No peace for the forest: Rapid, widespread land changes in the Andes-Amazon region following the Colombian civil war

Murillo-Sandoval, Paulo J.; Gjerdseth, Emma; Ayram, Camilo A. Correa; Wrathall, David; Hoek, Jamon Van Den; Dávalos, Liliana M.; Kennedy, Robert E.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102283

Cited by 54 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…They argue that the peace agreement opened up areas that were previously controlled and protected by the FARC who had used these areas as hideouts. Subsequently, prevalent land-use conflicts and land grabbing practices, exacerbated by land tenure issues, were seen following the agreement (Murillo-Sandoval et al, 2020, Murillo-Sandoval et al, 2021. These dynamics are expanding the agricultural frontier and placing increased pressure on forests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Peace Means for Deforestation: An Analysis of Local Deforestation Dynamics in Times of Conflict and Peace in Colombia

Ganzenmüller

Sylvester

Castro-Núñez

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Using Colombia as a case study, this analysis provides insights on deforestation dynamics in times of conflict and peace and the different factors driving these dynamics. We performed time series clustering of yearly deforestation data (2001–2018) from 708 out of 1,122 mainland Colombian municipalities (accounting for 98% of the total deforestation areas in Colombia) and produced regression models using a gradient tree boosting framework (XGBoost) to identify drivers that explain varying, local-level deforestation dynamics. Municipalities were characterized by seven categories of deforestation dynamics, with the Amazon region being largely represented by only four categories and the Andes region displaying all categories of deforestation dynamics. Notably, six of the seven representative categories exhibit substantial increases in deforestation in the years following the peace agreement. The regression analysis revealed that coca cultivation area, number of cattle, and municipality area are the top three drivers of deforestation dynamics at national, regional, and category levels. However, the importance of the different variables varied according to the different spatial dimensions. Results provide further understanding on how the drivers of deforestation change not only at a regional scale, as assumed by much of the current literature about drivers of deforestation, but also at a lower scale of analysis (intraregional and intradepartmental variation in the case of Colombia). Insights from this study can be used to understand deforestation dynamics in other countries experiencing times of conflict and peace and will support decision-makers in creating programs that align actions for peacebuilding, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity conservation more effectively.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Peace Means for Deforestation: An Analysis of Local Deforestation Dynamics in Times of Conflict and Peace in Colombia

Ganzenmüller

Sylvester

Castro-Núñez

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Yet, the strongest covariates of conflict victims were demographic, with steep declines in urban population indicated by r urban population (Figure 6) and larger total rural populations (Figure 2). Past analyses have shown armed conflict leads to forest loss (Murillo- Sandoval et al 2021), as it likely displaces local populations (Fergusson et al 2014) and correlates to both cattle ranching as a land use (Holmes et al 2019) and land grabbing (Castro-Nunez et al 2017). Here we show a nationwide effect of conflict victims on r forest (Figure 3) while demonstrating that armed conflict and displacement (as measured by r urban population ) go together (Figure 6) (Holmes & Gutiérrez De Piñeres 2011;Rincón-Ruiz & Kallis 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But such interventions must consider both the history of failed state-sponsored development projects, and that private, illegal infrastructure has already led to deforestation spikes in the same regions where coca and conflict concentrate (Silva Numa 2016;Paz Cardona 2021). Right now the status quo ante-both coca cultivation and aerial fumigation generating thousands of conflict victims each year and promoting depopulation and deforestation-has given way to massive environmental costs at newly opened post-peace accord frontiers (Armenteras et al 2019b;Van Dexter & Visseren-Hamakers 2019;Clerici et al 2020;Murillo Sandoval et al 2020) where lingering armed conflict generates much greater deforestation than before (Murillo- Sandoval et al 2021). While our models show that infrastructure spending can help reduce coca, and coca promotes deforestation via conflict, they also reveal the most important challenge to forest conservation in Colombia is neither coca nor conflict, but the insatiable appetite for land that expresses itself through r pasture .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…CINEP collects municipal data on the number of victims of all kinds of human rights violations perpetrated by different armed groups, such as guerrilla, paramilitary, or the national army. 1 Although these data are usually collapsed into rates (e.g., homicides per 100,000 inhabitants), even when rare, violence can affect land use (Murillo-Sandoval et al 2021). In addition, most municipalities most of the time lack conflict victims, with a few developing temporary clusters of conflict.…”

