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Green Infrastructure and Conservation in Colombia
Over the past 10 years, the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have supported the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia in integrating greater environmental considerations into the country’s transport sector planning. This partnership led to the development of a set of technical guidelines aimed at guiding the structuring of road infrastructure plans, programs, and projects, which were formalized in the Green Road Infrastructure Guidelines for Colombia, adopted as mandatory by the Ministry of Transport on April 30, 2024.
These guidelines are presented as a set of recommendations designed to ensure that road infrastructure projects comprehensively incorporate environmental, social, technological, and engineering elements to avoid, prevent, mitigate, and correct potential negative environmental impacts. The goal is to achieve a net positive environmental balance as a result of their implementation. These guidelines should be applied during the conception and structuring of plans and programs, as well as throughout the planning, design, construction, operation, intervention, and decommissioning of road infrastructure projects.
A significant achievement was the inclusion of the Early Intervention Approach as a cross-cutting element in the guidelines. This approach includes a set of analytical tools recommended for use in the early stages of planning and during the execution of each phase of road project cycles. It involves considering elements that were previously not anticipated, such as the presence of connectivity corridors, the existence of water flow (capillarity), the occurrence of indirect, cumulative, and synergistic impacts, and the strengthening of local governance.
Between 2021 and 2022, the first pilot of the Green Road Infrastructure Guidelines for Colombia was conducted in Guaviare, with the aim of assessing the feasibility of their adoption and the challenges for their effective technical implementation. This pilot, executed in the Amazon by FCDS and WWF-Colombia, in addition to generating numerous technical inputs related to the Early Intervention Approach and the guidelines for the intervention (improvement) of the San José del Guaviare-El Retorno-Calamar road, also made significant progress in strengthening local governance processes. Local communities were trained and developed work plans to advance toward sustainable rural infrastructure.
The Colombian experience in developing these guidelines has provided valuable lessons for other countries within the Amazon biome. This experience could help them progress similarly in integrating key environmental elements into sectoral development, ensuring that infrastructure is resilient, sustainable, and aligned with a regional vision that preserves biodiversity.
Consult the guidelines here: https://www.minambiente.gov.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/24.-Lineamientos-de-infraestructura-verde-vial-para-Colombia.pdf
More information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxP2usiIIxk&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/c/Conservaci%C3%B3nyDesarrolloFCDS
Maryi Adriana Serrano – Territorial Planning Coordinator, FCDS – mserrano@fcds.org.co