Natural Resources and Conflict in Colombia

Abstract

There is a close relationship in Colombia between the political, economic, military, social, and environmental dimensions of the internal conflict. Although the military and social dimensions have been the object of multiple academic studies and political concerns, the environmental dimension has been neglected in both academic analyses and political diagnoses. The object of this article is to identify and analyze the various scenarios in which natural resources (oil, minerals, biodiversity, and fresh water) are connected to the political, economic, and military dynamics of the Colombian conflict.NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA: GENERAL OUTLOOKIn economic and sociopolitical terms, Colombia is considered to be a medium regional power in Latin America. It is, however, one of the richest countries in the world with regard to natural resources. Indeed, although oil production-mostly located in Magdalena Valley-is important and used to place it as the seventh largest crude oil supplier to the United States, Colombia is one of the world's richest countries in terms of biodiversity, fresh water, and minerals.According to the floristic inventory from tropical countries by Campbell and Hammond, there are an estimated 45,000 to 55,000 species of plants in the country, which corresponds to 16 percent of the earth's total. In addition, there are 3,389 species of reptiles, birds, amphibians, and mammals-of which 42 percent are exclusive to the country.1 It is the world's largest emerald producer with a yearly production of nine million karats and Latin America's largest gold producer, with over one million ounces yearly mined in the departments of Antioquia, Cauca, Caldas, Narino, Tolima, and Choco.2 Large quantities of other minerals, such as silver, platinum, copper, nickel, natural gas, and coal (in the Guajira region in particular) are also heavily exploited. Finally, Colombia has immense tropical forest and fresh water resources thanks to its network of 45 basins grouped in the five hydrographie areas of the Caribbean, Orinoco, Amazons, Pacific, and Catatumbo.Alongside this balance of natural resources as sources of wealth-and therefore, of power-one of the other faces of Colombia is that of a country at war. Three significant insurgent groups seek to acquire control and sovereignty of part of the national territory: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); the United Self-Defence of Colombia (AUC), which is currently going through a process of progressive demobilization; and the National Liberation Army (ELN), with which the government is negotiating a peace agreement in Cuba, thanks to international mediation.It is important to stress that the country's important strategic resources have been seen as marginal in political, academic, and even societal approaches to the Colombian armed conflict. Indeed, from the government of President Andres Pastrana to the current government of President Alvaro Uribe, concern for environmental and natural resource issues has always been very weak and was clearly subordinated to both the application of the national security strategy (the so-called defence and democratic security policy) and the interests and priorities of the American government's foreign and security policies in Colombia. Only with the publication of the national report on the state of biodiversity in the late nineties and, later on, with the political emergence of the environmental national forum, were illicit cropping and armed conflict direct causes for the loss of biodiversity on the political agenda.1 Natural resources and their connection to the current armed conflict have not been the object of securitization, except in particular cases, as analyzed below, where illegal groups threaten oil fields-and transportation-where large foreign oil companies are involved.Many border regions in Colombia suffer daily from the plundering, parasitic, and almost symbiotic relationship between illegal armed actors and natural resources. …