Master’s Thesis Workplan, 60 ECTS
Social-ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development Master’s programme 2019/21, 120 ECTS
The Political Economy of Deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon
Master Student
Paula Andrea Sánchez (940129–0169) Edinsvägen 22B, 131 47
pa.sanchez124@gmail.com (46) 73 690 1466
Stockholm Resilience Centre
Sustainability Science for Biosphere Stewardship
ii ABSTRACT
The Amazon has experienced rapid forest loss in the past decades due to the growing colonization, infrastructure development and commercial agriculture expansion. Understanding the underlying social, political and economic drivers of deforestation is key to curb deforestation of the Amazon basin. However, analysis of deforestation has primarily been conducted in Brazil and there is a need to study this phenomenon in other countries such as Colombia. This research intends to contribute to this growing body of knowledge to better understand drivers and processes of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon by unpacking the causal mechanism underpinning deforestation.
To achieve this, I a used Theory-building Process-tracing approach to conceptualize the underlying logics of deforestation in the region. Data collection included qualitative text analysis of policy documents, articles, reports, and grey literature, and virtual semi-structured interviews with key national, regional and local actors. Interviews’ format was adapted due to current travelling and social restrictions. Findings indicate that the power vacuum resulting from FARC guerrilla demobilization acted as a window of opportunity for peasants, squatters, narco-traffickers, cattle ranchers, landlords and other investors to access public lands and capitalize from converting forests to coca crops and pastures for cattle ranching. Capital accumulation has increased actors’ ability to reshape the landscape and societal organization by accumulating different forms and sources of power. Traditional elites, and old and emerging narco-bourgeoisie have capitalized on preexisting power asymmetries by disproportionally accumulating different social power seeking to consolidate territorial hegemony.
Powerful actors exercise attained sources and forms of power to dispose historically marginalized groups – such as indigenous communities, peasants, and squatters – from their means of subsistence and production, resulting in the instauration of a capitalist economy based on land rent and drug trafficking. All this has deepened forest loss, inequalities and conflict over land access between actors.
iii
“Soy, soy lo que dejaron Soy toda la sobra de lo que se robaron Soy el desarrollo en carne viva Un discurso político sin saliva Las caras más bonitas que he conocido Soy la fotografía de un desaparecido La sangre dentro de tus venas Soy un pedazo de tierra que vale la pena Soy América Latina Un pueblo sin piernas, pero que camina”
Latinoamérica, Residente
iv SUPERVISOR
Grace Wong
Stockholm Resilience Centre
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to all that have helped me complete my master program and thesis in Sweden. To those that have believed and encourage me to follow my dreams despite having all the winds against. Especial thanks to Carla Lanyon and Lina Gutierrez who where my flashlight through the darkest times, and to Miriam Huitric who fought so that I could finish the program. Thanks to my supervisor Grace Wong for believing and supporting this research with patience and dedication, and for her guidance throughout the process. Thanks to all participants for sharing their insights, thoughts, ideas and knowledge, and willingness to be part of this study. Lastly and most importantly, thanks to all Colombians who gave their lives to catalyze structural change and attain a more equitable and sustainable country. To all of them and their families, my deepest admiration and solidarity. I dedicated this work to all you.
vi CONTENT TABLE
1. INTRODUCTION ... 1
2. THE STUDY AREA ... 4
3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ... 6
3.1 THEORY-BUILDING PROCESS-TRACING ... 6
3.2 CAPITAL AND POWER ACCUMULATION IN A RENTIER ECONOMY ... 8
3.2.1 Conceptualizing power ... 9
3.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND TENURE, SPECULATION AND DEFORESTATION ... 11
3.4 NARCO-RANCHING:DTOS INVESTING IN CATTLE RANCHING AND AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION 13 4. METHODS ... 16
4.1 IDENTIFYING THE HISTORICAL DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ... 16
4.2 UNPACKING THE CAUSAL PROCESS UNDERPINNING DEFORESTATION ... 17
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 20
5.1 IDENTIFYING THE HISTORICAL DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ... 20
5.1.1 Boom crops in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon ... 21
5.1.2 The historical conflict for the access to and titling of land ... 22
5.1.3 Narco-ranching ... 23
5.1.4 Conservation and environmental policies ... 24
5.2 THE CAUSAL MECHANISM UNDERPINNING DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ... 26
5.2.1 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Seeking to escape poverty ... 26
5.2.2 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Monopolizing illegal activities ... 27
5.2.3 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Rentier capitalism ... 29
5.2.4 The underlying mechanism of deforestation: Accumulation of different forms and sources of power ... 30
5.3 FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS ... 32
5.4 LIMITATIONS ... 32
6. CONCLUSIONS ... 33
7. LITERATURE CITED ... 35
APPENDIX B. PLAIN STATEMENT IN ENGLISH ... 74
APPENDIX C. PLAIN STATEMENT IN SPANISH ... 75
APPENDIX F. DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN ... 80
APPENDIX G. INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE ... 85
APPENDIX H. CODES FOR PROCESS-TRACING ANALYSIS ... 86
vii APPENDIX I. TIMELINE OF THE DEFORESTATION DRIVERS’ ANALYSIS ... 91
APPENDIX J. ETHICAL REVIEW – FINAL REVIEW ... 92
viii TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Map of the Study Area. ... 5 Figure 2 The steps for using inductive and deductive thinking in Theory-building Process-tracing to understand underpinning causal mechanisms (CM) (Beach and Pedersen 2018) ... 7 Figure 3 Conceptualization of the three levels of social power as a result of different forms (“conduct- shaping” and “context-shaping”) and sources of power (monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental).
Modified from Boonstra, 2016. ... 10 Figure 4 Steps for the identification of plausible causal relationships and conditions explaining deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. ... 19 Figure 5 Scheme of capital and power accumulation attain by different actors in the Northwestern Amazon region. ... 31
ix LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Definition of key concepts. ... 15 Table 2 Description of interviewees. Societal sector, nationality and affiliation of participants. ... 18 Table 3 Identified forms and sources of power for actors in the region. ... 30
1 1. INTRODUCTION
The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest biodiversity reservoirs on the planet, and it supplies a wide range of ecological services at a local and global scale (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019). Land- use conversion of the Amazon rainforest is causing rapid forest and biodiversity loss (FAO and UNEP 2020). Small-holders’ colonization, infrastructure development and expansion of commercial agriculture have generally caused deforestation across the Amazon basin (Lambin et al. 2001, Perz et al. 2005, Almeyda Zambrano et al. 2010, Hosonuma et al. 2012). Yet, the distinct histories, politics and socioeconomic conditions of countries sharing the Amazon have resulted in different deforestation dynamics in the region (Viña et al. 2004, Perz et al. 2005, Murad and Pearse 2018). Consequently, understanding the drivers of deforestation across the Amazon basin requires studying the socioeconomic and political drivers of deforestation at the country level (Viña et al. 2004). However, analysis of deforestation have been mainly conducted in the Brazilian Amazon and less attention has been given to other countries (Revelo-Rebolledo 2019).
