Protesting Against a Pipeline

Protesting on the front steps of EcoPetrol.

As the Santos administration charges ahead with its plans to make Colombia a big exporter of oil, coal and other natural resources, more than a few rural communities and natural wonders are getting trampled on.

For the most part, I suspect, we never hear from those victims.

But today a group of people from Puente Nacional in Santander Department showed up on the doorstep of EcoPetrol to protest against the construction of a new pipeline and pumping station would cause what they consider to be a sort of ecocide.

Countryside near Puente Nacional,
Santander Dept.
(Photo: PuenteNacional.com)

According to the protesters, the construction of the 8-kilometer-long pipeline will mean cutting down some 3,000 trees along a path 33 meters wide. The pipeline's track will damage 14 streams, as well as wetlands, the critics say.

While this is a small environmental attack, I suspect that it's being repeated in similar ways across Colombia and the rest of the continent.

But few of the human victims - and none of the trees - have the resources and sophistication to protest on Facebook and on the front steps of Ecopetrol.

An anti-oil drilling mural
on Calle 26 in Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours