Stockholm Resilience Centre Sustainability Science for Biosphere Stewardship

Master’s Thesis Workplan, 60 ECTS Social-ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development Master’s programme 2019/21, 120 ECTS

The Political Economy of Deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon

Master Student Paula Andrea Sánchez (940129–0169) Edinsvägen 22B, 131 47 [email protected] (46) 73 690 1466

ABSTRACT

The Amazon has experienced rapid forest loss in the past decades due to the growing colonization, infrastructure development and commercial agriculture expansion. Understanding the underlying social, political and economic drivers of deforestation is key to curb deforestation of the Amazon basin. However, analysis of deforestation has primarily been conducted in Brazil and there is a need to study this phenomenon in other countries such as Colombia. This research intends to contribute to this growing body of knowledge to better understand drivers and processes of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon by unpacking the causal mechanism underpinning deforestation. To achieve this, I a used Theory-building Process-tracing approach to conceptualize the underlying logics of deforestation in the region. Data collection included qualitative text analysis of policy documents, articles, reports, and grey literature, and virtual semi-structured interviews with key national, regional and local actors. Interviews’ format was adapted due to current travelling and social restrictions. Findings indicate that the power vacuum resulting from FARC guerrilla demobilization acted as a window of opportunity for peasants, squatters, narco-traffickers, cattle ranchers, landlords and other investors to access public lands and capitalize from converting forests to coca crops and pastures for cattle ranching. Capital accumulation has increased actors’ ability to reshape the landscape and societal organization by accumulating different forms and sources of power. Traditional elites, and old and emerging narco-bourgeoisie have capitalized on preexisting power asymmetries by disproportionally accumulating different social power seeking to consolidate territorial hegemony. Powerful actors exercise attained sources and forms of power to dispose historically marginalized groups – such as indigenous communities, peasants, and squatters – from their means of subsistence and production, resulting in the instauration of a capitalist economy based on land rent and drug trafficking. All this has deepened forest loss, inequalities and conflict over land access between actors.

“Soy, soy lo que dejaron Soy toda la sobra de lo que se robaron Soy el desarrollo en carne viva Un discurso político sin saliva Las caras más bonitas que he conocido Soy la fotografía de un desaparecido La sangre dentro de tus venas Soy un pedazo de tierra que vale la pena Soy América Latina Un pueblo sin piernas, pero que camina” Latinoamérica, Residente

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SUPERVISOR

Grace Wong

Stockholm Resilience Centre

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to all that have helped me complete my master program and thesis in Sweden. To those that have believed and encourage me to follow my dreams despite having all the winds against. Especial thanks to Carla Lanyon and Lina Gutierrez who where my flashlight through the darkest times, and to Miriam Huitric who fought so that I could finish the program. Thanks to my supervisor Grace Wong for believing and supporting this research with patience and dedication, and for her guidance throughout the process. Thanks to all participants for sharing their insights, thoughts, ideas and knowledge, and willingness to be part of this study. Lastly and most importantly, thanks to all Colombians who gave their lives to catalyze structural change and attain a more equitable and sustainable country. To all of them and their families, my deepest admiration and solidarity. I dedicated this work to all you.

CONTENT TABLE

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 2. THE STUDY AREA ...... 4 3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ...... 6 3.1 THEORY-BUILDING PROCESS-TRACING ...... 6 3.2 CAPITAL AND POWER ACCUMULATION IN A RENTIER ECONOMY ...... 8 3.2.1 Conceptualizing power ...... 9 3.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND TENURE, SPECULATION AND DEFORESTATION ...... 11 3.4 NARCO-RANCHING: DTOS INVESTING IN CATTLE RANCHING AND AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION 13 4. METHODS ...... 16 4.1 IDENTIFYING THE HISTORICAL DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ...... 16 4.2 UNPACKING THE CAUSAL PROCESS UNDERPINNING DEFORESTATION ...... 17 5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 20 5.1 IDENTIFYING THE HISTORICAL DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ...... 20 5.1.1 Boom crops in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon ...... 21 5.1.2 The historical conflict for the access to and titling of land ...... 22 5.1.3 Narco-ranching ...... 23 5.1.4 Conservation and environmental policies ...... 24 5.2 THE CAUSAL MECHANISM UNDERPINNING DEFORESTATION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COLOMBIAN AMAZON ...... 26 5.2.1 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Seeking to escape poverty ...... 26 5.2.2 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Monopolizing illegal activities ...... 27 5.2.3 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Rentier capitalism ...... 29 5.2.4 The underlying mechanism of deforestation: Accumulation of different forms and sources of power ...... 30 5.3 FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS ...... 32 5.4 LIMITATIONS ...... 32 6. CONCLUSIONS ...... 33 7. LITERATURE CITED ...... 35 APPENDIX B. PLAIN STATEMENT IN ENGLISH ...... 74 APPENDIX C. PLAIN STATEMENT IN SPANISH ...... 75 APPENDIX F. DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN ...... 80 APPENDIX G. INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE ...... 85 APPENDIX H. CODES FOR PROCESS-TRACING ANALYSIS ...... 86