Colombia holds almost ten percent of the Amazon basin, and for many years the Colombian Amazon was known for being one of the largest continuous forests in the tropics (Sánchez-Cuervo et al. 2012).
Up-until 2005 only 7.3% of the Colombian Amazon had been deforested, largely due to the country’s 60 year armed conflict (Roca et al. 2013, Murad and Pearse 2018). Thus, when comparing the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, it is clear that, unlike Brazil, deforestation in Colombia has been driven by complex synergies between illegality, informality and armed conflict (Armenteras et al. 2013b, Murad and Pearse 2018). Differences in deforestation causation have resulted in distinct patterns of deforestation between the two countries. While deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon follows the well-known fishbone pattern1 (Armenteras et al. 2013b), in Colombia deforestation resembles an easterly directed wave2 (Etter et al. 2006, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013).
Deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is concentrated in the Northwestern side of the region – the western areas of the Putumayo and Caquetá departments, and the southwestern region of the Meta and
1 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is highly determined by road development. It is calculated that most deforestation in the region is concentrated along the main roads. These routes “then open the gateway to even greater deforestation by spurring extensive “fishbone”
patterns of secondary roads that fan out from the main routes […]”(Ungar et al. 2018).
2 The Northwestern Colombian Amazon is subject to a higher colonization pressure due to its proximity to the more densely populated Andean region. As a result, expansion of the colonization frontier has moved in an eastward direction from the Andes over the years (Etter et al. 2006).
2 Guaviare department (Ruiz et al. 2011). Historical drivers of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon were colonization, agriculture expansion, cattle raising and coca crops (Perz et al. 2005, Ruiz et al.
2011, Castiblanco et al. 2013, García 2013). However, since the signing of the Peace Accords between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla and the national government in 2016, the Amazon basin has experienced a significant increase in forest loss due to a combination of historical and novel deforestation drivers (González et al. 2018, EIA 2019, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019, Global Forest Watch 2020, Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020).
The Peace Accords have presented smallholders, large landowners, international companies and criminal organization an opportunity to expand their economic activities to remote forest areas (EIA 2019, Krause 2020). This growing investment and economic development expectations in the post- conflict scenario resulted in land grabbing speculation, and massive forest conversion to cattle ranching (Furumo and Aide 2017, Krause 2017, González et al. 2018, Van Dexter and Visseren- Hamakers 2020). Coca cultivation has also increased due to the influence of residual and emerging trafficking organizations, and poor implementation of the peace agreements (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020).
Under this new scenario, the Colombian government has launched multiple strategies to control unprecedented deforestation rates in the region. Some examples of this are the Vision Amazonia project – a strategy that seeks to cut to zero forest-based net emissions by 2020 – , the Colombian Tropical Forest Alliance created to promote zero-deforestation commodity supply chains (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020), and the consolidation of the Intersectoral Commission to Control Deforestation (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020). The national government also launched Operación Artemisa as a military and law enforcement strategy to reduce illegal deforestation activities in the Amazon (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020). Yet loss of primary forests is still significantly high with large forest areas being cleared in protected areas and indigenous reservoirs (Global Forest Watch 2020).
Many argue that failure of current governmental strategies is rooted in an oversimplification of the deforestation phenomenon resulting in a disproportionate criminalization of FARC dissidents, smallholders and coca growers. On the contrary, experts point-out that a more holistic understanding of the problem is needed to preserve the ecological integrity of the region and, as a result, it is
3 imperative to acknowledge that the logics under which different actors convert forest areas are distinct and often contradictory (González et al. 2018). For this reason, to propose fair and contextually- appropriate solutions to reduce forest loss will require an in-depth examination of the social, political and economic drivers of deforestation (Armenteras et al. 2013a), and additional efforts are needed to better understand ultimate causes of land-use conversion in the Colombian Amazon.
This research intends to contribute to a growing body of knowledge that seeks to better understand deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. The aim of this study is to unpack the causal mechanisms underpinning deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon by answering three questions:
1. Which are the historical indirect and direct drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon?
2. How do direct and indirect drivers of deforestation intertwine in the region?
3. Which is the complex interplay of social, political, institutional and economic factors underpinning deforestation in Northwestern Colombian Amazon by understanding actors’
underlying logics of deforestation?
I conducted a literature review to identify the historical drivers and their intertwined relationships in the region. The analysis includes historical forest loss drivers since the colonial times with an emphasis on forest loss dynamics between 1950-2019 (section 5.1). I then used Theory-building Process-tracing to identify entities and linkages explaining the causal process of deforestation, future scenarios and potential solutions to curb forest loss in the region (section 5.2). I lastly reflect on the scope and limitations of the analysis and here presented (section 5.3).
4 2. THE STUDY AREA
Colombia is known to be a megadiverse country containing ten percent of the global biodiversity in 0.7% of the planet’s surface (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Peláez et al. 2015, Baptiste et al.
2017). The Colombian Amazon region is the largest continuous forest coverage in the country (Ruiz et al. 2011) known for its biological (Ruiz et al. 2011, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019) and cultural diversity being inhabited by 50 different indigenous groups (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).
The Colombian Amazon has been historically known for its ecological integrity (Murcia et al. 2007, Sánchez-Cuervo et al. 2012, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Roca et al. 2013) holding 38 million legally protected hectares under 178 Indigenous Reservoirs and 12 National Natural Parks, and 8 million hectares being considered forest reserve areas (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).
Recent efforts for conserving the biological and cultural diversity of the region have resulted in growing legal and institutional strategies to maintain its socio-ecological diversity (Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). However, the Colombian Amazon has also been the scene of unresolved social conflicts (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019) going through times of great violence and political instability (Peláez et al. 2015, Baptiste et al. 2017). With little territorial presence of the state, the Amazon was considered for many years as an inhospitable and low-priority area (Peláez et al. 2015, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019), suffering from natural resource extraction and displacement of indigenous communities (Peláez et al. 2015, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI 2016).
