In November 2016, after 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the primary rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) reached a peace agreement. The agreement incorporated three changes to institutions governing forest land occupation and use: (a) the demobilization of FARC from forested places, (2) the future distribution of legal land titles and new road construction into forests, and (3) the eradication of illicit crops. However, we document unprecedented rates of forest disturbance in the months following the peace agreement in biodiversity hotspots across the country. Are the declaration of peace and the increased rates of forest disturbance related? Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the impact of the Colombian peace agreement on forest disturbance. Focusing on the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt (AATB), we used automated satellite image disturbance detection methods and ethnographic data to quantify and interpret forest cover change from 2010 to 2018 that span wartime, peace negotiation, and post-peace agreement stages. Our findings indicate that during the post-peace agreement period (2017-2018), the area of forest disturbance increased by 50% (about 238 000 ha) across the AATB in comparison with the four-year peace negotiation stage (2013-2016); these changes reflect the end of FARC-led gunpoint conservation in the region. Forest disturbance also spread deeper into the Amazon watershed and increased in area by 187% within the AATB's protected areas. We find that following the peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC, key actors (viz. drug cartels, large landowners, campesinos and dissidents) with expectations of favorable land tenure policies swept into the region; this led to increases in large-scale cattle ranching, coca cultivation dispersal, and speculative illegal land markets each of which contributed to the widespread forest disturbance that we mapped. The rapid increase in forest disturbance occurred despite the interest of the international community in promoting forest conservation initiatives in the AATB and Colombia's existing conservation and land titling frameworks for public lands. Our findings underscore the need for conservation strategies sensitive to rapid institutional and demographic changes in the course of the peace agreement to prevent forests from becoming an unexpected casualty of premature and unstable peace.
The concept of forest landscape restoration (FLR) is being widely adopted around the globe by governmental, non‐governmental agencies, and the private sector, all of whom see FLR as an approach that contributes to multiple global sustainability goals. Originally, FLR was designed with a clearly integrative dimension across sectors, stakeholders, space and time, and in particular across the natural and social sciences. Yet, in practice, this integration remains a challenge in many FLR efforts. Reflecting this lack of integration are the continued narrow sectoral and disciplinary approaches taken by forest restoration projects, often leading to marginalisation of the most vulnerable populations, including through land dispossessions. This article aims to assess what lessons can be learned from other associated fields of practice for FLR implementation. To do this, 35 scientists came together to review the key literature on these concepts to suggest relevant lessons and guidance for FLR. We explored the following large‐scale land use frameworks or approaches: land sparing/land sharing, the landscape approach, agroecology, and socio‐ecological systems. Also, to explore enabling conditions to promote integrated decision making, we reviewed the literature on understanding stakeholders and their motivations, tenure and property rights, polycentric governance, and integration of traditional and Western knowledge. We propose lessons and guidance for practitioners and policymakers on ways to improve integration in FLR planning and implementation. Our findings highlight the need for a change in decision‐making processes for FLR, better understanding of stakeholder motivations and objectives for FLR, and balancing planning with flexibility to enhance social–ecological resilience.
The signing of Colombia's peace agreement in 2016 signaled the end of a decades-long war between the government and the FARC (Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), but also an emerging assault against the country's forests. This article aims to understand the interactions between forests and peace. In doing so, it traces landscape transformations of deforestation and possibilities for making landscapes livable in the midst of disturbance. Drawing on field research, including interviews and participant observation carried out in Colombia from 2016 to 2018, it reveals how deforestation is driven by ongoing colonization and land grabbing, mostly dedicated to extensive cattle ranching, coca cultivation, and campesinos' transition to 'licit' agricultural alternatives. The article also shows how emerging coordination among farmers and forests following forest disturbance contributes to an interpretation of peace in which forests are integral. The article concludes with a call to incorporate forests in the construction of peace.
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