APPENDIX I. TIMELINE OF THE DEFORESTATION DRIVERS’ ANALYSIS ...... 91 APPENDIX J. ETHICAL REVIEW – FINAL REVIEW ...... 92

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TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Map of the Study Area...... 5 Figure 2 The steps for using inductive and deductive thinking in Theory-building Process-tracing to understand underpinning causal mechanisms (CM) (Beach and Pedersen 2018) ...... 7 Figure 3 Conceptualization of the three levels of social power as a result of different forms (“conduct- shaping” and “context-shaping”) and sources of power (monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental). Modified from Boonstra, 2016...... 10 Figure 4 Steps for the identification of plausible causal relationships and conditions explaining deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon...... 19 Figure 5 Scheme of capital and power accumulation attain by different actors in the Northwestern Amazon region...... 31

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Definition of key concepts...... 15 Table 2 Description of interviewees. Societal sector, nationality and affiliation of participants...... 18 Table 3 Identified forms and sources of power for actors in the region...... 30

1. INTRODUCTION

The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest biodiversity reservoirs on the planet, and it supplies a wide range of ecological services at a local and global scale (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019). Land- use conversion of the Amazon rainforest is causing rapid forest and biodiversity loss (FAO and UNEP 2020). Small-holders’ colonization, infrastructure development and expansion of commercial agriculture have generally caused deforestation across the Amazon basin (Lambin et al. 2001, Perz et al. 2005, Almeyda Zambrano et al. 2010, Hosonuma et al. 2012). Yet, the distinct histories, politics and socioeconomic conditions of countries sharing the Amazon have resulted in different deforestation dynamics in the region (Viña et al. 2004, Perz et al. 2005, Murad and Pearse 2018). Consequently, understanding the drivers of deforestation across the Amazon basin requires studying the socioeconomic and political drivers of deforestation at the country level (Viña et al. 2004). However, analysis of deforestation have been mainly conducted in the Brazilian Amazon and less attention has been given to other countries (Revelo-Rebolledo 2019).

Colombia holds almost ten percent of the Amazon basin, and for many years the Colombian Amazon was known for being one of the largest continuous forests in the tropics (Sánchez-Cuervo et al. 2012). Up-until 2005 only 7.3% of the Colombian Amazon had been deforested, largely due to the country’s 60 year armed conflict (Roca et al. 2013, Murad and Pearse 2018). Thus, when comparing the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, it is clear that, unlike Brazil, deforestation in Colombia has been driven by complex synergies between illegality, informality and armed conflict (Armenteras et al. 2013b, Murad and Pearse 2018). Differences in deforestation causation have resulted in distinct patterns of deforestation between the two countries. While deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon follows the well-known fishbone pattern1 (Armenteras et al. 2013b), in Colombia deforestation resembles an easterly directed wave2 (Etter et al. 2006, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013).

Deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is concentrated in the Northwestern side of the region – the western areas of the Putumayo and Caquetá departments, and the southwestern region of the Meta and

1 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is highly determined by road development. It is calculated that most deforestation in the region is concentrated along the main roads. These routes “then open the gateway to even greater deforestation by spurring extensive “fishbone” patterns of secondary roads that fan out from the main routes […]”(Ungar et al. 2018). 2 The Northwestern Colombian Amazon is subject to a higher colonization pressure due to its proximity to the more densely populated Andean region. As a result, expansion of the colonization frontier has moved in an eastward direction from the Andes over the years (Etter et al. 2006). 1

Guaviare department (Ruiz et al. 2011). Historical drivers of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon were colonization, agriculture expansion, cattle raising and coca crops (Perz et al. 2005, Ruiz et al. 2011, Castiblanco et al. 2013, García 2013). However, since the signing of the Peace Accords between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla and the national government in 2016, the Amazon basin has experienced a significant increase in forest loss due to a combination of historical and novel deforestation drivers (González et al. 2018, EIA 2019, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019, Global Forest Watch 2020, Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020).

The Peace Accords have presented smallholders, large landowners, international companies and criminal organization an opportunity to expand their economic activities to remote forest areas (EIA 2019, Krause 2020). This growing investment and economic development expectations in the post- conflict scenario resulted in land grabbing speculation, and massive forest conversion to cattle ranching (Furumo and Aide 2017, Krause 2017, González et al. 2018, Van Dexter and Visseren- Hamakers 2020). Coca cultivation has also increased due to the influence of residual and emerging trafficking organizations, and poor implementation of the peace agreements (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020).

Under this new scenario, the Colombian government has launched multiple strategies to control unprecedented deforestation rates in the region. Some examples of this are the Vision Amazonia project – a strategy that seeks to cut to zero forest-based net emissions by 2020 – , the Colombian Tropical Forest Alliance created to promote zero-deforestation commodity supply chains (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020), and the consolidation of the Intersectoral Commission to Control Deforestation (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020). The national government also launched Operación Artemisa as a military and law enforcement strategy to reduce illegal deforestation activities in the Amazon (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020). Yet loss of primary forests is still significantly high with large forest areas being cleared in protected areas and indigenous reservoirs (Global Forest Watch 2020).

Many argue that failure of current governmental strategies is rooted in an oversimplification of the deforestation phenomenon resulting in a disproportionate criminalization of FARC dissidents, smallholders and coca growers. On the contrary, experts point-out that a more holistic understanding of the problem is needed to preserve the ecological integrity of the region and, as a result, it is

imperative to acknowledge that the logics under which different actors convert forest areas are distinct and often contradictory (González et al. 2018). For this reason, to propose fair and contextually- appropriate solutions to reduce forest loss will require an in-depth examination of the social, political and economic drivers of deforestation (Armenteras et al. 2013a), and additional efforts are needed to better understand ultimate causes of land-use conversion in the Colombian Amazon.

This research intends to contribute to a growing body of knowledge that seeks to better understand deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. The aim of this study is to unpack the causal mechanisms underpinning deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon by answering three questions:

1. Which are the historical indirect and direct drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon? 2. How do direct and indirect drivers of deforestation intertwine in the region? 3. Which is the complex interplay of social, political, institutional and economic factors underpinning deforestation in Northwestern Colombian Amazon by understanding actors’ underlying logics of deforestation?

I conducted a literature review to identify the historical drivers and their intertwined relationships in the region. The analysis includes historical forest loss drivers since the colonial times with an emphasis on forest loss dynamics between 1950-2019 (section 5.1). I then used Theory-building Process-tracing to identify entities and linkages explaining the causal process of deforestation, future scenarios and potential solutions to curb forest loss in the region (section 5.2). I lastly reflect on the scope and limitations of the analysis and here presented (section 5.3).

2. THE STUDY AREA

Colombia is known to be a megadiverse country containing ten percent of the global biodiversity in 0.7% of the planet’s surface (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Peláez et al. 2015, Baptiste et al. 2017). The Colombian Amazon region is the largest continuous forest coverage in the country (Ruiz et al. 2011) known for its biological (Ruiz et al. 2011, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019) and cultural diversity being inhabited by 50 different indigenous groups (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).

The Colombian Amazon has been historically known for its ecological integrity (Murcia et al. 2007, Sánchez-Cuervo et al. 2012, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013, Roca et al. 2013) holding 38 million legally protected hectares under 178 Indigenous Reservoirs and 12 National Natural Parks, and 8 million hectares being considered forest reserve areas (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013). Recent efforts for conserving the biological and cultural diversity of the region have resulted in growing legal and institutional strategies to maintain its socio-ecological diversity (Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). However, the Colombian Amazon has also been the scene of unresolved social conflicts (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019) going through times of great violence and political instability (Peláez et al. 2015, Baptiste et al. 2017). With little territorial presence of the state, the Amazon was considered for many years as an inhospitable and low-priority area (Peláez et al. 2015, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019), suffering from natural resource extraction and displacement of indigenous communities (Peláez et al. 2015, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI 2016).

