{"id":6308,"date":"2017-08-28T08:50:38","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T12:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6308"},"modified":"2017-08-28T08:50:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T12:50:38","slug":"healing-colombias-war-ravaged-landscapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6308","title":{"rendered":"Healing Colombia\u2019s War-Ravaged Landscapes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The tropical dry forest characteristic of Colombia\u2019s Montes de Maria region has all but disappeared. Felipe Villegas, Instituto Humboldt, Author provided (No reuse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe armed conflict took so much from us\u201d, one young farmer and communications activist tells us, motioning at photographs of devastated avocado plantations on a sweltering July morning on Colombia\u2019s Caribbean north coast.<\/p>\n

Our group of international researchers is in El Carmen de Bol\u00edvar, the largest town in the Montes de Mar\u00eda region, to meet with local media groups that are working to integrate environmental restoration into the peace process of this war-torn nation.<\/p>\n

This area, long a Colombian hotbed for organised activism for the rights of small farmers, or campesinos<\/em>, has also seen horrific violence. Since the 1970s, Montes de Mar\u00eda has been host to numerous guerrilla groups and, later, paramilitary organisations.<\/p>\n

Bombings, crossfire and bloody massacres forced thousands to flee. According to the NGO Oxfam<\/a>, armed violence uprooted 269,000 Colombians annually from 2002 to 2010. At present, one in ten remains displaced.<\/p>\n

Humans weren\u2019t the only victims of Colombia\u2019s five-decade armed conflict. In Caribbean Colombia, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world<\/a>, nature was also deeply affected.<\/p>\n

Nature in danger<\/strong><\/p>\n

We could rattle off grim statistics like the fact that 46% of Colombia\u2019s ecosystems are now at risk of collapse<\/a> and that 92% of the tropical dry forests<\/a> that are typical of the Montes de Mar\u00eda region have already disappeared<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"La Cansona\u2019s bullet-scarred ceiba tree.<\/span>
\nJuan Salazar<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n

But survivors\u2019 tales speak of deeper truths about how war fractures relationships between humans and their habitats. Farmers tell us about a hundred-year-old ceiba<\/em> tree in the village of La Cansona that still displays the scars of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Soraya Bayuelo, the respected director of L\u00ednea 21 Communication Collective, recalls a large tamarind tree in Las Brisas to which a dozen men were tied and then decapitated in March 2000. The tree dried up after that, other activists add, and it only started blooming again after a government ceasefire with guerrillas<\/a> went into effect.<\/p>\n

The young farmers turned activists also remember stories of how avocados \u2013 long the economic engine of the region \u2013 came down from the mountains speckled in blood.<\/p>\n

Conflict hurt agricultural production, too. An analysis<\/a> by the Centre for Regional Economic Studies of the Banco de la Rep\u00fablica, Colombia\u2019s central bank, found that avocado production in war-torn 1992 was fully 88.6% lower than in 2012, when the conflict had begun to cool.<\/p>\n

More recently, a fungus has taken its toll. Over the past five years, as farmers began returning home from wherever they\u2019d scattered, they found that a Phytophthora pathogen had begun devastating the area\u2019s avocado plantations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Can a country heal if its land remains scarred? The farmers and activists we met in Montes de Mar\u00eda say no, arguing that without environmental restoration there can be no social reparation.<\/p>\n

The new environmental activism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Things are, however, slowly improving for Montes de Mar\u00eda.<\/p>\n

The mochuelo<\/em> bird and the Cotton-top Tamarin monkey, both of which had retreated or disappeared from the area, are also coming back, if slowly, much like the people displaced from their land.<\/p>\n

\"\"A mochuelo bird in captivity.<\/span>
\nJdvillalobos<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

During our visit, El Carmen de Bol\u00edvar, birthplace of one of Colombia\u2019s most celebrated musicians and composers, Lucho Bermudez<\/a>, was preparing for a traditional music festival. Across town we heard strains of folk melodies \u2013 cumbia<\/em>, porro<\/em>, vallenato<\/em> and fandango viejo<\/em> \u2013 and saw people dancing in public squares.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a sign of change. It\u2019s been almost a year since Colombia first signed a peace agreement<\/a>, and people are no longer afraid to be out and about.<\/p>\n

Still, tensions have not totally disappeared. In the post-war period, environmental conflicts are emerging as the latest threat to the country\u2019s fragile peace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The young farmers\u2019 collectives we met here, who are part of the community group J\u00f3venes Provocadores de Paz (Young Peacemakers), are testament to Colombia\u2019s long tradition of citizen media initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the late stages of the conflict, such groups worked to restitch the country\u2019s social fabric, developing a community-media network to keep people informed and reclaiming public spaces from guerrilla and paramilitary forces.<\/p>\n

Today, organisations like Sembrando Paz<\/a> (literally \u201csowing peace\u201d), whose members are all conflict survivors, have turned their attention to the environment.<\/p>\n

This group of farmers in their late teens and twenties has been photographically documenting various ecological restoration initiatives<\/a> underway here, visually demonstrating why the Colombian peace process can only succeed if rural livelihoods are transformed and secured.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Youth Peace Provocateurs\u2019 environmental work is the latest incarnation of a long history of Colombian campesino activism.<\/span>
\nJuan F Salazar<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n

Land of conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their focus reflects increasing local concern that campesinos<\/em> previously exiled by violence will soon find themselves displaced by new threats: climate change-induced drought, palm oil monoculture and development.<\/p>\n

From the Caribbean coast to the Amazon forests, massive infrastructure projects are afoot in Colombia, bringing gold and coal mining<\/a>, dams and highways to areas once too violent and remote for government investment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Critics insist that natural resource extraction can\u2019t pay for peace<\/a>, warning that it will usher in flooding, land grabs and exploitation of protected natural areas.<\/p>\n

Proposed hydroelectric ventures have been met by massive protests<\/a>, and the farmers we spoke with promised to continue mobilising to protect their homesteads.<\/p>\n

\"\"Farmers in the Alta Monta\u00f1a region have vociferously protested environmentally damaging infrastructure developments. Here, they prepare to march.<\/span>
\nSembrando Paz Archive<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

The 2016 peace agreement supports the protestors\u2019 position that Colombia must rebuild both its social fabric and its environmental health, in theory at least. The accords explicitly state that a sustainable peace<\/a> requires healthy ecosystems and the sustainable management of natural resources.<\/p>\n

Under president Juan Manuel Santos, the government has earmarked significant funding for international partnerships<\/a> in Montes de Mar\u00eda and for environmental projects, particularly in the Amazon region<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one study<\/a> recently confirmed what people here already knew: these top-down projects have largely failed to integrate communities and respond to local needs, limiting their sustainability and potential for knowledge-sharing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Young farmers and media activists from Sembrando Paz at work in 2015.<\/span>
\nSembrando Paz<\/a>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/h6>\n

\"TheIn some ways, new environmental challenges seem as intractable as armed conflict, but community groups in Montes de Mar\u00eda are doubling down on conservation<\/a>, hoping to show Colombia a path forward.<\/p>\n

Juan Francisco Salazar<\/a>, Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe armed conflict took so much from us\u201d, one young farmer and communications activist tells us, motioning at photographs of devastated avocado plantations on a sweltering July morning on Colombia\u2019s Caribbean north coast. Our group of international researchers is in El Carmen de Bol\u00edvar, the largest town in the Montes de Mar\u00eda region, to meet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":6309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6310,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308\/revisions\/6310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}