New forestry law sets Colombia back half a century

A forestry bill about to be signed into law by the Colombian government will set the country back half a century in terms of conservation of forests, according to environmentalists. After a stormy passage through Congress, the bill, which had been promoted with unusual enthusiasm by the ministers of the environment and agriculture, was approved two weeks ago. Activists warn that it will endanger Colombia's rich environmental patrimony, which represents 10 percent of the planet's biodiversity. And for communities in the jungles of the northwestern region of Chocó, along the border with Panama, the new law will mean an increase in forced displacement from their land, in the context of the country's four-decade civil war. As a result of pressure from the environmental movement, a small group of legislators were able to drag the debates out during 11 sessions of Congress. But their attempt to block passage failed in the end. The bill replaces laws dating back to 1959, which created national parks to protect glaciers and river basins in this South American nation, one of the countries in the world with the most abundant freshwater resources. The new law introduces a concept, vuelo forestal, which separates rights to land from rights to the forest cover. Thus, trees can be owned separately from the land, "which means the concept of ecosystem is ignored," said activist Juan Carlos Preciado. Preciado is a legal adviser to Consolidation of the Amazon Region–Colombia (Coama), 1999 winner of the Right Livelihood Award or "Alternative Nobel Prize." Sandra Suárez, minister of the environment, housing and territorial development, said the "vuelo forestal is a [bank] guarantee and only applies to plantation forests." She added that forests that are collectively owned by indigenous and black communities, amounting to some 69 million acres, will not be granted in concession to logging interests. But under the new law, the adjoining land, which according to former environment minister Manuel Rodríguez, president of the National Environmental Forum, "belongs to these communities as part of their cultural and historical space," can be granted in concession. A Ministry of Agriculture decree also states that indigenous and black communities–whose collective land can neither be sold nor embargoed–can now lease their property to agribusiness companies. The environment minister said the new law prohibited replacing natural forests with plantation forests, or clearing them for agricultural or stockbreeding purposes. But Preciado said that she failed to mention that the prohibition provides an exception for "activities of national interest," while defining forestry development as a "national priority." Agriculture Minister Andrés Felipe Arias said he was pleased with the legal stability that the new law will offer those who invest in "commercial reforestation." He also said the legislation would help put an end to the illegal logging of native forests. An estimated 247,000 acres of native forest are illegally cut down every year, a practice that Colombia's previous forestry and environment laws had failed to curb. The new law will also create new regulations for the forest reserves, while setting a three-year deadline for the executive branch to redraw the limits of the reserves, but "without providing precise, rigorous criteria," said Attorney-General Edgardo Maya. Another former environment minister, Juan Mayr, said the new law "opens up native forests to logging." The country's diverse natural forests still cover 44 percent of the national territory of almost half a million square miles. In the past two decades, drug traffickers and paramilitary militias have taken over some 10 million acres, one-quarter of which has been expropriated in the last four years alone, according to government agencies. This "agrarian counter-reform" has led to the forced displacement of around three million people, described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in the Americas. One-fourth of the displaced are indigenous people or afro-descendants, who make up 11 percent of Colombia's total population of 44 million. "A majority of the displaced indigenous and black people lived in natural forests that were protected by their communities rather than by the state," said Preciado. Activists fear that the new regulations and limits for the reserves will legalize the paramilitary takeover of land collectively owned by indigenous and black communities. Minister Arias said that in the resistance to the new forestry law, he perceived "dark interests" on the part of sectors that do not want competition in the exploitation of timber, while Minister Suárez said the opposition to the bill "raised suspicions." But critics of the new law have more concrete suspicions. While the bill was making its way through Congress, the US-based international development company Chemonics International, a contractor for the largely US-financed Plan Colombia anti-drug strategy, extended invitations to travel to Bolivia and Chile to the lawmakers on the commissions in charge of submitting the bill to the legislature, said Aurelio Suárez, an aide to leftist Senator Jorge Robledo. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to which Chemonics International is a major contractor, also provided enthusiastic support for the bill, through its Colombia Forestal program. Aurelio Suárez noted that Chemonics is the main beneficiary of the USAID contracts in Afghanistan, and that in the past three years it has won contracts worth more than $60 million in Iraq. Former minister Rodríguez said Chemonics brought experts "with close links" to USAID to Colombia, who drafted parts of the new forestry bill "behind closed doors." Earlier this month, opposition lawmaker Juan de Dios Alfonso of the Liberal party, who promoted the creation of the Serranía de los Yariguíes National Natural Park in the department of Santander in 2004, alleged that over $3,500 was offered to legislators who voted in favor of the bill. Leftist opposition legislator Gustavo Petro, meanwhile, said the new law had been put at the service of drug trafficking by the Ministry of Agriculture, which made Arias furious. In the Chocó region, "the oil palm plantations expanded in the wake of the rifles" of the paramilitaries, Catholic priest Napoleón García of the diocese of Quibdó said in a press conference on Dec. 5, when the diocese was awarded the 2005 National Peace Prize. On the 250,000 acres of land collectively owned by the "peace communities" of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó, which are located in the diocese, the Ministry of Agriculture legalized the land titles claimed by oil palm planters, who the local residents see as invaders. "We saw the oil palm planters coming," said Nevaldo Perea, who founded the Integral Campesino Association of Atrato 20 years ago. In that area, the Interchurch Justice and Peace Commission has documented 13 forced displacements, the destruction of 14 hamlets, and 110 crimes against humanity. According to the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, the extensive cultivation of oil palms not only fuels illegal logging, but impoverishes the soil, causes serious harm to the flora and fauna, and depletes water resources. Yaila Mena was displaced in 1997 from Riosucio, a town on the Atrato River. "A month after the collective land titles were issued to us, the paramilitaries came and kicked us off our land. They started planting oil palms, which do not form part of our culture. In Riosucio there are very few native residents left." According to a bill that is awaiting approval in Congress, people in Colombia would lose their rights to their land five years after abandoning it. "It should be made very clear that it was the state that brought the war to Chocó, in 1982, when it gave a logging concession to two companies–Maderas del Darién and Triplex Pizano," said an illiterate elderly man, Saturnino Moreno, considered a wise man by the community of Tanguí, which is also in the diocese of Quibdó. "After that, the armed conflict arrived, fueled by the world powers that want to get their hands on the immense riches of the Chocó region. If the Colombian state had set limits on them, things would have been different," he added. Right-wing President Álvaro Uribe, who took office in 2002, has expressed "a dream" of covering 15 million acres with African oil palm trees. Through ongoing negotiations between the Uribe administration and the paramilitaries, more than 10,000 members of the right-wing militias have demobilized. As part of their reintegration into society, the government has arranged work for them in "agribusiness alliances" with local communities. But these "alliances" might be forged by fire and sword. While several demobilized paramilitary chiefs have announced their intention of dedicating themselves to agribusiness endeavors, including oil palm plantations, the forced displacement of local residents from the Chocó region continues. Between January and June, another 8,178 people were forced by violence to leave their land in the Atrato region.