Rueda, X., M. A. Velez, L. Moros, and L. A. Rodriguez. 2019. Beyond proximate and distal causes of land-use change: linking Individual motivations to deforestation in rural contexts. Ecology and Society 24(1):4. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10617-240104

In 2016, the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) that included the implementation of a Comprehensive Rural Reform (CRR) with the purpose to allocate and formalize land for peasant populations. In parallel, Colombia was committed to implement the global environmental agendas, including efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by reducing deforestation in the Amazon. Campesino communities in Colombia have historically been marginalized and pushed into forested lands and protected areas. This study seeks to understand the configuration of land-use conflicts in the Amazon Forest Reserve Zone (AFRZ) - a land management category in the Colombian Amazon - amid the implementation of the global environmental agendas and the Peace Agreement, with a focus on the environmental justice implications for peasant communities. After undertaking a historical review of peasant colonization of the Amazon, we focus on the administration of the former president Iván Duque (2018-2022) in which military operations were deployed to counteract the increase of deforestation. These operations resulted in the destruction of private and community infrastructure, and the stigmatization, criminalization, and even homicide of rural inhabitants. Militarization is only the most obvious of the conservation strategies that limit access to nature by peasants, who depend on it for their livelihoods. We further explore the environmental justice implications of this military conservation approach through a case study in the village El Camuya, located in San Vicente del Caguán (Caquetá), in the Colombia’s “arc of deforestation”. Using qualitative methods, we demonstrate how the Comprehensive Rural Reform included in the Peace Agreement has been insufficient to fulfill the needs of Amazonian peasants and that, when intersecting with the environmental agendas, it has fostered land use conflicts that can be understood as environmental injustices.

Los escenarios de construcción de paz en Colombia coinciden con ecosistemas biodiversos, altamente frágiles y amenazados; por tanto, la construcción de paz territorial debería pensarse en el marco de las discusiones sobre construcción de paz ambiental. A partir del caso del municipio de La Montañita, en el departamento del Caquetá, exploramos el significado de la construcción de paz ambiental en territorios campesinos de la Amazonía, los cambios en la gobernanza de los recursos naturales y las amenazas a las que se enfrentan las comunidades. Concluimos que la paz es más que la ausencia de violencia e incluye la capacidad de organizarse, tomar decisiones sobre el territorio y agenciar el futuro. A pesar de los grandes desafíos, las comunidades se han reconfigurado institucionalmente a partir de acuerdos y relaciones para construir paz territorial y paz ambiental.