In this year 2021, in the midst of great difficulties in various fields of life in our country, Colombia celebrates 30 years of the 1991 Constitution, which has been called by many the Ecological Constitution, given the novel and transcendental exaltation it makes of the greatest natural wealth of the planet, and of our diversity of ethnicities, languages and cultures.
This Constitution was the result of an initiative of groups of young university students who succeeded in getting the country to convene a National Constituent Assembly to replace the Constitution of 1886 and its various reforms.
The environmental content of the new Constitution is enormously valuable and novel, since until then Colombia’s Constitutions lacked recognition of the country’s natural and cultural heritage. Only a few norms that can be read from an environmental perspective spoke of the attributions of Congress to regulate the baldíos in Colombia, or the competencies of the departmental assemblies on the colonization of departmental lands, or a recurring theme that refers to the opening of roads and navigable canals, construction of railroads, exploitation of forests and canalization of rivers.
It was the event that made the environment an issue of international relevance. It claimed the fundamental right to enjoy adequate living conditions in an environment of such quality as to permit a life of dignity and well-being, and defended the solemn obligation to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.
The overexploitation of natural ecosystems and the ecological crisis are a social, moral, economic and political problem that involves the public authorities, that concerns the rights and duties of the governed, and their defense is one of the basic objectives of the State. The constitutional law of the new millennium reflects this new reality. That is why recent constitutions include this important topic. In Colombia, it was also indispensable to recognize the special and exceptional rights of ethnic groups; of customs that are different from those of the majority; of ancestral communities, of their languages and dialects. The Constitution declares that the State recognizes and protects the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian Nation.
¡Los constituyentes de 1991 estuvieron a la altura de esta responsabilidad! Redactaron una Constitución con audacia, sin temor a hacer cambios trascendentales y de fondo. ¡Un avance gigantesco! Ha dicho la Corte Constitucional que la Constitución modificó profundamente la relación normativa de la sociedad con la naturaleza. Así pues, lo que nos corresponde, es apreciar la Constitución y aplicarla.
Articulo tomado de: http://: https://www.semana.com/mejor-colombia/articulo/treinta-anos-de-la-constitucion-verde-el-reconocimiento-constitucional-del-patrimonio-natural-y-cultural-de-colombia/202100/
