Death Sentence for La Conejera?

This week, environmentalists held this protest in La Candelaria against apartment construction impacting the Conejera wetland in Suba. 

It's become almost routine the way that Bogotá natural areas are absolutely, completely protected - except when they're not. And that all-purpose exception seems to apply to Bogotá's Eastern Hills, where apartments, parking garages and gas stations pop up with regularity, and the city's protected wetlands, important guardians of biodiversity and fresh water, are gobbled up by new buildings and poisoned by industrial and agricultural run-off. 

A view of the Conejera wetland. (Photo: Humedales de Bogotá)

But builders may have gone too far with an apartment building in Suba, which environmentalists say would impact the La Conejera wetland (the name means 'rabbit hutch'). Young people staged a camp-in against the project, and local residents have marched in protest in both Suba and Bogotá. 

Environmentalists say the apartments would frighten off wildlife (obviously true, especially since residents will have dogs, cats and children), and generate noise, light and water pollution. The prosecutor's office visited the construction site and pointed to various irregularities, including the construction license having been issued 'in record time' and that the license had first been rejected and then issued. 

A bit strangely, perhaps, Bogotá Environment Secretary Susana Muhamad defended the project, saying it has all its necessary papers. 

A bird in the Conejera wetland. (Photo: Humedales de Bogotá)

Amidst all the legal wranglings, no official appears to have the interest or authority to say that this project is bad for Bogotá's long-suffering environment and should be stopped. 

Hanging over the debate - and probably the only reason this project has received attention at all - is the fact that the construction company's board of directors includes several relatives of Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro. Petro says his administration has shown no favoritism and that the license was issued by a previous administration. 

That corruption played a part is not unthinkable. In Bogotá, construction licenses are issued by strange offices called Curadurias, which have a dubious reputation for corruption. Petro's predecessor, Samuel Moreno, is in prison on corruption charges unrelated to this project. 

Environmentalists this week protest apartment construction impacting the Conejera wetland in Suba. 

An areal photo from RCN Noticias shows construction apparently invading the Conejera wetland.
(Photo: RCN Noticias)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The ALO or the Environment?

The ALO, as envisioned by the Infrastructure
Chamber of Commerce, a project backer.

For more than a decade, the ALO, the Longitudinal Avenue of the West, has been one of Bogotá's headline infrastructure projects. The ALO is supposed to decongest other roads by providing a north-south expressway, and also allow heavy cargo vehicles to bypass central Bogotá on their way across Colombia. 

Championed by ex-Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, this monster ten-lane motorway has been opposed by Mayor Gustavo Petro, who has pointed to the project's impacts on wetlands. Instead, Petro proposes using land set aside for the avenue for universities. Discussions on the project's future are continuing.

Whatever the project's benefits, its environmental impacts would be huge.

The ALO slashes across a wetland area.
(Image from: Humedales Bogota)

According to Bogotá's Secretaria del Ambiente, the ALO would destroy 14.6 hectares of wetlands, 23.8 hectares of land bordering the Rio Bogotá and 23 hectares of the Forest Reserve of the North. Over the past several years, the city has invested some 20 billion pesos in restoring these ecosystems, all of which would be lost, according to the Secretaria. Several plant species would be driven extinct, according to the Secretaria, and the construction noise would interfere with birds' breeding. And it would destroy one of the last remaining patches of the region's native vegetation.

The Secretaria also predicts that the ALO would spur illegal invasions of other natural areas along its path. One piece of pastureland originally supposed to be turned into a wetland to compensate for the avenue's impacts has already been filled with houses, according to the Secretaria. Destruction of wetlands also disrupts natural water flow patterns, increasing flooding.

One of Bogotá's fast-disappearing wetlands.

Undoubtedly, the ALO would cut driving times across the city - for a while, at least. Repeated experiences have shown that new roads spur more driving, which quickly fills up those roads, leaving cities back where they started - in a traffic jam. 

Freeways like this one also slash across cities and neighborhoods, making them impassable for walkers and bicyclists.

"Instead of creating more hectares of cement, we should think about conservation and creating more spaces for water, health and mental and physical well-being," said Margarita Florez, Bogotá's secretary of the environment.

Florez is correct that Bogotá needs its natural areas to preserve some sanity. 

Across the Americas, in fact, cities are tearing down freeways.

The mega-freeway's projected route. 

But huge infrastructure projects like this one always have lots of backers - from the companies which would make money off of them. The Colombian Infrastructure Chamber of Commerce estimates the 50-kilometer-long ALO would cost $400 million dollars to build - and we all know how those cost projections go. There have also been accusations that politicians have already purchased land along the ALO´s projected route in order to profit when the property rises in value.

