Environmental Governance in Post-Conflict Scenarios: Insights from the Colombian Amazon

Feb 24, 2018 | Nicolas Andres Eslava
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With the FARC’s demobilization process underway, regions of Colombia where until now the FARC had significant presence are now sitting at an environmental governance crossroads. For years these regions have experienced unique forms of environmental management, monitoring and enforcement due to a combination of limited State presence and FARC governance/influence, and are now facing a possible weakening of environmental governance in the short-term. An illustration of this phenomenon comes from the departments of Caquetá, Guaviare, Meta and Putumayo, which have been singled out this February by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development for being home to renewed deforestation hotspots within their territories, all of them within the country’s Amazon region. These deforestation hotspots are located in areas where the FARC has had a strong presence up until its recent demobilization. A presence that deterred the implementation of extensive extractive operations (mining, oil, forestry or agricultural) due to the associated operational safety and regulatory implications; while at the same time allowing (and sometimes financing) the development of other extractive industries such as coca crops or illegal artisanal and small-scale gold mining. In addition to discouraging the implementation of certain operations in the regions under their influence, the FARC have also had more direct impacts on environmental management by enacting and enforcing restrictions of their own, such as: the obligation to leave 20% of farms as preserved ecosystems or not cutting down more than 5 ha of forest in some regions, while regulating fishing seasons and hunting in others. These rules were sometimes enforced through harsh penalties or punishment.