Colombia’s New President (Gustavo Petro): Analysis of Environmental Policies
Colombia has elected Gustavo Petro as president, making him the South American country’s first leftist head of state. Petro beat Rodolfo Hernández, a business mogul and former mayor of the city of Bucaramanga, with 50.47% of the vote in a runoff election on June 19th and will take office in a context of deepening discontent over inequality and rising costs of living. Hernández had 47.27% of the valid votes, highlighting the current scenario of polarization. Petro’s election marks a unique shift for Colombia, a country that has never before had a Leftist president, and follows similar victories for the Left in Peru, Chile and Honduras. Last week Colombia’s current President Ivan Duque met with Petro to coordinate the transition of power before August. The meeting represents a process that began after the presidential elections on June 19th and will last until Petro’s formal inauguration on August 7. Among Petro’s promises, special attention and expectation have been given to his environmental projects and policies.
Colombia faces an alarming situation in relation to deforestation in its territory. Between 2002 and 2020, the country was losing forest coverage at an unprecedented and worrying pace. 1.66 million hectares of the total 4.7-million-hectare tree cover loss experienced in nearly two decades were humid primary forests, one of the world’s most biodiverse, intact and carbon-dense green areas. The numbers are worrisome: more than half of deforestation occurred in Colombia’s Amazon region, which covers approximately 10% of the country’s total territory.
Land grabbing is considered the main structural cause of deforestation in the Northwestern Amazon - where Colombia is located, once it encourages land-use change to make spaces for extensive cattle ranching. For instance, to address the country’s demand for red meat, Colombia expanded its production in an extensive fashion recently. It now has more than 500,000 sites devoted to livestock raising as well as approximately 23.4 million heads of cattle.
Moreover, since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016 between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), deforestation has increased substantially. Throughout the peace process, the strict controls enacted by FARC to protect forests for strategic reasons were rapidly relaxed as the guerrilla group left the area, initiating a quest for resources among farmers, miners, and loggers and a 44% increase in deforestation and land grabbing. In 2017 – the year after the peace deal was signed – the number of trees cut down in Colombia represented 2.6% of the global deforestation. However, in 2020 the country lost nearly 171,000 hectares of forest, an area twice the size of New York City and 8% more than the year prior. Without substantial controls and protection laws, people started cutting down trees for illegal mining, logging, cocoa farming and - mainly - cattle ranching.
Petro’s victory might represent an important step towards the improvement and enforcement of environmental regulation. Deforestation and clean energy were important topics in his campaign, different to what is seen in other neighboring countries, like Brazil. Petro committed to undertake a gradual de-escalation of economic dependence on oil and coal. Also, he promised not to grant any new licenses for hydrocarbon exploration during his four-year mandate and to halt all pilot fracking projects and the development of offshore fossil fuels, a plan to lead Colombia towards a more green economy. If these commitments to phase out fossil fuel production become true, Colombia could become the largest fossil fuel producer to do so. Currently, the country is the fifth-largest crude oil exporter to the U.S.
Petro also has ambitious projects for the Amazon, with proposals to halt the record-high rates of deforestation in the rainforest. The President-elect has committed to limit agribusiness expansion into the forest, and create reserves where Indigenous communities and others are allowed to harvest rubber, acai and other non-timber forest products. Besides that, Petro also intends to stimulate an income increase from carbon credits to finance replanting. However, there might be several obstacles: the majority of lawmakers in congress opposes him, the Supreme Court can challenge his reforms and Petro only has one mandate to implement it, as the Colombian constitution does not allow reelection after the four-year term.
It might be too early to say if Petro’s environmental policies will be successful. However, timing is more important than ever: fifteen percent of the Colombian Amazon has already been deforested, according to Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development. Also, in 2021 the Colombian Amazon lost 98,000 hectares (more than 240,000 acres) of pristine forest to deforestation and another 9,000 hectares (22,000 acres) to fire. While the future of environmental policies in Colombia is unpredictable, policymakers in the country and abroad should consider the urgency of this topic when elaborating and adopting measures to ensure the Amazon’s protection.
References
Former guerrilla Gustavo Petro wins Colombian election to become first leftist president
Petro and Duque meet over transition of power in Colombia
https://colombiareports.com/colombias/
Deforestation in Colombia: An Intricate Story of Conflict and Power
https://earth.org/deforestation-in-colombia/
New Colombian President Pledges To Protect Rainforest
FARC and the forest: Peace is destroying Colombia’s jungle — and opening it to science
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05397-2
Colombia lost more than 158,000 hectares to deforestation in 2019
https://news.trust.org/item/20200709184816-80ir7/
Colombia’s new president Gustavo Petro pledges to keep fossil fuels in the ground
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