This summary reflects the main data collected and systematized from the realization of a diagnosis of climatic phenomena in the Province of Córdoba between the years 2000 and 2020.

The present work aims to reveal the climatic phenomena that occurred throughout the years 2000 to 2020 in the province of Córdoba and based on this, make visible the local reality and the serious impacts of climate change year after year, as well as public policies existing to date.

This document seeks to analyze the current status of Lake San Roque and Lake Los Molinos from a comprehensive approach, from various sources of information. The objective is to achieve a complete understanding of the dimension of the problem and, based on this, weigh the measures and actions of prevention, mitigation and recomposition that it demands.

Within the framework of the project “Strengthening the capacities of civil society in the exercise of the right to public information through the Escazú Agreement”, we shared the debates and reflections on the effective fulfillment of this right.

In the following guide you will find questions and answers about access to public environmental information and useful information to make requests to the State.

This resource is intended to publicize the content, the rights it guarantees and the obligations of the State that govern the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean – called the Escazú Agreement. In addition, it incorporates in its annexes tools and models to exercise these rights before the authorities.

(ONLY SPANISH) The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented global impact in the modern era. Many countries are in a health, economic and social emergency due to the negative consequences of the fight against the new coronavirus.

Undoubtedly, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established for the United Nations 2030 Agenda will be affected. In this paper we analyze some of the positive and negative impacts on the SDGs, although we anticipate that in general the outlook is negative, especially if we focus on the effects it will have on community health and the increase in inequalities due to the economic slowdown. world.

This document aims to examine, from a comprehensive environmental and public health perspective, the impacts caused by the application of agrochemicals. One of the many consequences of the existing agricultural production model in Argentina is linked to the excessive application of agrochemicals and their consequent negative externalities for the environment, public health and the general population.

On August 11, through a Resolution of the Official Gazette, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock defined its new organization chart and made official the creation of the National Directorate of Agroecology, which will be chaired by the agronomist Eduardo Cerdá who is the president of the National Network of Municipalities and Communities that Promote Agroecology (Renama). This direction will act under the orbit of the Secretariat of Food, Bioeconomy and Regional Development.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

The main objective of the directorate will be “to intervene in the design and implementation of policies, programs and projects that promote intensive and extensive primary production based on agroecology at all its scales, coordinating with producers, agrarian organizations and municipal and provincial governments.” To comply with this, it is expected, among other actions, the creation of a Strategic Plan of Productive Transition that contains the objectives, methodology and recipients for the agro-ecological implementation; and the granting of technical, credit and tax assistance to promote said activity.

This government decision is historic for our country, and is framed within the growing environmental crisis and the need to establish consistent public policies, such as the design of alternatives to the agricultural production model that prevails today. It is a decision that recognizes the approach that various farmer organizations have been developing for years, who have created alternatives to confront the hegemonic system. In addition, the current Minister of the Environment, Juan Cabandié, has repeatedly pointed out the risk that the use of pesticides and phytosanitary products entails in the health of the population and the environment, classifying them as “poisons”.

In this sense, agroecology proposes another way of producing food, which in the words of Eduardo Cerdá “implies taking into account and putting into play all ecological processes when producing agriculture and livestock. It is not a business look, it is a system look, to understand the natural processes that work in a field. By taking into account all the processes, it is easier to take care of them ”.

For these reasons, we welcome the implementation of this direction at the national level, since it represents a change of vision in the way of producing food in our country and implies an advance in the much-promised food sovereignty. We believe that this measure provides the appropriate initial impulse to give place and space to this production alternative based on sustainability and caring for the health of people and the environment. In this way, it is possible to incorporate a social and environmental perspective to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, which is extremely necessary in these times.

Authors

Maria Laura Carrizo Morales 

Ananda Maria Lavayén

Contact

Juan Bautista Lopez, juanbautistalopez@fundeps.org

Together with 16 civil society organizations in Latin America, we prepare this report that addresses the problem of Climate Change, its effects and impacts on human rights from the regional context. It was presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights during the 173rd session.

Coordinated by the Circle of Environmental Policy (C.A.B.A.), and in conjunction with other specialists, We elaborate the Legislative Environmental Agenda 2020, giving account and analyzing the main bills on environmental matters that have parliamentary status.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

The proposals of the mining company and the province of San Juan, focused on questioning: a) the legislative procedure for the enactment of Law 26,639 (of Glaciers); b) The unconstitutionality of the aforementioned regulations for advancing on regulatory competences specific to the Province as holder of the original domain of natural resources. The company Barrick and the province of San Juan converged on this last point arguing that the law in question, hypothetically, posed an affront to the possibilities of exploitation by the mining company and management of natural resources by the province.

