How a peace deal is tearing the Amazon down

a constructive piece examining the steep increase in deforestation rates of the Amazon and their relation to the 2016 Colombian peace deal.

All eyes were on Brazil last year as thousands of acres of the Amazon went up in flames, all the while in neighboring Colombia peace talks took a larger toll on the Amazon than any other event in the recorded history of the Earth. So, what exactly went down? What were these peace talks and how did a couple of men shaking hands and declaring ceasefire result in the heavily forested land now existing as mosaic islands of jungle interspersed with vast cattle ranches?

To understand these events, we need to look closely at the vacuum of power created after the disbandment of the revolting forces as well as the rampant exploitation, coupled with international negligence and the unstable socio-political structure that existed and still exists in Columbia. The story starts from the year 1964 - when the protests first began, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) razed forests as a means of expanding territorial control.

The protests concluded with the 2016 peace deal which formally ended 52 years of civil war in Colombia that had left more than 220,000 dead and nearly seven million people displaced.

After four years of talks, a treaty was signed between the Colombian Government and guerrilla groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The once highly tense regions, filled with military patrolling became home to farmers and cattle headers who shopped at the local stores and waited for the newly elected government to fulfil their promises. The peace deals however were weak and never delivered.

The FARC on the other hand disbanded on paper and went from a large controlled organization to small groups of angry young men with guns. Despite the mild efforts of the peace deal to put an end to the high deforestation rates we saw a steep increase -and last year 140,000 hectares of the Colombian Amazon were destroyed (that’s equivalent to about 20 soccer pitches every hour). That’s more than triple the level in 2015, the year before the FARC agreed to abandon a half-century of fighting.

So how did this come about? Well, here is where the unique socio-political layout of Colombia comes into play. For half a century FARC carried out the majority of its operations from its base in the belt of land bordering the Amazon. These lands were named the Andes-Amazon 'biodiversity bridge’ because it linked the Amazon rainforest to the Andes and contained significant ecosystems, spanning three national parks. It is also home to thousands of rare and exotic species, some of which have been there for 22 million years. The FARC however weren’t too concerned about the ecological significance of this region rather guarded it for military purposes. The jungle canopy concealed their movements from the army, and the forest’s bounty served as a strategic food bank.

Regardless of their intentions, this region was protected from the frenzy of deforestation which then dominated the country. The presence of a much-feared guerrilla force acted as a brake on the environmentally catastrophic cattle ranching that is now booming. In addition, the FARC imposed a ban on cutting down trees without permission and enforced it- something the recent government can’t seem to do. The authority imposed by the FARC kept the deforestation controlled and their disbandment left a large gap which the new government failed to fill. By laying down their weapons, the FARC inadvertently opened the region to the land grabbers and cattle ranchers who are tearing down the forest at a record pace. The belt of land where Colombia’s hot, cattle-raising grasslands meet the rain forest was the FARC’s heartland, where many of its senior commanders were based. These once-elusive fighters are now a familiar sight, buzzing up and down the muddy lanes near El Capricho on motorbikes, buying groceries and taking their children to medical appointments.

The new Colombia exists of scared landless cattlehearders who the government continues to cheat out of the right to land, small groups of the once-mighty FARC that to win popular support are convincing the peasants to clear even more land as protest and of large landowners who are now deforesting the area at an alarming rate to make way for farms and for the illegal growth of coca crops. To sum it up Colombia lacks real structure and in the following years, the problem is going to get much much worse. The world has finally started to realize that our environment is collapsing and doing nothing about it won’t make our problems go away. We need to preserve ecosystems and diverse sanctuaries like the Amazon and we need to do it fast. What makes this situation so much more alarming is that there are environmentalists being killed for speaking up against the Colombian government and pressing for reform. 65 environmental defenders were murdered last year in Colombia, the most of any country in the world, according to a report by Global Witness, a London-based NGO. The international community despite that hasn’t paid any attention to this problem and continues its never-ending cycle of pinning the blame on one another.