Targeted by murders and threats | Winds of hope for Colombian environmentalists

Colombia is considered the most dangerous place in the world for environmentalists. With the coming to power of the first left-wing government and its promises of greener policies, environmentalists are hopeful that the tide is turning.

Janie Gosselin
The Press

“We have received the news of the election of the president [Gustavo Petro] and the vice president [Francia Márquez] with great joy, we had invested a lot of time and energy in this victory”, reacts on the telephone Jani Silva, environmental and community defender of the region of Putumayo.

Legal representative of the Association for the Integral and Sustainable Development of La Perla Amazónica, in the southwest of Colombia, the 59-year-old woman has received numerous death threats. The past two years have been “very difficult,” she says. Gunshots rang out near her home. Amnesty International led a campaign to ask for his protection.

The grandmother of eight grandchildren has no doubts about the identity of the people who want to silence her.

Coke and political vacuum

This militia is associated with drug trafficking in the region, where coca is grown – while activists like M^me Silva are trying to convince farmers to switch to other crops. Jani Silva’s work against the oil industry, in particular the Amerisur company, is also disturbing. Just like his refusal to follow the orders dictated by those who have assumed power in this territory, she underlines.

The 2016 peace agreement between the government and the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, has reduced violence, but other dissident groups have filled the void left in the territories they controlled, and where the Colombian government has failed to establish its authority – and to ensure the security of its citizens.

Between 2016 and 2021, the Colombian organization Indepaz recorded the murder of 611 environmental defenders.

Slightly more than half of them belonged to indigenous peoples. Last January, the murder of a 14-year-old environmentalist shocked public opinion.

Biodiversity under threat

The ecosystem of Colombia, a country recognized for its great biodiversity, is particularly threatened by deforestation, the result of various illegal activities: cultivation of coca, large-scale livestock farming, illicit mining, logging, construction of improvised roads without respect to the species on site, explains on the telephone Nicola Clerici, professor at the faculty of natural sciences of the Universidad del Rosario, in Bogotá.

But there are also legal industries, such as oil and mining, which contribute to ecological problems, insecurity and the anger of the populations, he specifies. Companies from other countries, including Canada, have interests there.

Oil and coal

Colombia’s new president, Gustavo Petro, seconded by his vice-president, environmentalist Francia Márquez, has promised an energy transition away from oil and coal, which account for around half of exports, according to figures from the government. For example, he intends to end the exemptions for these industries.

The challenge is big.

“It’s a difficult political balance to achieve,” said Alejandro Angel Tapias, lecturer on Latin America at the University of Montreal and himself from Colombia, on the phone. “Let’s say I don’t think the country is going to stop exporting oil by 2026.”

Especially since Colombia remains divided: if environmentalists have welcomed the arrival of a government sensitive to climate change, others are wary of the ex-FARC who has become president of the country.

For many Colombians, the left is synonymous with the guerrillas, communism and the economic debacle of neighboring Venezuela.

Mr. Angel Tapias welcomes the announced negotiations with a dissident FARC guerrilla, which refused to sign the 2016 agreement. “If it is well consolidated, it will allow for stronger territorial control , which will advocate environmental policies, protecting the lives of environmental leaders,” he says.

Protection of the Amazon

Jani Silva continues to sail from village to village on the Putumayo River to meet the 1,200 members of the agricultural reserve in her area. The threats and death of other activists do not prevent him from continuing his work to protect the lands of this Amazon region, by legal means, with conservation projects and by educating the populations. It is notably accompanied by foreign organizations to increase its protection.

“If I stop doing what I’m doing, a lot of people will lose hope,” she sighs. I’ve tried to quit before, and too many people have quit too. »