In view of this situation, the Court analyzed whether the necessary requirements were met for the organ to enter into the analysis of the parties’ claims, that is, if there was a “judicial case” (subject that may be subject to a process). The conclusion reached was that there was no sufficient accredited legal interest, or a so-called “act in the making” (administrative act necessary to consider the existence of a judicial case) that endangers the rights of the parties. He also considered that the lack of completion of the Glacier Inventory (ordered to the Executive Branch by the glaciers law), necessarily implied the inexistence of the “act in the making”, since this inventory was a basic budget for the operation of the attacked law by the parties.

As a consequence of the inexistence of the justiciable case, the Supreme Court held that as regards the conflict between the provincial and national jurisdiction alleged by the province of San Juan, the judicial power should not intervene, while the environmental policy issues should be resolved by the federal dialogue before the intervention of the judges.

However, even though it was not necessary according to the conclusions regarding the inexistence of a justiciable “case”, the ministers of the Court held that the process by which the Glaciers Law had been sanctioned had been valid from the point of view constitutional, according to the background and regulations of the Chamber of Senators.

On the other hand, in a convincing “environmental” message, the Court expressed its opinion regarding the validity of the Glaciers Law, in the face of the arguments that raised its unconstitutionality, thus outlining its position regarding a future “judicial case”. Among some of the arguments offered by the high judicial body, the following can be highlighted:

  1. The clear rule that when there are rights of collective incidence pertaining to the protection of the environment – in the case of the Law of Glaciers the strategic resource Water – the hypothetical controversy can not be treated as the mere collision of subjective rights (individual lease). The characterization of the environment as a “collective good” changes the focus of the problem, which must not only address the claims of the parties.
  2. The interests that exceed the bilateral conflict must be considered (in the case between the Province of San Juan and the Barrick mining company against the provisions of the Glaciers Law), in order to have a polycentric vision, since there are numerous rights affected.
  3. The solution can not only be limited to solving the past, but, and fundamentally, to promoting a solution focused on future sustainability, for which a decision is required that foresees the consequences of such a decision.
  4. The environment is not according to the National Constitution, an object intended for the exclusive service of man, appropriable according to their needs.
  5. Access to drinking water is a right that must be regulated under an eco-centric, or systemic legal paradigm, which not only takes into account private or state interests, but also those of the same system, according to the General Environmental Law ( 25,675).
  6. This vision regarding access to drinking water is relevant as the regulation that protects the glaciers, has as an objective to preserve them as strategic reserves of water resources for human consumption; for agriculture; for the recharge of water basins; for the protection of biodiversity.
  7. Based on these objectives, the Glaciers Law protects this resource from the harmful effects that certain extractive processes (mining) can have on the preservation and conservation of glaciers. Such protection is part of the provisions of the Paris Agreement on global warming.
  8. Faced with the provisions of the Law of Glaciers that aim to protect rights of collective incidence, judges must consider that natural and legal persons can certainly be holders of subjective property rights. More must also consider that this individual right must be harmonized with the rights of collective incidence to ensure that the exercise of lawful industry is sustainable.
  9. The Court concludes that the constitutionality trial of a possible injurious act derived from the glacier law -if a judicial cause is proven- should be analyzed in the context of the weighing of the various rights and property involved.
  10. Likewise, the Court warns that such weighting will not be possible until the National Executive Power complies with the obligation to draw up the national inventory of glaciers.

In short, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, rejected the action of Barrick Gold and the province of San Juan on the grounds that there was no “judicial case” and did not resolve the substantive claim on the constitutionality or otherwise of the Law of Glaciers. However, in a blunt message, he left his position before an eventual proposal of similar characteristics: Glaciers law, protects a supraindividual environmental good, which, faced with a conflict against an individual right, must be weighted based on criteria of sustainability , Intergenerationality, biodiversity, under an eco-centric or systemic paradigm (not anthropocentric). Between the lines, the Glaciers Law … is constitutional.

  • More information:

Read the full ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice

  • Author:

Juan Bautista Lopez, juanbautistalopez@fundeps.org