The Ministry of Environment published a draft resolution to repeal resolution 110 of 2022 that established activities, requirements and procedures for the subtraction of area from forest reserves.
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This will be open for comments until February 14.
It should be remembered that Resolution 110 allowed the subtraction of areas from forest reserves (that is, taking them out of the reserve) to carry out activities of public utility and social interest.
Camila Jiménez, a senior associate in Baker McKenzie’s Environmental area, explained that at the time the resolution was highly criticized and was only valid for 4 months before being suspended by a Judge of the Republic.
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“There was no clarity for the purposes of carrying out this type of subtraction. The resolution was widely criticized because it did not establish clear procedures for this process and left the abduction to a very broad criterion “he explained.
The draft resolution states that the Directorate of Forests, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Ministry of Environment it will monitor the areas where mining exploration has been reported to verify compliance with environmental regulations, as well as that the reported information is correct.
Additionally, it proposes a transition regime for those abduction requests that have a writ of commencement on the effective date of the resolution.
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In this way, those requests made before this date will continue to be governed by the previous regulations. That is, resolution 110 of 2022.
In the same way, in the event that prior information has been submitted for the development of mining exploration activities, they will also continue to be governed by this standard.
“Forest areas have quite rigorous regulations on protection issues that could be affected,” explained the expert lawyer. For this reason, she points out that the objective is to further define the criteria for an area of this type to be stolen.
“The purpose is basically that, to establish more technical and rigorous criteria that allow determining when a forest area can be stolen to carry out this type of activity and that the Government can have more control,” concluded.
Portfolio learned that there are voices concerned about what this could mean in terms of difficulties for exploration.
DANIELA MORALES SOLER
