Forests in the time of peace

Abstract

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.

Reducing deforestation in Colombia while building peace and pursuing business as usual extractivism?

“…In this article I have described and analyzed the challenges surrounding deforestation and forest degradation in Colombia's transition to peace. I showed how the contradictions in Colombia's policies and the zero-deforestation goal questions the possibility of achieving a lasting reduction in deforestation and forest degradation, particularly since forests were not explicitly included in the peace agreement that provides the road-map for peace-building (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2019). Over the years, countries like Norway, Germany, the UK and many others have supported forest conservation efforts in Colombia.…”

“…However, it remains questionable whether conventional agricultural models focusing on intensifying land use and production, even if combined with silvopastoral practices, can lead to reduced deforestation. In Colombia's post-conflict context, territorial control is highly disputed and deforestation is largely caused by structures and powers that seek to expand their land holdings, rather than by inefficient production (Murillo Sandoval et al 2020;Olaya 2019;Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2019).…”

“…The consequences of the illicit coca industry are manifold. Some scholars suggest that the production and trafficking of coca by organized crime fuels processes of land grabbing and deforestation, describing a vicious cycle where the power and ability to corrupt and intimidate is used to increase control over land (Ballvé 2012;Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2019). Ranching is, for instance, a way to launder money obtained from illegal sources (Personal interview, International Conservation Organization representative, December 2019).…”

Transdisciplinary perspectives on current transformations at extractive and agrarian, frontiers in Latin America

“…In so doing, complex actor constellations and power relationships related to land and resource control can be mapped out. A political ecology perspective is also well suited to analyse the frictions that may evolve around forests and peace-building in conditions of land use transitions shaped by coercive conservation, state territorialization, and land grabbing, as for example, in post-conflict Colombia (Guedes, 2020;Lugo, 2019;Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2019). In a debate paper, Guedes transcends the subject-object relationship between humans and nature.…”

Concomitant malaria, dengue and COVID-19: an extraordinary challenge for Colombia’s public health system

“…Further research needs to be carried out to better understand the geo-bio-physical linkages between the occurrence of vector-borne diseases with climate variability in Colombia, but also with the on-going and future impacts of climate change in the tropical Americas [ 25 ], and the alarming deforestation rates of the country, especially after the peace accord between the Colombian government and the leftist FARC guerrillas [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”