Colombian court throws out disputed forestry law

Ruling in one of its most important environmental cases in years, Colombia’s highest court has overturned a forestry law that critics said would open vast tracts of primary forests to commercial logging. The Jan. 23 decision by Colombia’s Constitutional Court to throw out the 2006 General Law of Forestry marked a huge victory for a national coalition of Indian, Afro-Colombian and environmental organizations. The coalition had challenged the law, arguing it would endanger the country’s 158 million acres (64 million has) of primary forest—nearly half of which belongs to Afro-Colombian and Indian groups. (See “Colombian bill to boost logging causes alarm”—EcoAméricas, Oct. ’05, and “Uribe sends timber law back to Congress”—EcoAméricas, Jan. ’06.) Ruling on largely procedural grounds, the court... [Log in to read more]

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