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THE ATRATO AS A SUBJECT OF RIGHTS

In 2016, thanks to the hard work of the ethnic organizations of Atrato, the Constitutional Court, through the Judgment T-622, declared for the first time in the country and the third time in the world that a River, the majestic Atrato, was an entity subject of rights.

The court acknowledged that Atrato is a living entity that also sustains other life forms and cultures, and therefore it was granted the rights to protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration. The protection of those rights is in the hands of its guardians.

 

This Website is an initiative of the Cuerpo Colegiado de Guardianes del Atrato and the Centro Sociojurídico para la Defensa Territorial – SIEMBRA as a space for dissemination and education about the ruling and its progress. We look forward to centralizing in a single place and making available the huge universe of actions, actors, and initiatives that are part of the implementation process of this historic judgment.

The Atrato River is alive and has rights!
The Atrato River is alive and has rights!
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The Atrato River is a wide valley of plains guarded in the east by the East Range and in the west by the highland of Baudó.

It emerges from the Cerro Plateado páramo, in the southeast of Antioquia, and goes through Chocó from its middle part to its north end, in the Gulf of Urabá.

Throughout its extension, the water of 150 Rivers and 3,000 ravines creates a complex fluvial network, in the middle of a rich and deep vegetation. Despite the lack of road infrastructure in Chocó, this hydric wealth allows Atrato to be the backbone of a communication system that connects wide territories and bind the plurality of populations that settle down in its shores.