Environmental sustainability in post-conflict countries: insights for rural Colombia

Abstract

Post-conflict countries (PCC) guide their priorities toward restoration of socioeconomic conditions and relegate sustainability objectives to the background. With the aim to provide insights for the current discussion on rural environmental sustainability in today's post-conflict Colombia, we analyzed the environmental dynamics of seven PCC. We found that (1) deforestation and land use conflicts were frequent impacts in both conflict and post-conflict scenarios, that (2) return of displaced population, the infectiveness of land use planning, and the dependence on the primary sector were frequent drivers of environmental change; and that (3) natural resources extraction tends to be intensified in post-conflict period. We discuss these findings in light of the current environmental problems of Colombia and the post-conflict environmental challenges. We conclude that in order to ensure environmental sustainability in post-conflict scenario, Colombia should act on structural aspects that go beyond the environmental objectives proposed in the peace agreement between the government and FARC: strengthening environmental institutions, integrating long-term environmental objectives across all sectors, and deintensifying the dependence of the economy in the extractive sector.

Participation of civil society in decisions to mitigate environmental degradation in post-conflict societies: evidence from Somalia

“…Similar conflicts over resources have also occurred nearshore as overharvesting of fish stocks in unregulated fishing activities caused the destruction of foreign fishing boats by local fishermen (UNEP 2005). This echoes earlier findings that have been reported from post-conflict settings where security, humanitarian assistance, political reconciliation, and economic reconstruction are often considered as the most pressing priorities, whereas the mitigation of environmental degradation is often not integrated into the recovery process (Beevers 2012;Bruch et al 2008;Suarez, Arias-Ar evalo, and Mart ınez-Mera 2018). The post-conflict recovery process of Somalia could be undermined by these developments.…”

Vulnerability of mammals to land-use changes in Colombia’s post-conflict era

“…When civil war ended in Nicaragua, deforestation increased because many people returned to rural areas (Stevens et al 2011). In addition, rapid forest loss was also documented in post-conflict periods in Bosnia, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone (Suarez et al 2018).…”

“…Increased attention has been given to the effects of warfare on biodiversity in the last two decades and Colombia is one of the areas of special attention (Dudley et al 2002, Hanson et al 2009, Lawrence et al 2015, Daskin and Pringle 2018, Hanson 2018, Suarez et al 2018. Colombia not only holds the Tropical Andes and the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena as biodiversity hotspots, but is also part of the Amazon region, the greatest extension of tropical forest on the earth (Myers et al 2000, FAO ITTO 2011.…”

“…We assumed that the greater the post-conflict area overlapped with species distribution, the greater the negative effect on the species. However, the effects will be more negative in municipalities where more people will return in the post-conflict era since this immigration process is a driver of environmental impacts in the post-conflict era (Suarez et al 2018). Consequently, we used the number of displaced people in each municipality between 1993 and 2013 (Consejería Presidencial para los Derechos Humanos 2015, Unidad para las Víctimas 2018) as the surrogate number of people that might return to each municipality.…”

“…In the current post-conflict era, many social and environmental changes are expected in Colombia (Baptiste et al 2017, Negret et al 2017. Experiences from other countries have shown that some activities related to post-conflict, such as resettlement and rural reforms, can have negative effects on biodiversity (Suarez et al 2018). These effects may be exacerbated in Colombia by the low representation of threatened areas and endemic species within protected areas (Forero-Medina and Joppa 2010).…”