The end of gunpoint conservation: forest disturbance after the Colombian peace agreement

Abstract

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.

Deforestation in Colombian protected areas increased during post-conflict periods

“…These groups are re-activating old tracks used during the past conflict and opening new ones, to create a political-military transportation network. This territorial-control strategy allows consolidating a social basis for these armed groups, economic inputs for rearmament, and a www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ population exploiting this 'territorial security' , which also represents a source of recruitment for the guerrillas 37 . A new long-term cycle of violence is potentially incubating in these regions.…”

“…Communities living in regions structurally characterized by lack of infrastructural development and established stable markets, often rely on forest clearing to claim land for subsistence agriculture or more profitable illicit activities. In Colombia, for example, rural settlers and small farmers, were found to be selling deforested land, in some cases opportunistically, in others under duress, to larger, well-organized agricultural producers, who in turn expect the government to adopt land tenure policies favorable to their interests 37 .…”

“…In particular, protected areas have been major actors affected by deforestation nationally. Some of these PAs occur in areas of armed conflict and areas of intense illegal activities 37 . They have been found to successfully reduce deforestation 44 , however, as it occurs in other tropical regions, protected areas are disproportionately located in areas of low vulnerability 48 , i.e.…”

Spatiotemporal Evaluation of The Human Footprint in Colombia: Four Decades of Anthropic Impact in Highly Biodiverse Ecosystems

“…A recently study by Murillo et al (2020) found that during the post-peace agreement period (2017-2018), in the LHFI hotspot of Andean-Amazon foothills (see hotspot IV in Figure 4) forest disturbance increased by 50% over the estimate of 2013-2016 (Hoffmann et al, 2018).…”

On the Geopolitics of Fire, Conflict and Land in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

“…On the one hand, studies showed that conflict zones have experienced reforestation and increased protection of biodiversity [9,10], for example, as a side-effect of land abandonment [11]. On the other hand, studies also found that peace agreements may lead to negative outcomes for the environment as they incentivize economic development, as evident in Colombia where deforestation has increased since the ratification of the peace agreement between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia [12,13]. Furthermore, armed conflicts can affect non-adjacent areas through the movement of refugees [14], indicating, among other things, a telecoupling effect [15].…”