Colombia's Environmental Crisis Accelerates Under Duque

Apr 20, 2020 | Evan King and Samantha Wherry
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On 16 February 2020, six gunmen fatally shot Albeiro Silva Mosquera and his brother Luis Hugo and severely injured Indigenous leader and activist Daniel Remigio in Colombia's southwestern department of Cauca. The victims were all members of the Process for Popular Unity of Southwestern Colombia (PUPSOC), a grassroots organization that defends rural communities in the Colombian Massif from destructive mega-projects. 

The attacks were not isolated cases. In 2019, Colombia was the most dangerous country on earth for human rights and environmental defenders, with at least 250 killed, according to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz). Eighty percent of these deaths have been linked to powerful economic interests seeking to exploit the land and natural resources. As Colombia remains on COVID-19 lockdown, social leaders around the country continue to be murdered with impunity, with at least three environmental defenders killed in one week in March.

Under the current government of right-wing president Iván Duque, the situation is not improving. Duque's National Development Plan places extractive industries as a top priority for state-sponsored investment, making it easier for foreign multinationals to obtain mining concessions in biodiverse regions like the Colombian Massif, an Andean mountain range in the country’s southwest. Duque’s doubling down on this outdated development model in regions formally under rebel control could accelerate Colombia’s growing environmental crisis, setting the stage for the next major social conflict.