Colombia’s highest court ordered mineral exploration suspended in environmentally fragile lands belonging to the Emberá-Katio tribe and an Afro-Colombian community on grounds neither group had been properly consulted as required under the constitution. The Constitutional Court ruled last month that Denver-based Muriel Mining had failed to consult with genuine representatives of the indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities bordering or overlapping its 16,000-hectare (40,000-acre) concession of copper, gold and molybdenum in the northwestern departments of Antioquía and Chocó. This, the court said, violated the communities’ right to “social and cultural autonomy and integrity and their ownership of ancestral territories.” The communities also were deprived of the right to decide their future in light of potential impacts on woodlands, air and water... [Log in to read more]