By Cecilia Jamasmie
MINING.com
A Colombian legal tribunal ordered 11 gold mining companies this week to stop operations in the northwest of the country and return the land to Embera Katio tribe, which used to live in the area.
The ruling, RCN reports (in Spanish), is the first of its kind in the South American nation. It restores a 50,000-hectare in the West coast Choco department to the about 7,300 Embera people, which were forced out over the past five years by illegal and violent armed groups.
The decision orders the National Mining Agency, in coordination with the military, to “remove people from outside the community who are carrying out mining activities within the reserve,” a unit of Colombia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said in a statement Thursday (in Spanish).