Due to its diversity and the differences in land-use intensity across the region, the Colombian Amazon can be classified in two different territorial units: the Northwestern and Southeastern Amazon regions (Murcia et al. 2007). The Southeastern Amazon is constituted by Guaviare, Vaupes, Guainía and Amazonas departments (Murcia et al. 2007, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013). It is mainly inhabited by indigenous communities, possess high ecological conservation and low economic integration (Murcia et al. 2007, CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013). However, this region has suffered from illegal gold mining, timber exploitation and more recently coltan extraction (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).

The Northwestern Colombian Amazon is constituted by the departments of Guaviare, Caquetá and Putumayo, and the southern areas of the departments of Meta, Nariño and Cauca (Murcia et al. 2007, 4

Ruiz et al. 2011). Although, the Northwestern Colombian Amazon supports a high floristic and ecological diversity (Armenteras et al. 2013b), it has experienced higher colonization pressure, ecosystems transformation (Etter and McAlpine 2006, Murcia et al. 2007), armed conflict and illegal crops due to its proximity to the Andes Mountains (Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019). Today, the region holds more than 84.9% of the Amazon’s total population, and reports the highest urbanization rates and infrastructure development of the region (Roca et al. 2013) (Figure 1). Since 2008, extensive cattle raising and mining have become the main economic activities, which resulted in heavy forest conversion to pastures, land concentration, speculation and grabbing (CEPAL and Patrimonio Natural 2013).

Figure 1 Map of the Study Area.

3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

To provide a mechanism-based explanation on how deforestation is driven in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon, I have adopted a constructivist realism lens combining a realistic ontology with a constructivist epistemology. From this point of view the causal mechanism here presented is a mechanism scheme about a real-world causal process. I used Theory-building Process-tracing to combine multiple general mechanism schemes with empirical evidence to provide a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon of study. In this section, I first introduce the reader to Theory-building Process-tracing, how it is used and useful for building theory around a poorly understood or novel causal process (section 3.1). Later, I present the concepts and causal processes that inspired and informed the resulting mechanism-based explanation: capital and power accumulation in a rentier economy (section 3.2); the relationship between land tenure and deforestation (section 3.3), and narco- ranching (section 3.4). A summary of key definitions is presented in Table 1.

3.1 Theory-building Process-tracing

The idea underpinning mechanism-based explanations is to provide details of the cogs and wheels of the causal process through which the outcome of interest was brought about (Hedström and Ylikoski 2010). Mechanism-based explanations seek to open the black box containing a cause- effect relationship between one or more entities connected via one or more causal mechanisms (Hedström and Ylikoski 2010, Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Beach and Pedersen 2018).

Causal mechanisms are complex systems of interlocking entities (e.g. actors, organizations, structures) that transfer energy, information, or matter to other entities in the system producing an observable outcome under specific conditions (Bennett and Checkel 2015, Beach 2016, Beach and Pedersen 2018). Causal mechanism are assumed to be unobservable ontological entities in the world (Bennett and Checkel 2015). Consequently, understanding causal mechanisms can only be done through hypothesis testing of theorized or scheme mechanism that describe the causal forces producing the observable outcome.

Theory-building Process-tracing seeks to build a theory about a causal mechanism explaining the causal relationship between two entities that can later be generalized to similar cases (Beach and Pedersen 2018). This is a method used for tracing the steps of a causal process of interest (Beach 2016) attempting to identify the intervening causal mechanism between an independent and 6

dependent entity by making inferences on hypothesis about how the process took place and how it generates the observable outcome (Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Bennett and Checkel 2015, Beach and Pedersen 2018). This method combines inductive and deductive approaches to construct a generalizable explanation of a case study, assuming that there is a more general causal mechanism (Ingo Rohlfing 2012, Beach and Pedersen 2018). When using Theory-building Process-tracing, the researcher firstly proceeds to investigate the empirical material in the case and later infers the causal mechanism, often getting inspiration from existing general theories and observations (Beach and Pedersen 2018) (Figure 2).

Figure 2 The steps for using inductive and deductive thinking in Theory-building Process-tracing to understand underpinning causal mechanisms (CM) (Beach and Pedersen 2018)

3.2 Capital and power accumulation in a rentier economy

Capitalist production is a constantly extending process of capital accumulation that requires that workers are divorced from the ownership of the conditions of their labour (Marx 1991). Capitalist production results in the commodification of the workers’ means of subsistence and production (e.g., infrastructure, land, tolls, etc.), resulting in two kinds of commodity owners: 1) capitalists, who own the money and means of production and subsistence, and 2) free-workers, who sell their labor-power to capitalists, as they are free from any means of production and/or subsistence. These capital relations together with the means of production set the bases of society heavily determining all societal relationships and ideas (e.g., culture, law, morality, religion, political power, and institutions), or what Marx defines as the superstructure.

