Violating the Güendá Urubó Natural Heritage Conservation Unit (UCPN) is equivalent to also damaging the Amboró National Park, the Lomas de Arena UCPN and all its buffer zones.
Through his social networks, Damián Vaca, director of the Biodiversity Network, and with a satellite map, illustrated the connectivity between these three protected areas, two departmental and one national, which make up a regional water system.
Juan Calos Sauma, from Water Engineering, agrees with Vaca, a company that prepared a study of Güendá Urubó, and the management plan of this UCPN, a document that was delivered six months ago to the then vice-governor Mario Aguilera, to the Departmental Secretariat of the Environment (Pablo Sauto), and to the Directorate of Conservation of Natural Heritage (Dicopan).
Another copy was sent to the German Cooperation (GIZ), which financed the work, and which invested almost 100 thousand dollars in that plan.
Regarding the importance of the work, Sauma said that it is the tool that allows him to manage the UCPN, since it establishes the regulatory framework on what can and cannot be done there, with zoning, etc.
“As long as there is no zoning, that is in limbo, even though Law 208 creating Güendá Urubó exists, they can do anything, such as clearing, with the argument that the zoning is not approved,” he clarified, and said that a A similar situation is what occurs in the Ecological Cordon, which to date does not have a management plan, and therefore does not have zoning for different uses.
“The only thing missing is the approval resolution for its implementation. That’s all,” he said, and recalled that the current governor was one of the main interests in the defense of that part of the city, when the controversy arose over the ABC highway, which would split the UCPN in two, specifically in its section 2.
This definition of the rules within Güendá Urubó, as reflected in the five volumes of the plan, could come in the way of development, road, mining, and expansion of urban areas.
The management plan buries the ABC road route, from Buena Vista to Porongo, since it suggests the alternative road.
Regarding the approved areas in the buffer zone of the UCPN, there are Colinas del Urubó, Porongo, Mague, Maguecito, Las Cruces and Terebinto, which together reach 14 thousand hectares. Sauma stressed that they could not grow a “millimeter.”
He acknowledged that the document also includes a study on mining concessions in the area, which already exist, and that this proposal would slow their progress.
The CC deputy, María José Salazar, believes that it is worrying that the management plan has not been approved so far and said that she requested technical tables and is waiting for confirmation of dates from the Ministry of the Environment.
From that office they assured that they are already working on it. However, in the TCP there is a request from the vice president of the State, David Choquehuanca, to repeal the laws creating Güendá and all the UCPN of Santa Cruz.
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Santa Cruz
They denounce that Buena Vista is the only one of three municipalities without regulatory progress to protect Güendá Urubó
Representative María René Álvarez sent them minutes of communication, urging them to take actions from their level of competence, to take care of water resources.
