Summary
On 19 June 2024, the Congress of the Republic of Colombia received a bill to recognize the Caquetá River, its basin, and tributaries as an entity subject to rights to ensure its protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration. The bill was originally submitted in the Chamber of Representatives in July 2023 (as Ley No. 034 de 2023), and was re-submitted (as Ley No. 243 de 2024) in the Senate in 2024.
The purpose of recognizing the Caquetá River as an entity with rights is to address the environmental problems that have arisen mainly due to illegal mining that uses mercury to recover gold from the riverbed, beaches, sandbanks, and flood areas. The Caquetá is one of the Amazon River basin’s longest rivers, with a length of 2,280 km. The river guides creeks, streams, and smaller rivers like the Orteguaza into the Amazon, and, eventually, out to the Atlantic Ocean. This river also functions as a road as it is the only way to access many of the remote towns across the Caquetá region, where Aquiles and hundreds of Indigenous communities build their lives.
The 2024 bill would direct the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development or an equivalent national department, the ethnic communities, and the peasant communities that inhabit the area of influence of the Caquetá River, to independently appoint one representative, to work in collaboration. The three appointees, forming La Comisión de Guardianes del Río Caquetá (The Caquetá River Guardians Commission), would exercise legal representation of the Caquetá River, assuming the guardianship, care, and guaranteeing the rights of the Caquetá River recognized in this law.
The initiative was unanimously approved in committee in late 2024, and is set to continue its legislative process in the plenary session of the Senate. The plenary session is a meeting of all 108 senators to debate and vote on proposed legislation; it is the final stage of the legislative process for bills in the upper house.
Involved Organizations
Suggested Citation:
Kauffman, Craig, Catherine Haas, Alex Putzer, Shrishtee Bajpai, Kelsey Leonard, Elizabeth Macpherson, Pamela Martin, Alessandro Pelizzon & Linda Sheehan. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. V2. 2025. Distributed by the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor.https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/colombia-law-rights-of-caqueta-river/.
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