The environmental-oversight body for a remote Colombian archipelago is challenging a government agency’s plan to allow offshore oil exploration in the surrounding Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, a conservation area covering 10% of the Caribbean Sea. Coralina, the environmental authority for the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina islands, is pursuing a “popular action,” a legal mechanism established in Colombia’s 1991 constitution to protect collective rights. In the case, initiated in February and now being tried in an administrative court here, Coralina faults the National Hydrocarbons Agency for auctioning blocks in Seaflower. The reserve, part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) biosphere network, is home to three-quarters of Colombia’s coral reefs. Ecopetrol, Colombia’s largest oil company, was the highest... [Log in to read more]