Due to its diversity and the differences in land-use intensity across the region, the Colombian Amazon can be classified in two different territorial units: the Northwestern and Southeastern Amazon regions (Murcia et al. 2007). The Southeastern Amazon is constituted by Guaviare, Vaupes, Guainía and Amazonas departments (Murcia et al. 2007, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013). It is mainly inhabited by indigenous communities, possess high ecological conservation and low economic integration (Murcia et al. 2007, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013). However, this region has suffered from illegal gold mining, timber exploitation and more recently coltan extraction (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).
The Northwestern Colombian Amazon is constituted by the departments of Guaviare, Caquetá and Putumayo, and the southern areas of the departments of Meta, Nariño and Cauca (Murcia et al. 2007,
5 Ruiz et al. 2011). Although, the Northwestern Colombian Amazon supports a high floristic and ecological diversity (Armenteras et al. 2013b), it has experienced higher colonization pressure, ecosystems transformation (Etter and McAlpine 2006, Murcia et al. 2007), armed conflict and illegal crops due to its proximity to the Andes Mountains (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019). Today, the region holds more than 84.9% of the Amazon’s total population, and reports the highest urbanization rates and infrastructure development of the region (Roca et al. 2013) (Figure 1). Since 2008, extensive cattle raising and mining have become the main economic activities, which resulted in heavy forest conversion to pastures, land concentration, speculation and grabbing (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).
Figure 1 Map of the Study Area.
6 3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
To provide a mechanism-based explanation on how deforestation is driven in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon, I have adopted a constructivist realism lens combining a realistic ontology with a constructivist epistemology. From this point of view the causal mechanism here presented is a mechanism scheme about a real-world causal process. I used Theory-building Process-tracing to combine multiple general mechanism schemes with empirical evidence to provide a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon of study. In this section, I first introduce the reader to Theory-building Process-tracing, how it is used and useful for building theory around a poorly understood or novel causal process (section 3.1). Later, I present the concepts and causal processes that inspired and informed the resulting mechanism-based explanation: capital and power accumulation in a rentier economy (section 3.2); the relationship between land tenure and deforestation (section 3.3), and narco- ranching (section 3.4). A summary of key definitions is presented in Table 1.
3.1 Theory-building Process-tracing
The idea underpinning mechanism-based explanations is to provide details of the cogs and wheels of the causal process through which the outcome of interest was brought about (Hedström and Ylikoski 2010). Mechanism-based explanations seek to open the black box containing a cause- effect relationship between one or more entities connected via one or more causal mechanisms (Hedström and Ylikoski 2010, Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Beach and Pedersen 2018).
Causal mechanisms are complex systems of interlocking entities (e.g. actors, organizations, structures) that transfer energy, information, or matter to other entities in the system producing an observable outcome under specific conditions (Bennett and Checkel 2015, Beach 2016, Beach and Pedersen 2018). Causal mechanism are assumed to be unobservable ontological entities in the world (Bennett and Checkel 2015). Consequently, understanding causal mechanisms can only be done through hypothesis testing of theorized or scheme mechanism that describe the causal forces producing the observable outcome.
Theory-building Process-tracing seeks to build a theory about a causal mechanism explaining the causal relationship between two entities that can later be generalized to similar cases (Beach and Pedersen 2018). This is a method used for tracing the steps of a causal process of interest (Beach 2016) attempting to identify the intervening causal mechanism between an independent and
7 dependent entity by making inferences on hypothesis about how the process took place and how it generates the observable outcome (Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Bennett and Checkel 2015, Beach and Pedersen 2018). This method combines inductive and deductive approaches to construct a generalizable explanation of a case study, assuming that there is a more general causal mechanism (Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Beach and Pedersen 2018). When using Theory-building Process-tracing, the researcher firstly proceeds to investigate the empirical material in the case and later infers the causal mechanism, often getting inspiration from existing general theories and observations (Beach and Pedersen 2018) (Figure 2).
Figure 2 The steps for using inductive and deductive thinking in Theory-building Process-tracing to understand underpinning causal mechanisms (CM) (Beach and Pedersen 2018)
8 3.2 Capital and power accumulation in a rentier economy
Capitalist production is a constantly extending process of capital accumulation that requires that workers are divorced from the ownership of the conditions of their labour (Marx 1991). Capitalist production results in the commodification of the workers’ means of subsistence and production (e.g., infrastructure, land, tolls, etc.), resulting in two kinds of commodity owners: 1) capitalists, who own the money and means of production and subsistence, and 2) free-workers, who sell their labor-power to capitalists, as they are free from any means of production and/or subsistence. These capital relations together with the means of production set the bases of society heavily determining all societal relationships and ideas (e.g., culture, law, morality, religion, political power, and institutions), or what Marx defines as the superstructure.
According to Gramsci, the concept of superstructure can be broken down into two floors of actions, described as civil society and political society (Bates 1975, Baeg Im 1991). The former comprises all private institutions (e.g., clubs, journals, parties, etc.) that contribute to the formation of the political and social consciousness of society. The latter is composed of all public institutions, namely the state. In a capitalist economy, the dominant class or bourgeoisie – that who owns the means of subsistence and production – exerts its power over society on both floors of actions to consolidate its domination and hegemony. Gramsci defines domination as the rule by force and hegemony as the rule by consent.
Bourgeoisie hegemony is attained through organizing consent between the bourgeoisie and the workers’ class, where the dominant class allocates some profits from capital accumulation to the improvements of the material conditions of workers (Bates 1975, Baeg Im 1991). To acquire full hegemony, the bourgeoisie must obtain universal political, intellectual and moral leadership in the spheres of the superstructure. When a social group has insufficient material basis to establish a universal hegemony over the subordinate class or classes, their exercise of hegemony is incomplete and mostly based on domination and coercion.
However, as described by Marx, a capitalist mode of production is an ongoing cyclical process, so the question is how did it start? Although it is linked to the origins of capitalism in the 1800s, primitive capital accumulation still takes place today as a result of the market integration of rural economies and neoliberal capital policies resulting in centralization of wealth and power
9 (Glassman 2006, Harvey 2010, Richani 2012), updated and reconstructed by Harvey (2010) as accumulation by dispossession to reflect contemporary processes . This process is based on the land privatization and re-conceptualization as a freely tradable asset usable for capital accumulation where land acquires value regardless of agricultural production (Marx 1991, Harvey 2018). Land commodification results in a rentier economy where investments in land are mainly based on expected rent surplus or speculation – i.e. the trade in land to achieve a capital gain as a result of a rapid change in land prices (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010).
