Colombia's peace opens wildlife up for grabs, but new violence frustrates progress By Reuters
Written by Jake Spring
(Reuters) – For more than five decades as violent conflicts have raged in the highlands and rainforests of Colombia, wildlife has thrived.
From brightly colored orchids to leopard-striped frogs, scientists have discovered a wealth of new species of animals and plants in the years since a 2016 peace deal saw most rebels and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) lay down their arms. This agreement makes it safe to enter many parts of the country, which are usually kept open during the conflict.
It was found that silence was helpful in environmental research. Scientists have discovered almost three times as many new plant species in Colombia each year since the peace agreement as they did before the agreement, according to a new study by Colombian botanist Oscar Alejandro Perez-Escobar that was shared exclusively with Reuters.
But the FARC deal did not end the conflict in Colombia. Although this agreement opened up many areas of Colombia to science, other armed groups – including former FARC fighters who rejected the peace agreement – and gangs have closed the gap in other areas and brought renewed dangers to both researchers and wildlife.
Although deforestation fell to a 23-year low last year, it is set to rise again in 2024 as wildfires fueled by severe drought, and illegal logging, mining and road construction destroy the forest. And for the environment, Colombia is now the most dangerous place in the world – with 79 deaths last year, the highest number ever seen in one country in one year, according to the non-profit organization Global Witness.
An analysis of about 14,000 Colombian plant species recorded at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew showed that researchers have published an average of 178 new discoveries in the years since the peace agreement. That compares to 53 on average in the years before the deal.
The analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, also accounted for the imbalance between several years of data from 2016 compared to centuries of earlier species discovery.
Although the analysis shows a jump in literature after the peace agreement, it does not prove that it was the cause of the agreement, said Perez-Escobar.
He recalled his first trip after the peace agreement, accompanying a team of researchers from 16 countries through the mountainous terrain as the Colombian military monitored their departure in 2018.
“I was excited, but also nervous,” said Perez-Escobar, who works for Kew Gardens in Britain. “I'm excited about the prospects of finding new species … but I'm also nervous because of the risk involved in going there.”
That trip was part of a study of biodiversity in Colombia's former rebel areas, which scientists had avoided for fear of being captured or killed by the FARC. On a hike high above the tree line into the mountainous Paramo, he saw small yellow and brown flowers – a new type of orchid. The paramo is a very wet, cold and often foggy plain high in the Andes.
Since then, Perez-Escobar working in collaboration with local organizations has helped to identify two flowering plants in the cloud forest and last year the first known polymorphic orchid in its 1,200-species genus, which means it blooms two types of flowers at the same time. plant.
ALLIGATORS, DRONES AND TREE REMOVAL
As a biology student in the 1990s, botanist Mauricio Diazgranados collected plants in the mountains an hour's drive from Bogota.
“I could see helicopters shooting terrorists and terrorists fighting back,” said Diazgranados, who now works as the director of science at the New York Botanical Garden.
At one point, he volunteered as a park ranger in the Sumapaz neighborhood where the FARC once kept its headquarters. He said he was once arrested by rebels who accused him of being a spy but managed to escape at night.
Diazgranados later helped organize a number of scientific expeditions to previously endangered areas under Colombia BIO, a government program launched to better understand the country's wildlife after the peace accord. He still has cardboard boxes filled with dried plant samples that he thinks are new species but have not described in books.
While conflict may have helped shelter Colombia's wildlife for decades, it's the country's topography and landscape that helped it flourish into what it is today.
Located near the warm band of the Equator where North and South America meet, this country combines beaches, tropical rainforests and three different Andes chains that rise from deep valleys to more than 5,000 meters (17,000 feet). The diversity of these areas has encouraged many species to evolve over time.
Colombia has topped the list of countries thought to have the most previously undiscovered plants this year, according to a study led by Kew Gardens scientists published in August.
It's not just the peace deal that's leading to more discoveries, Diazgranados said. More qualified scientists are studying Colombia than ever before, he said, including turning their backs on nearby Venezuela amid economic and political crises there.
Scientists at the Colombian government's Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute discovered dozens of new species including beetles, frogs, spiders and caecilians – a rare group of legless subterranean animals. It can take several years for a particular species to be certified as new.
“They were inaccessible places, but also places with a lot of information and natural wealth,” said Jhon Cesar Neita, who oversees Humboldt's collection of entomology and invertebrates, about the areas held by the FARC that were opened to research.
“All the scientists wanted to go.”
Scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) also recorded 10 other aquatic finds, including a green-brown striped rain frog that will be named after Colombia's peace treaty: Pristimantis pactumpacis.
After the peace agreement, WCS researchers were able to use drones to count endangered Orinoco crocodiles in eastern Colombia in what was previously a high-risk area, said the group's Colombian director, German Forero.
But after more than 100 people have been reported in violence related to armed groups in the area this year, Forero said, WCS staff are currently unable to return to the Orinoco crocodile habitat.
LOSS OF BENEFITS
Colombia has focused on security at this year's UN Conference on Biological Diversity, COP16, choosing the theme “Peace and Nature” for the event to be held in the southwestern city of Colombia, Cali. More than 10,000 soldiers, police and UN security guards are mobilized to protect the summit, while delegates from nearly 200 countries discuss the best way to protect the world's environment.
There is currently intense fighting between armed groups in some of the country's most diverse areas, according to sources within the Colombian military. In the Pacific province of Choco, home to lush forests and a famous climate, ELN rebels are fighting the Clan del Golfo gang, while FARC opposition groups are competing in several Amazon (NASDAQ:) states.
Along with continued violence by armed groups, Colombia is now also at risk of rapid ecological decline, scientists warn. Deforestation jumped 40 percent in the first three months of this year, according to government data.
Environment Minister Susana Muhamad in April accused an ex-FARC militant group called Estado Mayor Central of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, saying it was preventing outsiders from entering areas it controls while pressuring locals to cooperate.
“It's sad, the psychological pressure that armed groups are putting on communities,” Muhamad said in a statement in April. “This time, they put nature in the middle of the conflict.”
The recently demerged EMC group (NYSE:) led by Alexander Diaz Mendoza, better known by his moniker de guerre Calarca Cordoba, said in a statement that the group does not engage in deforestation and works with communities to develop sustainable practices. The group said it was blocking entry to prevent government efforts to “subsidize” the forest through products such as green bonds.
