “Then we choose the water”, said the Head of State.
Petro said that the water cannot be put at risk. “We agree and there will be no further progress in mining in Jericó“, he pointed out.
And, for the sake of “building common notions about the future”, Petro stated that his intention is to make governmental decisions based on the territorial discussion and dialoguing with the forces that there are for and against. “We don’t want that polarization to increase,” she pointed out.
(Also: The story of the town that will be demolished to expand a coal mine).
Additionally, Petro pointed out that the State dmust be committed to making agricultural activity more profitable through the development of roads, the facility to access credit, and announced a training system that he called the National Campesino Learning Service. The latter would articulate local agricultural and food production knowledge.
Mining company responds to Petro
The mining multinational Anglo Gold Ashanti responded to Petro’s announcement for one of the projects that would stop in Jericó, that of Quebradona. The company clarifies that this project does not jeopardize the government’s objective that Jericho be “an agrarian and ecological district.”
(See: Termotasajero bets to support coal plants with a solar plant).
“We have the peace of mind that our Quebradona project does not put the territory’s water at risk and can coexist in harmony with the development of an agrarian and ecological District”, reads the project’s Twitter.
“We will seek to have conversations with the environmental authorities to jointly review the existing information on the water resource and continue advancing with the studies that the law obliges us to do,” he announced. Anglo Gold Ashanti.
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