{"id":60132064,"date":"2026-05-11T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/?p=60132064"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:53:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:53:23","slug":"coca-and-cattle-fuel-devastation-in-colombias-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/forests\/coca-and-cattle-fuel-devastation-in-colombias-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Coca and cattle fuel devastation in Colombia\u2019s Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Smoke from burning vegetation rises through the remaining trees, and clandestine tracks cut through pastures once thick with forest. Observed from our 14-seater plane passing above the Serran\u00eda de Chiribiquete national natural park in December, these fires signal the start of deforestation season in the Colombian Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farmers set these fires to clear trees during the dry season and, in the months that follow, the burnt stumps will give way to pastures of coca. The plant is used in the traditional medicine of Andean Indigenous peoples, but, particularly in Colombia, it now also supplies a vast illegal cocaine network. Seen from the sky, the coca bushes look like green cotton balls, perfectly aligned in small rectangular patches nestled within the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These fields explain much about the modern history of Colombia. Coca cultivation boomed in the 1980s and 90s, driven by the rise of drug cartels exporting internationally. The boom made violence and insecurity a feature of life in the country. In a bid to halt the violence, as well as the deforestation the industry drives, successive governments have pushed farmers to switch to other crops and activities, including cattle ranching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smoke rises from Colombia\u2019s Serran\u00eda de Chiribiquete national natural park, where farmers set fires to clear trees during the dry season (Image: Juan Ortiz)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Deforested land in the Nukak nature reserve seen during Dialogue Earth\u2019s flight over the region. Almost 800,000 hectares of native forest were destroyed in Colombia\u2019s Amazon between 2015 and 2024 (Image: Juan Ortiz)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year marks a decade since the signing of a landmark peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), then the country\u2019s main guerrilla group. However, the power vacuum created by FARC\u2019s disbanding, combined with weak state enforcement, led to the emergence of splinter groups. They began to occupy public lands in the Colombian Amazon, often converting them into pastures or coca fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to environmentalists, government support for cattle farming, combined with the failure to deal with armed groups, have compounded<\/a> deforestation. Between 2015 and 2024, Colombia\u2019s Amazon region lost almost 800,000 hectares of native forest. That makes this the period of the most rapid deforestation across the past 40 years. This is according to Dialogue Earth\u2019s analysis of data from MapBiomas<\/a>, an initiative that monitors land use and land cover via satellite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombia\u2019s Total Peace Programme seeks to establish new peace agreements and offer economic alternatives to dissident groups. As part of this, president Gustavo Petro has championed<\/a> sustainable tourism and the bioeconomy (working in harmony with nature to generate income, such as transitioning to agroforestry, a more environmentally friendly form of agriculture) as substitutes for illegal activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his policies have failed<\/a> to stem the expansion of the deforestation arc \u2013 the strip of advancing agricultural frontier that cuts across the north-west of the Colombian Amazon. This is where the highest rates of forest clearing are concentrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n