Nine organizations working in the Colombian Amazon have warned against the “worrying environmental degradation” of this region, which is experiencing an “unprecedented crisis” with ever more deforestation and attacks against defenders of its forests, according to a statement released this Thursday.
The Colombian Amazon “is facing an unprecedented environmental and security crisis that puts environmental defenders in great danger,” said these nine Colombian and international organizations, on the occasion of the publication of a report on the topic.
An increase in violence
“The intensification of resource grabbing and illegal economic activities, such as illicit cultivation and drug trafficking, mining, cattle ranching and agriculture, have not only fueled the degradation of environment and deforestation in the region, but also an increase in violence ”, the authors of this report, entitled A dangerous climate.
According to figures from IDEAM, a public and scientific institution for environmental monitoring, “70% of the country’s deforestation is concentrated in the Amazon and continues to increase: from 98,256 hectares in 2019 to 109,302 hectares in 2020”.
Tensions since the disarmament of the FARC
“Although this crisis has been brewing for decades, it has become more pronounced since the signing of the historic 2016 peace agreement between the government and the FARC guerrillas” (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), shows the report, written by the Foundation for Ideas for Peace (FIP) and Adelphi, notably with the support of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
“A complex and shifting network of illegal armed groups, private actors and corrupt officials have taken advantage of the vacuum left by the disarmament of much of the FARC to expand their power and illegal economic activities, most of which have an impact. negative on nature ”, continues this text. “Local communities, NGOs and institutions that try to protect the Amazon have come into conflict with the interests of these powerful groups and, therefore, are increasingly the target of attacks”, emphasizes Juan Carlos Garzon, FIP researcher and one of the study’s authors.