Conserving Biodiversity and Peacebuilding in Colombia: Solving socio-environmental conflicts in Protected Areas through peaceful means enhances biodiversity conservation and peacebuilding
art by Rosanna Morris (UK)
Héctor Morales Muñoz (Humboldt University of Berlin and Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, ZALF); Dr. Julia Gorricho (WWF)
A multidimensional approach to strengthening governance in protected areas is key to conserving biodiversity and building peace. It involves the development of participatory information systems, a culture of dialogue and ensuring the availability of sustainable production alternatives for communities.
Context
Protected Areas (PA) are critical for biodiversity conservation, as well as providing natural solutions to climate change, health, and well-being. Recent studies have found that protected areas can support peaceful and inclusive societies by helping to maintain environmental stability, thus providing a framework for good governance and human security.[i] In Colombia, after the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the rebel group FARC (Spanish acronym) and the State, many challenges remained, including unresolved structural causes of the conflict—such as a weak State, limits to political participation, and a lack of equal access to land and natural resources,[ii] a re-configuration of war economies around natural resources,[iii] and a stark deterioration of the environment. As an example, natural areas that were restricted previously due to security reasons are increasingly accessible, resulting in increasing deforestation by 50 per cent (about 238,000 ha) across the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt.[iv] Nevertheless, some consider the Colombian peace agreement to be an opportunity for environmental protection because it seeks to close the agrarian frontier, preventing cultivation from encroaching further on the Amazon rainforest.[v] National and international organizations have helped the Colombian government to develop and enhance PA in zones highly affected by the armed conflict. However, there remains the challenge of understanding the extended impacts of PA on peacebuilding and its mechanisms.[vi]
What’s been done
WWF Colombia has been working for more than 25 years in partnership with the Colombian PA authority and local communities, primarily in the designation of new PAs, to increase the effectiveness of its management and to improve social governance. We analysed the “Protected Areas and Peace (P&P)” project, which aims to provide more effective protection, restoration, and management of six PA, and to reduce the deforestation rate, land-use change, and associated conflicts in the areas. We analysed the project’s contributions to peacebuilding through a mixed-method approach. First, we conducted a literature review of PA and peace, as well as a review of internal and official documents; second, we undertook semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders (n=22); third, we held one virtual workshop implementing the Do No Harm methodology (n=15); and fourth, we did a biological expedition in the Peasant Reservoir Zone (Zona de Reserva Campesina) in Pato Balsillas (April 2021), located on the border of the Natural National Park, Cordillera de los Picachos, in Caquetá.
The results show that international organizations and local partners play a key role in facilitating dialogue in environmental (local) governance structures. Such structures are key to institutionalizing mechanisms to solve conflicts by peaceful means. WWF’s approach is multi-dimensional. First, WWF engages local communities through collective capacity building in environmental conservation and dialogue, to co-produce technical information, which allows the communities to have better tools and participate with a clearer voice in decision-making scenarios. Second, WWF’s moderation in multi-stakeholder dialogue has been seen as a great asset to end stalemates in conflict situations. Third, WWF’s support in the creation of sustainable livelihood alternatives allows local communities and the government to respond to communities’ demands to use the forest for their own economies and while also supporting the conservation goals set out by the government. Finally, WWF's efforts to generate resources to help finance the maintenance of the PA is essential in the long run.
However, the unrest in Colombia following the agreement (which has included assassinations and threats to socio-environmental leaders)[vii] presents new challenges and reduces the potential impacts of natural conservation work on peacebuilding.
Looking ahead
Conflict sensitivity is a great tool for understanding environmental peacebuilding mechanisms. It helps to avoid unintended consequences and adapt to challenging contexts while enhancing the impact of conservation actions in peacebuilding processes. As a result of the Do No Harm implementation in the P&P project, WWF’s Colombia team identified dividers (sources of conflict) and connectors (factors that bring social cohesion or capacities for peace) that were affected by the project’s strategies. Then, they elaborated on “opportunities for peace” as adapted strategies to diminish the dividers and enhance the connectors. As an illustration, designing dialogue processes to formalize peasants land tenure with the participation of national agencies motivates farmers to sign conservation agreements that secure their livelihoods and protect biodiversity.
WWF’s case shows how biodiversity conservation in PA contributes to addressing root causes and socio-environmental conflicts between farmers and park rangers by providing spaces for dialogue to deal with disputes in a peaceful manner. Finally, in the context of post-peace agreement Colombia, a good practice that should be replicated by international agencies is the engagement of former combatants together with park rangers and community members in biological expeditions. The aim of such expeditions is to make an inventory of areas that, due to security conditions, were previously unexplored but that can now be open to the public for ecotourism. Through mechanisms such as participatory community system monitoring, local communities develop skills and tools to be actively involved in PA management. These initiatives can generate spaces for reconciliation and economic opportunities along a value chain of service providers. If properly managed (e.g., ecosystem’s bearing capacity and local governance recognition), they can also protect biodiversity treasures such as those in the Amazon region.
Footnotes
[i] Kettunen, M., Dudley, N., Gorricho, J., Hickey, V., Krueger, L., MacKinnon, K., Oglethorpe, J., Paxton, M., Robinson, J.G., and Sekhran, N. (2021) Building on Nature: Area-based conservation as a key tool for delivering SDGs. IEEP, IUCN WCPA, The Nature Conservancy, The World Bank, UNDP, Wildlife Conservation Society and WWF.
[ii] Kurtenbach, S. (2004) ‘Estudios Para El Análisis de Conflictos de Carácter Nacional Colombia’, (https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/02955.pdf); Sanín, F.G. ‘¿Una Historia Simple?’ (2015) (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCONFLICT/Resources/ColombiaFinal.pdf)
[iii] Kurtenbach, K. and Rettberg, A., (2018) ‘Understanding the Relation between War Economies and Post-War Crime’, Third World Thematics: A TWQ 3(1): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/23802014.2018.1457454.
[iv] Murillo-Sandoval, P.J. et al. ‘No Peace for the Forest: Rapid, Widespread Land Changes in the Andes-Amazon Region Following the Colombian Civil War’, Global Environmental Change 69: 102283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102283.
[v] In particular, its first chapter on "Policy for the Integral Development of Agriculture", section 1.1.10 "End of Extension of Agricultural Areas and Protection of Reserves". See: Valenzuela, P. and Caicedo, S. (2018) ‘Environmental Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Colombia’, in Routledge Handbook of Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315473772-17.
[vi] de Lange, E., Woodhouse, E. and Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2016) ‘Approaches Used to Evaluate the Social Impacts of Protected Areas’, Conservation Letters, Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12223.de
[vii] Human Rights Watch (2021) ‘Left Undefended: Killings of Rights Defenders in Colombia’s Remote Communities’, Report (Bogotá, Colombia) (https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/02/10/left-undefended/killings-rights-defenders-colombias-remote-communities)