3.2.1 Conceptualizing power
Power is not a straightforward concept having multiple definitions and being highly contested;
however, due to its importance to explain social causality and to assign responsibility, its conceptualization is of great importance to study socio-ecological interactions (Boonstra 2016).
Here, I present Boonstra’s (2016) conceptualization of power to study socio-ecological interactions with the intention of operationalizing Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and power dynamics in a capitalist economy.
According to Boonstra (2016), power can be conceptualized in three different levels. The first level of power conceptualization can be understood as “conduct-shaping” and “context-shaping”. Power as “conduct-shaping” refers to people’s ability or power to directly affect an outcome and, as a result, the exercise of this forms of power can be observed and empirically verified. On the other hand, power as “context-shaping” is an indirect and often unintended consequence of human behavior and includes the structures and events altering people’s subsequent actions.
The second level of power includes the attributes or sources (e.g., monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental) of the first level of power (Boonstra 2016). Attained sources of power and forms constitute the third level of power or social power. Social power “[…] always depends on both conduct-shaping and context-shaping power, but the constitution of these two dimensions of power depends on the various ways in which sources are available, distributed, and mobilized” (Boonstra 2016). Figure 3 summarizes the three levels of power presented by Boonstra.
10 Figure 3 Conceptualization of the three levels of social power as a result of different forms (“conduct- shaping” and “context-shaping”) and sources of power (monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental). Modified from Boonstra, 2016.
11 3.3 The relationship between land tenure, speculation and deforestation
Land tenure is the set of institutions determining how land and its resources are accessed, who can benefit from these resources, for how long and under what circumstances (Robinson et al. 2011, 2014, van Bodegom 2013). There are different rules and norms determining how one or more entities (e.g., an individual, a public institution, a private company, or group of individuals acting as a collective) hold the property rights over land, which results in different forms of land tenure (e.g., public, private, communal, customary) (Robinson et al. 2011, 2014, van Bodegom 2013).
Although recent evidence suggests that all forms of land tenure are vulnerable to forest loss, historically it has been believed that public forestlands are more prompt to deforestation (van Bodegom 2013, Robinson et al. 2014). Consequently, many remote forest areas have been privatized assuming this will ensure responsible land-use (Rudel and Hernandez 2017). This together with a growing global demand for natural resources have reinforced land-use change and deforestation (van Bodegom 2013, Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Rudel and Hernandez 2017), and has created new conflicts between customary and statutory land tenure systems in frontier areas (van Bodegom 2013, Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Rudel and Hernandez 2017).
Enclosure and privatization of common lands also incentives land grabbing as a conduct for capital accumulation (Hall 2013), resulting in planned and spontaneous colonization, displacement of traditional and indigenous communities and environmental degradation (Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Young 2018, Agrawal et al. 2019, Brito et al. 2019). Colonization increases the value of cleared lands and supports settler’s claim for land titling (Brito et al. 2019, Mayer 2019, Cardoso Carrero et al. 2020, Reydon et al. 2020), simultaneously creating the need for further infrastructure development and reinforcing the expansion of the colonization frontier (Peres and Schneider 2012, Miranda et al. 2019). As remote areas become more connected, the demand and value of land continuous to increase rising the potential for speculation. Cattle ranching is reported as the most common form of land speculation in frontier areas providing settlers with tenure security and revenues from beef production while waiting for land prices to rise (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010).
Growing agriculture and infrastructure development leads to the integration of remote areas to market dynamics enabling the consolidation of agribusiness and promoting the conversion of pastures to large-scale agriculture (Furumo and Aide 2017, Agrawal et al. 2019, Miranda et al.
12 2019). All this, attracts new investors and capitalized actors to frontier areas who convert pastures and other small-scale agriculture lands to more profitable agro-industrial uses (Furumo and Aide 2017). Land acquisition by capitalized actors can lead to land concentration and conflict over tenure (Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Cardoso Carrero et al. 2020). This phenomenon has been documented in the Brazil and other Latin America countries where privatization of public forestlands has resulted in forest conversion for cattle ranching, oil-palm and soybeans (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010, Graesser et al. 2015, Sy et al. 2015, Furumo and Aide 2017, Mcsweeney et al.
2017, Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b).
13 3.4 Narco-ranching: DTOs investing in cattle ranching and agricultural expansion
Drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are driving deforestation in many Latin American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia (Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). This is a process known as narco-ranching in which DTOs invest in cattle ranching to launder money, claim territorial control and smuggle drugs (Devine et al. 2020b). In narco- ranching, DTOs directly finance deforestation activities or buy previously cleared areas converting them to pastures (Tellman et al. 2020).
It is now clear that the growing demand for cocaine and the declared USA War on Drugs have enabled narco-ranching in Latin American countries (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). Drug criminalization and interdiction creates the need for a constant re- location of trafficking routes and heavily increases drug prices (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). DTOs seek to re-locate smuggling routes into remote areas where law enforcement is low, and labour and land availability high, explaining why re-routing occurs in frontier areas (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020).
However, DTOs do not deforest and buy the lands where drugs are directly transported; instead, they tend to do this next to smuggling routes (Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). By expanding cattle ranching, DTOs secure their territorial control to both secure trafficking routes and prevent territorial encroachment by rival groups (Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020).
Deforestation also allows DTOs to merge illegal funds within legal cash flow, and acquire assets that can later be sold (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020), acting as a conduct to launder money in frontier areas. Because forest conversion to pasture is a regarded form of land improvement, expansion of cattle ranching supports DTOs’ claims over land ownership providing drug traffickers with a legitime status as business man and neutralizing other people’s claims to land (e.g., conservationist and indigenous communities) (Mcsweeney et al.
2017, Tellman et al. 2020). As deforested areas become more connected, DTOs tend to speculate with the price of land, which further reinforces their capital accumulation (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020).
It is well-known that criminal organizations use violence and bribes to grab the land of local inhabitants to secure land acquisition (Devine et al. 2020a). Simultaneously, DTOs heavily invest
14 to corrupt political, judicial, and military units to reduce law enforcement and secure their economic activities (Mcsweeney et al. 2017). This together with the accumulation of wealth and social status blurs the line between criminal organization and local elites creating new narco- bourgeoises (Richani 2012, Mcsweeney et al. 2017). Consolidated narco-bourgeoises later seek to co-opt state institutions participating in decision-making to secure their interest, reduce law enforcement and legitimize their activities (Mcsweeney et al. 2017).
