From Nabusímake, the head of State said that this is an order since the beginning of his Government, but it has not been executed by the officials, so he asked the ANT to advance the purpose in these two years that remain in office.
In addition to referring to the climate crisis and its relationship with the exploitation and export of thermal coal from the Colombian Caribbean during its visit to the capital of the Arhuaco people, Nabusímake, President Gustavo Petro ordered the National Land Agency (ANT) to buy productive land to deliver them to the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada and to expand the indigenous reserve.
"The commitment we made here in campaign is for the land between the indigenous reserve and the Black Line to be bought and given to the indigenous people," said Petro to Felipe Harman, director general of the ANT in the middle of Wednesday's speech.
On the Black Line
The Black Line is a geographical limit that delimits the cultural and biological space of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada. According to the Tayrona Indigenous Confederation, it is the "sacred space around the mountain system marking the ancestral territory to which the four indigenous peoples (arhuaco, kogi, wiwa and kankuamo) must take care and live physically." (See image 2).
In 2018, the Ministry of the Interior, through Decree 1500, redefined the ancestral territory expressed in the system of sacred spaces of the Black Line as "a traditional area of special protection, spiritual, cultural and environmental value, in accordance with the principles and foundations of the Law of Origin, and Law 21 of 1991."
The Decree defines 348 points between the departments of Cesar, La Guajira and Magdalena, including sites such as sacred spaces to the place between the church of the Concepción and the Plaza Alfonso López, and the hill Hurtado (Minakalwa), in Valledupar; the beach of the city Riohacha and the bays of Santa Marta and Taganga.
Beyond the Black Line
Petro added that this measure will strengthen the Cesar economy and restore food security with the production of food that is now imported. "This is the possibility of developing Cesar and the Caribbean from another perspective, but the way of thinking must be changed," the president said.
Read: "Do we get more coal or rethink the territory?": Petro's debate from Nabusimak e
After the event, Harman published in his X account:... "We have ratified the commitment to the plan of agrarian reform for the department, which guarantees the construction of peace in the heart of the world. We have all the efforts to make the field at Cesar produce food."
