Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Reforesting River Basins

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BOGOTA, Jan 5 2004 (IPS) - With an investment of 6.6 million dollars over the next five years, the Colombian public works agency EPM will reforest 5,000 hectares of forests in the watershed areas of the northwestern department of Antioquia. Oscar Velásquez, general manager of the agency that monitors potable water services, announced the project when he presented the study, “Reforestation program for the watersheds encompassed in the EPM aqueduct system”, begun last November.

The investigation is the result of concern about the deterioration of the quantity and quality of the watersheds that supply the aqueduct system and about problems related to sedimentation and environmental destruction, he said.