Coca, Cattle, and the Making of Post-Conflict Landscapes in the Colombian Amazon

Maria Juliana Rubiano, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (United States)

Since the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia, deforestation in the Amazon has increased, with cattle ranching and coca cultivation emerging as key drivers. This paper examines the role of these economies in deforestation. We argue that licit and illicit economies function as intertwined systems whose dynamics jointly shape land use change and rural development in post-conflict settings. By uncovering the financial and labor mechanisms that connect these activities, we address three key gaps in existing research: the lack of integration of sociohistorical trajectories, the insufficient attention to micro-level mechanisms and informal financial logics, and the limited engagement with how local actors mobilize coca and cattle together. Drawing on over forty interviews and participatory mapping workshops in Caquetá (Colombia), this study traces how coca and cattle economies jointly evolved through cycles of conflict and environmental degradation. Through this lens, the paper contributes to environmental peacebuilding debates on how hybrid socio-environmental economies shape post-conflict landscapes.