Colombia says it will prosecute 12 Mennonites for deforestation in the country's east, where the austere Christian sect is expanding its agricultural footprint and clashing with Indigenous groups.The twelve defendants, all Mexican nationals, will go on trial for logging natural areas "without the necessary permits and/or legal authorizations" between 2016 and 2021 in Puerto Gaitan, in Meta department, the Attorney General's Office said.
Members of the reclusive religious group face similar legal troubles in Bolivia and Peru.
The Mennonites -- who have roots in 16th-century Europe -- eschew modernity and mixing with others. They communicate among themselves primarily in German, the language of their ancestors.
Members arrived in the Llanos region of central Colombia in 2014, and purchased large tracts of land for agricultural use.
They often clear forests to plant large-scale crops such as soy and corn, sparking conflict with local people, who say they are occupying Indigenous territory and damaging the environment.
Satellite images show significant deforestation in Liviney, one of their prosperous settlements.
Mennonites arrived in Mexico at the beginning of the last century. The first Mennonite churches in Colombia date back to approximately the 1950s.
A 2021 study carried out by researchers at Canada's McGill University counted 214 Mennonite colonies in Latin America occupying some 3.9 million hectares, an area bigger than the Netherlands.