15 Table 1 Definition of key concepts.
Concept Definition
Causal mechanism Complex systems of interlocking entities (e.g., actors, organizations, structures) that transfer energy, information, or matter to other entities in the system, producing an observable outcome under specific conditions
Theory-building Process-tracing
A method used to identify the intervening causal mechanism between an independent and dependent entity by making inferences on hypotheses about how the process took place and how it generated the observable outcome. It combines inductive and deductive approaches to build a theory about a causal mechanism explaining the causal relationship between two entities in a case study, that can later be generalized to similar cases
Hegemony A dominant class exercises power by achieving consent in both civil society and political society
Rentier capitalism A form of capitalism where accumulation of capital is obtained through ownership and not production
Land speculation The trade in land to achieve a capital gain as a result of a rapid change in land prices
Conduct-shaping A form of power that refers to direct effects that can be observed and empirically verified
Context-shaping A form of power that “is an indirect, latent, and often unintended consequence of human behavior and includes the effects that (re)produce structures and events that alter the parameters of subsequent action” (Boonstra 2016).
Sources of power Sources of power do not cause the exercise of power but rather are attributes of power. These resources include the following sources of power: human, mental, monetary, artifactual, and natural
Land tenure The set of property rights associated with land, and the institutions that uphold those rights
Narco-ranching The process where DTOs convert forest and other types of landcover to pastures in remote rural areas to launder money, claim territorial control and smuggle drugs
16 4. METHODS
This section contains a description of the methods I used to understand the drivers of deforestation in deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. Firstly, I explain how I conducted a literature review for identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the region (section 4.1). Subsequently, I describe how I used Theory-building Process-tracing for unpacking the causal process of deforestation by identifying the entities and processes under which this causal relationship holds and analyzing how the historical drivers and dynamics set the conditions for the studied phenomenon (section 4.2).
4.1 Identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the historical direct and indirect drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. Primarily attention was given to identified drivers after 1950 – due to the growing national and international interest that the region gained after this year (Sierra 2000, Viña et al. 2004, Perz et al. 2005). Academic literature was searched for in English and Spanish using different combination of the keywords: “drivers”,
“deforestation”, “forest clearing”, “forest loss”, “land-use change”, “land cover change”,
“Colombia”, “Colombian Amazon”, “Amazon”, “Amazon region”, and “Amazonia”, and booleans AND and OR. This search was conducted using Scopus and Google Scholar databases between September and October 2020. Other relevant literature recommended by experts and gathered in previous investigations was included in the review (e.g., academic literature, policy documents, reports, and grey literature). Text analysis was later used to inductively identify synergies and common elements among drivers and patterns of deforestation, leading to three distinct deforestation periods – 1500-1950, 1951-1999, and 2000-2019 – and four themes – boom crops, land access and titling, narco-ranching, and conservation and environmental policies.
17 4.2 Unpacking the causal process underpinning deforestation
Findings of the literature review in combination with 15 semi-structured interviews (Appendix G), and two pre-recorded publicly available panel discussions from the School of Local Scientists for Restoration3 (Jerez 2019, Peña 2019) were used for unpacking the causal process of deforestation in the region. Interviews were conducted online (Zoom version 5.4.9) due to current travelling and social restrictions, and audio recordings were destroyed after anonymized responses were transcribed. Participants included key national and regional actors from academia, multilateral organizations, public sector, and civil society (Table 2). Due to the difficulties to conduct online interviews with local actors and grassroot organizations, panel discussions were used to represent local insights regarding deforestation in the region. Panel discussions included the reflections of Kelly Peña, a sociologist and activist working with indigenous communities in the department, and Cesar Jerez, founder of the Association of Peasant Reserve Zones (ANZORC), on the interculturality and territorial planning of the Amazon. Theory-building Process-tracing was used to guide content analysis for identifying relevant entities, relationships, processes and conditions (codes Appendix H), and formulating plausible causal relationships. Causal relationship formulation was done deductively, inductively or both depending on whether theoretical evidence was useful to explain the observed outcome. New information was gathered throughout the analysis until a sufficient causal explanation was reached (Figure 4).
3 Escuela de Científicos Locales por la Restauración
18 Table 2 Description of interviewees. Societal sector, nationality and affiliation of participants.
Interviewee Sector Nationality Affiliation
1 Academia Colombian School of Local Scientists for Restauration
2 Academia Colombian Dejusticia4
3 Academia French The French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD)
4 Academia Colombian Pontificia Javeriana University
5 Academia Italian Rosario University
6 Public Sector Colombian National Natural Parks 7 Public Sector Colombian Research Institute SINCHI 8 Public Sector Colombian Ministry of Environment
9 Military Colombian Department of Transnational Threats Analysis
10 Civil society Colombian Center for Alternatives to Development (CEALDES)5 11 and 12 Civil Society Colombian Foundation for Conservation and
Sustainable Development (FCDS)6 13 Multilateral
organization
French Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
14 Civil Society Colombian FEDEGAN (National Federation of Cattle Ranching)
15 Diplomat Colombian UK embassy
4 An action-research center for legal and social studies.
5 Non-profit association formed by an interdisciplinary team of professionals from the social, environmental and basic sciences, which seeks to build alternatives to the socio-environmental conflicts typical of the current development model.
6 NGO working for sustainability and equity of rural local communities.
19 Figure 4 Steps for the identification of plausible causal relationships and conditions explaining deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon.
20 5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Here, I summarize the findings regarding the identification of historical drivers of deforestation (section 5.1). Firstly, I present a general overview of the deforestation in the region throughout the studied years. Subsequently, I make a detailed description of the deforestation drivers based on their theme classification: boom crops (section 5.1.1), land access and titling (section 5.1.2), narco-ranching (section 5.1.3), and conservation and environmental policies (section 5.1.1) (Appendix K). Later, I explained the logics underpinning deforestation of 1) poor and landless peasants (section 5.2.1), 2) narco-trafficking organizations (section 5.2.2), and investors (section 5.2.3), and the overall causal mechanism of deforestation (section 5.2.4). Finally, I discuss the future scenarios for potential solutions (section 5.3), and limitations of this research (section 5.4).
