How a Peace Treaty is Threatening the Rainforest

For decades, the dense Amazon rainforest offered the FARC, Colombia’s oldest guerilla movement, a safe haven in its struggles against the state and its representatives. In 2014 the rebels declared a ceasefire, and two years later, signed a peace treaty with the government. Unfortunately, this development has had grievous effects on the rainforest: ever since, more and more of it is being cleared – especially in those regions previously under the guerillas’ control.

In the context of her bachelor’s thesis, Dorothee Uchtmann took a closer look at the causes and dynamics of this deforestation. In 2020, her research garnered her second place in the Young Climate Scientists Award.

In Colombia, the geographer spoke with representatives of various governmental and non-governmental environmental protection organizations, researchers, and politicians from the Comunes (Commons), a left-wing party founded as a successor to the FARC. It soon became clear to her: not peace itself was to blame for the increasing forestation; weaknesses in the government were. The authorities hadn’t managed to fill the power vacuum left behind by the guerillas.

Before the peace treaty, the FARC monitored how much land was cleared for livestock farming or growing coca. Today, no one seems to be doing so. As a result, more and more forest is being cleared. In addition, many locals are now trying their hand as speculators: since the state has no land register, many of them are clearing large areas and using them as pastures for livestock farming, in the hopes that they’ll someday be able to sell their land at a profit. 

“But in reality, it’s not the locals who are pushing for more deforestation; it’s investors and big businesses from the cities and from abroad,” Uchtmann stresses.  They commission broad-scale clearing operations and hire locals as day laborers – even though the latter are who normally seek to protect the forest. According to Uchtmann: “The people in the region take care of ‘their’ forest. In a range of small-scale initiatives, they plant valuable trees, care for them, only cut them down in small quantities, and plant new ones to replace them.” Her proposal: in order to effectively combat deforestation, these organizations should be given direct – including financial – support. After all, they’re the only ones working to ensure that the forest is recognized as a natural resource. To date, any money donated, especially from abroad, has first gone to the state. And never made its way to the forest.