Colombian Amazon's Destruction Driven by Cattle Ranching Over the Last Four Decades, Study Says

Recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify intensifying their war on the green shrub, but research shows that the amount of forest cleared in 2018 to cultivate coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle.

The study's findings back up conservationists who have long argued that Colombia's Amazon conservation strategy, which has often focused on combating coca production, has been misguided.

Cattle ranching drives deforestation in the Columbian amazon

(Photo : Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Deforestation increased after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) signed a historic peace agreement with the government in 2016 and laid down their weapons, as per The Guardian.

As the rebels emerged from the jungle, land-grabbers took advantage, clearing trees with chainsaws and burning vast areas. In 2017, deforestation reached a new high of 219,973 hectares (543,565 acres), a 23% increase over the previous year.

Then-President Iván Duque used the environmental devastation caused by coca cultivation to justify escalating military action against coca farmers.

The Duque government sent in choppers and armed troops into the Amazon rainforest, sometimes into deadly confrontations with coca farmers, after the chemical was banned for health reasons in 2015.

Despite the fact that cattle ranches cleared more than 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of Amazon rainforest in 2018, coca's impact was negligible.

Only 45,000 hectares (111,200 acres) of coca were cleared in 2018, the most recent year available in the study.

Murillo and his colleagues were able to differentiate between coca and cattle land use on a large scale for the first time using a deep learning algorithm from 1985 to 2019.

We have always disputed the government's claim that coca was driving deforestation, but we lacked evidence, said Angelica Rojas, Guaviare state liaison officer at Colombia's Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development.

According to Rojas, who was not involved in the study, the figures show that previous governments used the environment as a false justification to wage war on coca farmers.

The study also adds to evidence that, despite the loss of lives and billions of dollars, Colombia's "war on drugs" has failed to halt coca production - and, in some cases, may have exacerbated it.

When farmers' crops are eradicated, they simply establish new plots, which are often only a few kilometers deeper into the forest canopy.

The authors argue that while the government has been playing whack-a-mole with coca farmers, the real driver of deforestation, cattle farming, has been allowed to swallow up vast swaths of land.

Due to flaws in Colombian land regulation, biodiverse tropical rainforests have been converted into barren pastures.

Landowners must demonstrate that 75% of their plots are productive in order for their deeds to be recognized, and it is far easier for farmers to use cows than crops, according to Carlos Devia, a forest engineer at Bogotá's Javeriana University who was not involved in the study.

Landless farmers frequently clear a few hectares of rainforest and illegally sell them to members of criminal organizations, who then join multiple small lots together, transforming them into vast swaths of lifeless, arid pasture.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August of last year, is proposing a reversal of the country's failed anti-drug strategy.

Petro, a former member of the defunct M-19 rebel group, has shifted his focus away from forced coca eradication and toward purchasing millions of hectares of land to distribute to farmers.

Also read: Grazing Cattle Are Destroying Mongolian Rangelands [EXCLUSIVE]

What Is Cattle Ranching Deforestation?

Cattle ranching is a major cause of deforestation worldwide, with a particularly large impact on the Amazon rainforest, as per Sentiment Media.

It takes a lot of lands to graze cows and grow feed crops like soy, which are fed to dairy cows kept indoors or beef cattle once they arrive at feedlots to fatten.

As a result, large areas of natural habitats, such as forests, have been converted into agricultural land.

Every minute, an estimated 1-2 acres of forest are cleared in the Amazon, with much of this deforestation caused by global demand for beef.

This deforestation has resulted in a significant decrease in land availability for other uses such as crop production, recreation, and conservation.

Cattle ranching has a wide-ranging impact on deforestation in Brazil, not just in the Amazon.

Other parts of the country have been affected as well, with the Cerrado region - Brazil's second-largest biome - suffering from extensive deforestation due to cattle ranching.

This is especially concerning given that the Cerrado is home to a wide range of species, some of which are threatened or endangered.

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