5.1 Identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon Three main deforestation patterns were identified over a period of 520 years (1500 – 2019). From pre-colonial times to the early 20th century, land-use change was reported to be the lowest (Etter et al. 2008, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018). Later and up until the 1950s, colonization caused most of the deforestation in region, and it was heavily driven by natural resource extraction7 and urban development to hold control over the region (Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, Roca et al.
2013, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018). With the introduction of the coca crops, the region experienced growing deforestation between the 1960s and 2000s (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). During the 21st century, cattle ranching significantly grew becoming the main deforestation driver in the country in 2008 (Etter et al. 2008, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019). After the implementation of the Peace Accords, cattle ranching together with spontaneous colonization and coca crops consolidated the main drivers of deforestation in the study region (Krause 2017, González et al.
2018, IDEAM 2019a, 2019b, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019).
7 Primarily mining of gold and emerald, and exploitation of cinchona and rubber
21 5.1.1 Boom crops in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon
Coca plantations were introduced to the Guaviare and Caquetá departments in the 1970s (Murcia et al. 2007, González et al. 2018). Due to the growing international demand for cocaine and the lack of state presence of the region, the Amazon experienced a rapid growing of the coca economy in the 1980s (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). The expansion of coca crops was heavily promoted and financed by criminal organizations and insurgent movements across the country (Roca et al. 2013). The coca plantations became the major driver of deforestation during the following decade (Etter et al. 2008, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013).
In an attempt to regain control over the region, the national government promoted the colonization of the Northwestern Amazon and criminalized coca plantations (Special Plan for the Colonization of the Middle and Low Caguan 1985, Law 30 1986). Subsequently, the national government in close collaboration with the U.S.A launched the Plan Colombia to eradicate coca production and narcotics commercialization in 2000 (García 2013). During the first decade of the 21th century, interdiction policies atomized coca crops (Etter et al. 2006, Murcia et al. 2007, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013, González et al. 2018, Tellman et al.
2020) spreading the plantations to Nariño department and the Pacific region (Rincón-Ruiz et al. 2013, Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019, Anaya et al. 2020).
Atomization also led to the expansion of the colonization frontier and the abandonment of old settling areas in the Northwestern Amazon (Armenteras et al. 2013b, Tellman et al. 2020).
Abandoned areas were either left to forest recovery (Etter et al. 2006, Ruiz et al. 2011, Sánchez- Cuervo et al. 2012, Armenteras et al. 2013b) or sold to land buyers who converted abandoned areas to pastures for cattle ranching (Etter et al. 2006, Armenteras et al. 2013b). With the peace negotiations in 2012 and until 2019, the region experienced a regrowth of coca plantations (UNODC and Gobierno de Colombia 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, González et al. 2018, Krause 2020). Today, the region has observed a new reduction of coca plantations, which are now concentrated towards the Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca departments (UNODC and Gobierno de Colombia 2019, 2020).
22 5.1.2 The historical conflict for the access to and titling of land
Land concentration can be tracked back to the colonial (1600-1800) under extensive ranches called haciendas8 (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018). In 1873, the national government launched the first rural agrarian reform seeking to reduce land concentration granting land titling to peasants in remote forest areas (Law 106 1873, González 2005, Roca et al. 2013).
At the beginning of the 20th century, a second agrarian reform together with the civil war, international demand for commodities, the development of infrastructure promoted deforestation (Law 200 1936, Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al.
2018). This was reinforced by the growing oil-industry (Decree 1056 1953, Sierra 2000, Viña et al. 2004, Krause 2017) in the Putumayo department in the 1950s (Viña et al. 2004, Etter et al. 2008) and the low enforcement of conservation policies (García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Dávalos et al. 2014).
In 1965, a new agrarian reform was launched (Law 135 1961) further increasing forest clearing (García 2013, Dávalos et al. 2014). Although the reform increased land titling from about 90,000 to 600,000 hectares per year, political interests were able to defund the public agency and land distribution soon petered out (González 2005, Faguet et al. 2020). This unattended claims for land re-distribution of smallholders triggered a new armed conflict between the rising left-wing guerrillas – e.g., FARC9 and ELN10 – and the national government across the country (Krause 2017, 2020).
Guerillas rapidly became the de facto state in vast rural areas, regulating land-use, natural resource access and others (Clerici et al. 2020). The conflict for land access led to another rural agrarian reform in 1982 (Law 35 1982) driving a new way of migrants to the Amazon basin (Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, González et al. 2018). In the Caquetá department, the colonization wave was reinforced by a growing livestock industry financed by the national government and the World Bank (Viña et al. 2004, García 2013, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019).
8 Haciendas were devoted to cattle raising, sugar cane and cacao (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018), and were responsible for deforestation in the Caribbean and Andean region (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018).
9 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia
10 Ejército de Liberación Nacional
23 An economic crisis in the 1990s forced the national government to launch a new agrarian reform to increase farmers’ access to land (Law 100 1994, Law 160 1994, Law 333 1997). The new legislation recognized communal property rights of small-scale farmers under the legal name of Peasants Reserve Zones (Law 160 1994). Similarly, indigenous people’s communal property right was recognized in 1991 under the new Constitution (Law 21 1991). These rights were later granted to African-American communities in 1993 (Law 70 1993). Recognition of communal property of these groups increased the number of public land titled to ethnic and peasants communities across the Amazon (Etter et al. 2008, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al.
2018).
The latest attempt for land re-distribution and titling was consolidated in 2016 with the signing of the Peace Accords (Mesa de Conversaciones 2018). The first section of the Accords explicitly seeks the implementation of an integral agrarian reform across the country (Mesa de Conversaciones 2018). Yet, its poor implementation and the increasingly evident interest of the right-wing ruling party for defunding the agreements has slow down the titling process (Congreso de la República 2020, Contraloría Generla de la República 2020). At this rate, it is estimated that compliance with the agreements will take 25 years (Contraloría Generla de la República 2020).
5.1.3 Narco-ranching
A 60-year armed conflict began in the 1960s with the formation of several left-wing guerrillas in the 1960s11. With the consolidation of coca crops in the 1980s, many guerrillas engaged in drug trafficking to finance their military and political activities (González et al. 2018). Later, the consolidation of guerrillas across the country and the failure of the Colombian state to regain territorial control led to the creation of multiple paramilitary counter-insurgent groups in the 1990s (e.g., AUC12 and AGC13) (Roca et al. 2013, González et al. 2018). Paramilitary
11 Fuerzas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Ejercito Popular de Liberación (EPL), and Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19)
12 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia
13 Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia
24 also engaged in drug trafficking to defend their political interests and secure territorial control14 (Roca et al. 2013). The growing civil conflict resulted in high social restlessness serving as the perfect setting for the consolidation of the country’s drug economy (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015).