Section: Conflict Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forests, Coca, and Conflict: Grass Frontier Dynamics and Deforestation in the Amazon-Andes

Dávalos

Holmes³

et al. 2021

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development

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Population growth with weak economic development can promote tropical deforestation, but government infrastructure investment can also open new frontiers and thus increase deforestation. In the Andean region of South America, population growth has been a leading explanation for both deforestation and coca cultivation, but coca generates armed conflict and attracts counter-drug measures, obscuring the differences between population-driven and frontier-opening models of deforestation. Using a 15-year panel from Colombia, we model deforestation, coca cultivation, and conflict victims as interrelated responses with a suite of covariates encompassing land cover, land cover changes, population, population changes, counter-drug measures, and government infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending suppresses coca, coca and eradication by aerial fumigation both increase conflict, and conflict promotes deforestation and is associated with depopulation. But the strongest predictor of deforestation is pasture growth, which covaries with coca. While these models show that infrastructure spending can help reduce coca, and coca's influence on deforestation is indirect and mediated by conflict, the models also reveal the most important challenge to forest conservation is neither coca nor conflict, but an insatiable appetite for land that expresses itself through pasture growth.

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“…Not all large landholders are narcotraffickers; frontiers are dynamics spaces with many actors clearing land, some with licit capital. Land dispossession caused by narcotraffickers or other armed actors can be followed by corporate actors who rapidly clear land (Ballvé 2018;Darién 2021;Murillo-Sandoval et al 2021). Incomplete empirical data on land control prevent straightforward quantification of the amount of sustained forest loss directly or indirectly attributable to narcotrafficking.…”

Section: Data Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narcotrafficking and Land Control in Guatemala and Honduras

Tellman

McSweeney

Manak

et al. 2021

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development

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On frontiers dominated by illicit activities such as narcotrafficking, criminal organizations' usurpation of land and resources is profoundly changing rural livelihoods and prospects for biodiversity conservation. Prior work has demonstrated how drug trafficking catalyzes forest loss and smallholder dispossession but does not make clear the extent to which the long-term control of land is moved from state, Indigenous, or smallholders to criminal or other actors. This study attempts to describe those shifts. Specifically: we develop a typology of land control, and use it to track how drug trafficking initiates shifts from public lands and Indigenous territories to private large holdings. We examine an array of secondary sources indicating shifts in land control related to narcotrafficking, including illegal land seizure documents, news media, and surveys of land managers. In absence of formal land registries, frontier actors may signal their control over land through land use change. After establishing where changes in land control have taken place, we analyzed land use and resulting changes in spatial patterns of forest loss. We found that large scale sustained forest losses (over 713,244 ha and 417,329 ha), in Guatemala and Honduras, respectively, from 2000-2019) corresponds with areas undergoing shifts in control towards large landowners, often related to narcotrafficking. Incomplete empirical data on land control prevent comprehensive attribution of all sustained forest loss related to narcotrafficking. Yet the limited evidence gathered here indicates drug trafficking activities initiate widespread and sustained shifts and consolidation of who controls land and resources at the frontier. Our work suggests that in Central America and likely elsewhere, control over land-quite separate from property rights-is the key factor in understanding social and ecological change.

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No peace for the forest: Rapid, widespread land changes in the Andes-Amazon region following the Colombian civil war

Cited by 54 publications

References 69 publications

What Peace Means for Deforestation: An Analysis of Local Deforestation Dynamics in Times of Conflict and Peace in Colombia

What Peace Means for Deforestation: An Analysis of Local Deforestation Dynamics in Times of Conflict and Peace in Colombia

Forests, Coca, and Conflict: Grass Frontier Dynamics and Deforestation in the Amazon-Andes

Narcotrafficking and Land Control in Guatemala and Honduras

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