Cerrejon Coal

CI-Colombia is partnering with Cerrejon Coal, Colombia's largest coal export company, to:

• Strengthen Cerrejon’s institutional climate change policy.
• Create a biodiversity offset to compensate for any damage done during mining operations.
• Support the creation of new protected areas within the Guajira region (Montes de Oca and Bahía Portete) together with the national government, NGOs and local community authorities.
• Collaborate on the creation of conservation agreements in the Guajira region.
• Work in alliance with the Guajira state Regional Autonomous Corporation (CorpoGuajira) to develop the Rancheria river management plan, which includes a Payment for Ecosystem Services scheme.

The biodiversity offset includes Conservation Area Networks using a multi-criteria approach that is based on the economic valuation of ecosystem services, as well as the development of a technical publication, “Ecological Restoration of Tropical Dry Forest,” which will become part of Cerrejon’s mine close-out plans.  The PDF is now available (in Spanish) on CI-Colombia's website: http://www.conservation.org.co/publicacionesdetalle.php?pagina=1&orden=fechacreacion&idcamp=29. 

The CI-Cerrejon partnership also supports the creation of conservation agreements that provide local communities with benefits and capacity-building in exchange for delivering effective conservation of high priority areas and species. CI is implementing the conservation agreements model in the buffer area of Puerto Bolivar and La Mina aimed at increasing the population of sea turtles and to conserve dry forest ecosystems.

For more information about Cerrejon Coal, please visit www.cerrejoncoal.com.