In the Amazon, large portions of forest were protected under the brutal regime of the FARC guerrilla, who used the forest as a natural fortress against the Colombian army and other armed groups (EIA 2019, Krause 2020). FARC rigorously controlled the number of hectares that inhabitants could cut down (EIA 2019). With the implementation of the Peace Accords the country experienced the down-scale of the civil conflict (González et al. 2018, Revelo- Rebolledo 2019). The power vacuum that resulted from FARC demobilization led to an anarchy situation in many rural areas, where new illegal actors and settlers started to occupy old rebel areas (Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019, Clerici et al. 2020, Furumo and Lambin 2020).
In the Amazon, FARC demobilization has been followed by spontaneous colonization, unplanned infrastructure development, coca plantations and speculation (Krause 2017, González et al. 2018, IDEAM 2019a, 2019b, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019).
5.1.4 Conservation and environmental policies
The government launched the forest economy legislation in 1952 (Law 2 1959). This created the Forestry Reserve Zone of the Amazon banning large-scale agriculture, cattle ranching and natural resource exploitation in large portions of the Amazon. Later, the National Natural Resource Code (Decree 2811 1974) allowed the creation of many protected areas in the region during the mid 1970s and late 1980s15 (Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019). In 1993, the government consolidated the national policy for natural resource management16 and in 2000 the Ministry
14 Drug profits were used by paramilitary groups to expand cattle ranching and oil-palm production in many frontier areas (Etter et al. 2008, Salisbury and Fagan 2013, Sanchez-Cuervo and Aide 2013, Fergusson et al. 2014). It is estimated this criminal organizations control over six million hectares in the country (Richani 2012).
15 Amacayacu Natural National Park (1975), La Paya Natural National Park (1984), Cahuinari Natural National Park (1987), Serranía del Chiribiquete Natural National Park (1989), and Puinawana Natural National Park (1989) and Nukak National Natural Reserve (1989)
16 tThis legislation created the Research Institute SINCHI responsible for managing, conserving and studying the natural resources of the Amazon region.
25 of Environment facilitate the implementation of a new national policy for protected areas called Parks with People17 (Peláez et al. 2015).
In recent years the growing environmental concern to protect the Amazon has resulted in the implementation of a large number of public policies and strategies for its conservation. In 2015, the national government launched the Vision Amazonia project as part of the REDD+ strategy in the country. The national government also launched the Colombian Tropical Forest Alliance in 2017 to signing four public-private zero deforestation agreements for beef, milk, oil-palm, and cacao (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020). Later, the national agricultural frontier was delimitated (Decree 1257 2017, Resolution 261 2018), and other perversive incentives for deforestation for land titling were removed (Decree 902 2017). The Amazon was declared a subject of rights in 2018 (Sentence 4360 2018) and in 2019 the national government launched a military strategy to crackdown on illicit deforestation activities – called Operación Artemisa (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020). Yet, deforestation continues to grow in the Amazon (IDEAM 2019a, 2019b).
17 This legislation led to the incorporation of INDERENA as part of Ministry of Environment facilitate the later implementation of a new national policy for protected areas known as Parks with People in 2000. The new policy acknowledge the social and economic interests of local inhabitants for managing natural protected areas (Peláez et al. 2015).
26 5.2 The causal mechanism underpinning deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon
In this section, I first describe the three main logics driving forest clearing in the region, and later explain the underlying mechanism of the overall causal process (section 5.2.4). The first section explains the intertwined relationship between coca cultivation and cattle (section 5.2.1). The second section narrates how criminal organizations acquire and deforest to monopolize illegal activities (section 5.2.2). Lastly, I describe how investors use deforestation for capital accumulation through land speculation (section 5.2.3).
5.2.1 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Seeking to escape poverty
As described in the previous section, Colombia has a long history of land concentration, which has made land access for poor peasants difficult resulting in violent conflicts across the country.
With the demobilization of FARC guerrilla, controls over land-use were weakened in the Amazon basin presenting an opportunity for poor and landless peasants and squatters to access public lands as a mean for reproducing their traditional peasant economy and accessing new sources of income. Consequently, peasants and small farmers see informal appropriation of public lands as an opportunity to escape rural poverty.
However, due to the poor economic integration of the Amazon, new colonizers have been forced to engage in the well-established coca and cattle ranching economies of the region resulting in the conversion of forests to coca crops and pastures. According to interviewees, these economic activities are the best, if not the only, available resource of income in remote forest areas due to their connectivity to regional and global markets. In the case of coca production, drug traffickers directly collect coca leaves and paste at the production locations, avoiding peasants the need for road infrastructure for market access. Similarly, cattle’s mobility and non-perishable characteristics allows peasants to easily access the beef and milk markets – primarily in the Caquetá and Guaviare departments – despite poor infrastructure.
Notwithstanding is the intertwined relationship between cattle ranching and coca cultivation in the Amazon, where cattle ranching is used by peasant to incorporate coca surplus into the legal economy. Cattle also is a conduct for saving money over time providing peasants with insurance against injury and sickness year-round: “[…] something that livestock and coca have in common, and that is why livestock is consolidated, is that if one of your children or your
27 mother gets sick, you can sell a cow and you have 600 thousand [pesos]or you can sell a kilo and take your 600 thousand [pesos]. In contrast, with the other products you have no guarantees on how to handle that." (Researcher, February 24, 2021). However, the growing herd size also creates the need for constant pasture expansion and land acquisition due to the higher price of land in better connected zones. Thus, pasture expansion tends to occur in remote forest areas, as describe by a government official of the Amazon Institute for Scientific Research (SINCHI), “the deforestation balloon swells to that side because it cannot do it to the other side. If I was Colombia, and this is the Amazon, I cannot inflate [the balloon]
inwardly because the land is much more expensive inward, it's that simple” (March 5, 2021).
On the other hand, peasants’ need to access land for reproducing their economy has catalyzed social mobilizations for acquiring land titling since 1980s. An example was the mobilization of coca growers that during this period led to the consolidation of the Zona de Reserva Campesina del Guaviare in 1996 (ANZORC 2019). Mobilization have also created and deepened intercultural conflicts over land tenure between peasants and indigenous groups across the region. In many cases, conflict is solved through armed violence as described by sociologist Kelly Peña (2019) “[…] a colonist began to establish himself in an area today called Charras, and when cutting down the jungle he met the Nukak [indigenous people]. The Nukak said that they show up because this man was cutting down his ancestral Pipirelas and that caused them pain, and [then] the man warns the commissioner of that time that the Nukak were appearing where he was founding [his land]. Months later […] this man had called the police. The guy shoots the Nukak killing three of them”.
5.2.2 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Monopolizing illegal activities
The FARC guerrilla used to curb capital accumulation by limiting forest conversion to coca crops and cattle ranching, taxing illicit drug products and regulating price of labour (Richani 2002a), which in turn resulted in low levels of deforestation across the region. When FARC demobilized in 2016, the region experienced the weaking of these forms of control providing a window of opportunity for narco-traffickers and other criminal organizations to increase capital accumulation by monopolizing the labour force and means of production of coca leaf and paste, gold mining, logging, and other illegal activities in the region.
28 Under the logics of a capitalist mode of production, this implies appropriation of the means of production and access to labour force. On one side, this has led to the conversion of peasants and indigenous people to free workers and the de facto appropriation of land in insurgent areas.
The former has changed coca cultivation dynamics in the regions forcing local inhabitants to migrate to frontier areas: “[...] because people do not cultivate coca on their farms, they cultivate coca on the colonization frontiers, no longer in their own farms. They go for a few seasons to a plot where they [drug traffickers] set up absolutely everything for them to do it.”
(Researcher, February 24, 2021).
For indigenous people, land dispossession reinforces the loss of cultural heritage that began during the colonial period with the evangelism campaigns of the Catholic church in the Amazon. With the loss of their territories for cultural reproduction many indigenous communities have been forced to become raspachines (coca leaf-peakers) in remote areas where peasant colonization is less prominent. An example of this is the rapid disappearing of the Nukak indigenous people which were a non-contacted community up until the 1960s. As explained by Kelly Peña (2019), this dynamic has led to a loss of the traditional practices and knowledge, “This generation of young people grew up in displacement, in dispossession, due that they are [drug] consumers and work in the cultivation of coca. They no longer hunt, there is no traditional knowledge. […] Young people are workers of the raspa, they are dedicated to that.”
On the other side, findings indicate that criminal organizations attain territorial control by 1) financing forest conversion to coca crops and pasture along trafficking routes or 2) using coercion and armed violence to dispose peasants and indigenous inhabitants from their lands, a phenomenon that has been reported in the region since 1996. This has also led to conflicts among trafficking organizations for securing trafficking routes increasing armed confrontation.
Violence tends to be concentrated in key areas for securing trafficking routes, particularly closer to the border with the Pacific region – e.g., Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca department –, which is the main access route to the USA market.
29 5.2.3 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Rentier capitalism
The FARC demobilization has also presented a window of opportunity for cattle ranchers, investor, agribusiness, landlords and narco-bourgeois who use deforestation for capital accumulation through land privatization and commodification. In the Amazon, these actors do this by 1) persuading peasants to sell their lands paying high amounts of money for low-priced lands in frontier areas, and 2) directly financing conversion of public (public lands and Natural Protected Areas) and communal land (e.g., Indigenous and Peasants Reserves). The former is incentivized by obscure property rights in rural areas, where peasants and squatters know the difficulty of obtaining formal titling. The latter involves the use of low-priced workforce for forest conversion.
Deforestation and appropriation of low-priced lands in the Amazon generate high surplus, which are expected to grow with revenues coming from agrarian production and land speculation as remote areas become more connected with urban centers. Additional surplus from agrarian production mostly come from cattle ranching since speculators can easily access the consolidated regional beef and milk markets, as explained by a former government official
“They know how to lift up [its] value, when the road is coming closer, when the school is coming closer, they are giving [it] value, that is a business from the start. [Later,] you put cows because that is another business that you add to the speculation of the land, and with cows you have meat or you have milk” (January 19, 2021). Conversion of forest to pastures is also reinforced by the prestige and power that large landholdings and cattle ranching grant:
“The man who has a social status is the cattle man. You have to go on horseback, wearing a hat, with several women by your side, singing “corridos” and have your own iron to mark your own cattle, that is the best consideration of success that exists” (Government Official, January 21, 2021).
This mechanism is also used by narco-bourgeois and other criminal actors to legitimize their economic activities and launder money. As stated by an official of the FAO, deforestation is heavily incentivized by the precariousness of rural property rights and informality of agricultural production in the region, “It may be that part is [related to] money laundering dynamics. Why? For the same reason that there is so much dirty money in Colombia and that
30 it is so easy to spend it in agricultural production, which is mostly still informal, at least in the first links of the chains, where everything is paid in cash.” (March 23, 2021). Investors use bribe, coercion and/or their political connections to influence policy and avoid law enforcement securing land tenure, in many cases, in banned areas (e.g., Natural Protected Areas, Reservas Campesinas, Resguardos Indígenas etc.). Examples of this political alliance are the legal allegations against several former regional majors and governors that have been accused of driving deforestation for land grabbing and using public policy and funding to illegally benefit palm oil and cattle ranching expansion in the region.
5.2.4 The underlying mechanism of deforestation: Accumulation of different forms and sources of power
As explained in the previous sections, the power vacuum that resulted from the FARC demobilization weakened the control over capital accumulation and allowed multiple actors to capitalize from deforestation. New and old squatters and peasants saw in this an opportunity of acquiring land for establishing a peasant economy subsidized by coca cultivation and cattle ranching, a productive cycle that was instituted in the region in the 1980s. Meanwhile, narco- traffickers and investors seek the integration of the Amazon to the global and national markets illegally appropriating lands to monopolize illegal surplus and speculating with land prices through primitive capital accumulation.
Capital accumulation increases actors’ ability to reshape and reorder the landscape and societal organization in colonization frontiers by accumulating different forms and sources of power, namely social power. This is deepened by the historical weak presence and assistance of the state in the region. Table 2 summarizes the identified forms and sources of power that these actors acquire through deforestation. Notwithstanding is that this classification of actors in the region is schematic and, in reality, many of these actors transit between positions. Figure 5 conceptualizes social power accumulation and the potential overlap between actors in the region. Deforestation as a conduct for accumulating social power has resulted in a sharp increase of forest conversion to pastures for low-productivity cattle ranching and an increase in the production of coca leaf and paste in the region despite the attempt of the state and other multilateral organization to curb deforestation in the region. Access to cheap labour and land