According to Gramsci, the concept of superstructure can be broken down into two floors of actions, described as civil society and political society (Bates 1975, Baeg Im 1991). The former comprises all private institutions (e.g., clubs, journals, parties, etc.) that contribute to the formation of the political and social consciousness of society. The latter is composed of all public institutions, namely the state. In a capitalist economy, the dominant class or bourgeoisie – that who owns the means of subsistence and production – exerts its power over society on both floors of actions to consolidate its domination and hegemony. Gramsci defines domination as the rule by force and hegemony as the rule by consent.

Bourgeoisie hegemony is attained through organizing consent between the bourgeoisie and the workers’ class, where the dominant class allocates some profits from capital accumulation to the improvements of the material conditions of workers (Bates 1975, Baeg Im 1991). To acquire full hegemony, the bourgeoisie must obtain universal political, intellectual and moral leadership in the spheres of the superstructure. When a social group has insufficient material basis to establish a universal hegemony over the subordinate class or classes, their exercise of hegemony is incomplete and mostly based on domination and coercion.

However, as described by Marx, a capitalist mode of production is an ongoing cyclical process, so the question is how did it start? Although it is linked to the origins of capitalism in the 1800s, primitive capital accumulation still takes place today as a result of the market integration of rural economies and neoliberal capital policies resulting in centralization of wealth and power 8

(Glassman 2006, Harvey 2010, Richani 2012), updated and reconstructed by Harvey (2010) as accumulation by dispossession to reflect contemporary processes . This process is based on the land privatization and re-conceptualization as a freely tradable asset usable for capital accumulation where land acquires value regardless of agricultural production (Marx 1991, Harvey 2018). Land commodification results in a rentier economy where investments in land are mainly based on expected rent surplus or speculation – i.e. the trade in land to achieve a capital gain as a result of a rapid change in land prices (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010).

3.2.1 Conceptualizing power

Power is not a straightforward concept having multiple definitions and being highly contested; however, due to its importance to explain social causality and to assign responsibility, its conceptualization is of great importance to study socio-ecological interactions (Boonstra 2016). Here, I present Boonstra’s (2016) conceptualization of power to study socio-ecological interactions with the intention of operationalizing Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and power dynamics in a capitalist economy.

According to Boonstra (2016), power can be conceptualized in three different levels. The first level of power conceptualization can be understood as “conduct-shaping” and “context-shaping”. Power as “conduct-shaping” refers to people’s ability or power to directly affect an outcome and, as a result, the exercise of this forms of power can be observed and empirically verified. On the other hand, power as “context-shaping” is an indirect and often unintended consequence of human behavior and includes the structures and events altering people’s subsequent actions.

The second level of power includes the attributes or sources (e.g., monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental) of the first level of power (Boonstra 2016). Attained sources of power and forms constitute the third level of power or social power. Social power “[…] always depends on both conduct-shaping and context-shaping power, but the constitution of these two dimensions of power depends on the various ways in which sources are available, distributed, and mobilized” (Boonstra 2016). Figure 3 summarizes the three levels of power presented by Boonstra.

Figure 3 Conceptualization of the three levels of social power as a result of different forms (“conduct- shaping” and “context-shaping”) and sources of power (monetary, natural, artifactual, human, mental). Modified from Boonstra, 2016.

3.3 The relationship between land tenure, speculation and deforestation

Land tenure is the set of institutions determining how land and its resources are accessed, who can benefit from these resources, for how long and under what circumstances (Robinson et al. 2011, 2014, van Bodegom 2013). There are different rules and norms determining how one or more entities (e.g., an individual, a public institution, a private company, or group of individuals acting as a collective) hold the property rights over land, which results in different forms of land tenure (e.g., public, private, communal, customary) (Robinson et al. 2011, 2014, van Bodegom 2013).