Planners have recently made some concessions toward sustainability, by adding a TransMilenio line down the ALO's center, and planning to charge tolls to users.

Over the next months, city officials may decide the ALO's future. But I have the feeling that Bogotá can find away to solve its traffic headaches without destroying what's left of its natural heritage.

Read more about the impacts on wetlands at: Humedales Bogotá.

Related blogpost: Bogotá's Suffering Wetlands

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bogotá's Suffering Wetlands

Kids look over a Bogotá wetlands.
(Photo from: Maomolina)

Hard as it is to believe for those of us living amidst Bogotá's concrete and asphalt, the savannah where Colombia's capital is located was once a wetlands area. Back then, the rivers which ran down from the city's Eastern Hills spread out and washed over the plains. Today, almost all of those rivers are polluted and in pipelines.

Locations of nine of Bogotá's wetlands,
or 'humedales' in Spanish.
(Map from Wikipedia.)

The wetlands are one reason why the tombs in Bogotá's Central Cemetery and other cemeteries are placed mostly above ground.

Cleaning up the crude in a Bogotá canal. (Photo: El Tiempo)

But Bogotá's wetlands have suffered tremendously from their city surroundings, including from paving, pesticide and chemical run-off and even their use as trash dumps. In many areas, the organic wastes flowing into the marshes have nourished exotic weeds, which choke off native plants and animals. And, yesterday, more than 2,500 gallons of crude oil spilled into a canal leading to a wetland area in north Bogotá, altho authorities reported blocking and collecting most of that crude.

A Canadian plover,
which visit Bogotá's wetlands. 

Chestnut heron.

In the 1950s, Bogotá still had 50,000 hectares of wetlands, which has plummeted to roughtly 500 hectares today. Nevertheless, the city still has between nine and thirteen major wetlands, altho some are in bad shape. I once spent a day with volunteers pulling sacks of garbage out of a wetlands area near Parque La Florida just west of Bogotá. The quantity and variety of trash we pulled out - including several objects we couldn't identify - was astonishing.

Yet, despite it all, the wetlands still harbor bird, rodent and plant species - including providing habitat for some birds which migrate as far north as Alaska. The wetlands also serve as natural filters for wastewater and reservoirs which reduce flooding.

The Santa Maria wetland. (Wikipedia.)

Related post: The ALO or the Environment?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Two Wins for the Environment

Gold mountain?

Colombia's environment scored two wins the other day:

In one, Canadian mining company Greystar backed off of its plan for a huge open-pit gold mine near the city of Bucaramanga, after environmental authorities said the project was unacceptable. Colombia is experiencing a gold mining boom as the metal's price has soared - with its related environmental impacts: jungles and wetlands destroyed and rivers poisoned with mercury and choked with silt.

The proposed Greystar Mine might have been better than most - the company had promised to reforest six acres for each one destroyed and to carefully manage the cyanide it used. And, the company argued, much of the area planned for its mine had already been damaged by illegal, informal miners, who use even-more-damaging mercury.

Illegal mining's devastation - the worst of all worlds. (Foto: Dinero magazine)

Certainly, Greystar's project might have been less bad than others, but the project would have made a travesty of Colombian law prohibiting mining in paramos: high-altitude wetlands which produce much of the country's fresh water. To have approved this project would have made a mockery of the law and set a terrible precedent.

Map showing mining concessions overlaid on
forest areas in  the Serrania de San Lucas.
Foto: Geominas

Besides, Colombia still has time to escape from the long list of 'developing' nations which have sold off their natural resources and been left with only poverty and a devastated environment to show for it. Tragically, raw material production often feeds corruption and outlaw groups and does little to develop the kind of skilled jobs which build sustainable economic growth.

Now, Greystar is talking about building instead an undergound mine, which would cause much less environmental impact, but produce less gold and be more dangerous for miners. That could be a reasonable compromise, and would demonstrate that Colombia's environmental laws do mean something.

If Colombian officials respect the spirit of the laws protecting paramos, these critical wetlands could be preserved for more future generations - or at least until they fall victim to global warming.

Jumping for joy?

The second win for the environment was Colombia's decision to join the International Whaling Commission. Why this was an issue at all is a mystery to me. After all, Colombians do not either hunt or eat whales, and the country's relations with whale-hunting nations aren't particularly close. But Colombia is increasingly marketing itself as a whale watching destination. Every year between July and November, humpbacks meet and mate off of Colombia's Pacific Coast.

In 2009, the Dominican Republic joined the IWC, leaving Venezuela as the only Latin American nation outside of the organizaion. (Some small Carribean nations have joined apparently at the behest of Japan and defend its whale hunting.)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours