Conflict, Environment and Transition: Colombia, Ecology and Tourism after Demobilisation

Bill Mcclanahan,Tatiana Sanchez Parra,Avi Brisman

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v8i3.1246

Abstract

In 2016, Colombia’s left-wing guerrilla FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo) began demobilisation. While demobilisation and the ensuing peace accords brought renewed hope that the country could imagine different political and social relations—and new ecological and economic conditions—multinational corporations filled the ‘void’ left by FARC-EP forces. Corporate interests in Colombia’s natural resources predated the demobilisation. However, extractive processes were restricted by the dynamics of the armed conflict. In 2016, immediately following the demobilisation, deforestation in Colombia jumped 44 per cent. In the transitional demobilisation period, huge swaths of the country were opened for economic development. Thus, while the environment is often a victim in armed conflict, in Colombia, conflict contributed to the preservation of some areas. Among the forms of development that have emerged in Colombia, ‘ecotourism’ has risen quickly to the fore. While ecotourism may offer some promise, it should be viewed with caution.

Highlights

While the de-escalation of armed conflict has begun to create conditions of peace, the economic development of rural and poor communities presents a challenge for an emergent Colombia increasingly configured by the mechanisms and logics of the conflict, but of transitional justice
While ecotourism may offer an economic model and framework for the simultaneous protection and development of important ecologies and communities in transition, it seems more likely that ecotourism will continue to serve as something like the Trojan horse of global capital
Were an ecotourism model to emerge in Colombia that respected the self-determination and intrinsic rights and value of Indigenous people and non-human animals—one that preserved the vast ecological insights of traditional and Indigenous ecological practice, and that put sustainability before inclusion in the global markets of capitalism—ecotourism could play a meaningful role in a just transition

Summary

Armed conflict and ecology in Colombia

The armed conflict in Colombia has been a dynamic affair and cannot be understood as a stable, static or homogenous dispute or process. In Colombia, struggles over access to land and its related historical unequal distribution have underpinned and transformed the dynamics and economics of this long-lasting conflict (Sanchez Leon 2017), as have disputes over control (and exploitation) of natural resources, such as illicit crops and illegal gold mining. While these illegal activities funded and contributed to the perpetuation of the armed conflict, armed groups found a significant source of funding in their engagement with legal activities, such as exploitation of oil by multinational corporations, mono-cropping, and cattle ranches, for which forced displacement and land grabbing continue to be fundamental. We conclude by turning to questions raised by critical conservation scholars (see generally Marijnen and Duffy 2018) surrounding the promise of conservation and development, the role of conservation in peacebuilding and the possibility and ability of new forms of conservation and ecological and economic development to offer meaningful transitional intervention into ongoing ecological and ecocidal harm

Transitional justice and conflict ecologies

Findings

Conclusion