Although recent evidence suggests that all forms of land tenure are vulnerable to forest loss, historically it has been believed that public forestlands are more prompt to deforestation (van Bodegom 2013, Robinson et al. 2014). Consequently, many remote forest areas have been privatized assuming this will ensure responsible land-use (Rudel and Hernandez 2017). This together with a growing global demand for natural resources have reinforced land-use change and deforestation (van Bodegom 2013, Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Rudel and Hernandez 2017), and has created new conflicts between customary and statutory land tenure systems in frontier areas (van Bodegom 2013, Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Rudel and Hernandez 2017).

Enclosure and privatization of common lands also incentives land grabbing as a conduct for capital accumulation (Hall 2013), resulting in planned and spontaneous colonization, displacement of traditional and indigenous communities and environmental degradation (Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Young 2018, Agrawal et al. 2019, Brito et al. 2019). Colonization increases the value of cleared lands and supports settler’s claim for land titling (Brito et al. 2019, Mayer 2019, Cardoso Carrero et al. 2020, Reydon et al. 2020), simultaneously creating the need for further infrastructure development and reinforcing the expansion of the colonization frontier (Peres and Schneider 2012, Miranda et al. 2019). As remote areas become more connected, the demand and value of land continuous to increase rising the potential for speculation. Cattle ranching is reported as the most common form of land speculation in frontier areas providing settlers with tenure security and revenues from beef production while waiting for land prices to rise (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010).

Growing agriculture and infrastructure development leads to the integration of remote areas to market dynamics enabling the consolidation of agribusiness and promoting the conversion of pastures to large-scale agriculture (Furumo and Aide 2017, Agrawal et al. 2019, Miranda et al. 11

2019). All this, attracts new investors and capitalized actors to frontier areas who convert pastures and other small-scale agriculture lands to more profitable agro-industrial uses (Furumo and Aide 2017). Land acquisition by capitalized actors can lead to land concentration and conflict over tenure (Byerlee and Rueda 2015, Cardoso Carrero et al. 2020). This phenomenon has been documented in the Brazil and other Latin America countries where privatization of public forestlands has resulted in forest conversion for cattle ranching, oil-palm and soybeans (Roebeling and Hendrix 2010, Graesser et al. 2015, Sy et al. 2015, Furumo and Aide 2017, Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b).

3.4 Narco-ranching: DTOs investing in cattle ranching and agricultural expansion

Drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are driving deforestation in many Latin American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia (Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). This is a process known as narco-ranching in which DTOs invest in cattle ranching to launder money, claim territorial control and smuggle drugs (Devine et al. 2020b). In narco- ranching, DTOs directly finance deforestation activities or buy previously cleared areas converting them to pastures (Tellman et al. 2020).

It is now clear that the growing demand for cocaine and the declared USA War on Drugs have enabled narco-ranching in Latin American countries (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). Drug criminalization and interdiction creates the need for a constant re- location of trafficking routes and heavily increases drug prices (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). DTOs seek to re-locate smuggling routes into remote areas where law enforcement is low, and labour and land availability high, explaining why re-routing occurs in frontier areas (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). However, DTOs do not deforest and buy the lands where drugs are directly transported; instead, they tend to do this next to smuggling routes (Devine et al. 2020b, Tellman et al. 2020). By expanding cattle ranching, DTOs secure their territorial control to both secure trafficking routes and prevent territorial encroachment by rival groups (Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020).

Deforestation also allows DTOs to merge illegal funds within legal cash flow, and acquire assets that can later be sold (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020), acting as a conduct to launder money in frontier areas. Because forest conversion to pasture is a regarded form of land improvement, expansion of cattle ranching supports DTOs’ claims over land ownership providing drug traffickers with a legitime status as business man and neutralizing other people’s claims to land (e.g., conservationist and indigenous communities) (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Tellman et al. 2020). As deforested areas become more connected, DTOs tend to speculate with the price of land, which further reinforces their capital accumulation (Mcsweeney et al. 2017, Devine et al. 2020a, Tellman et al. 2020).

It is well-known that criminal organizations use violence and bribes to grab the land of local inhabitants to secure land acquisition (Devine et al. 2020a). Simultaneously, DTOs heavily invest 13

to corrupt political, judicial, and military units to reduce law enforcement and secure their economic activities (Mcsweeney et al. 2017). This together with the accumulation of wealth and social status blurs the line between criminal organization and local elites creating new narco- bourgeoises (Richani 2012, Mcsweeney et al. 2017). Consolidated narco-bourgeoises later seek to co-opt state institutions participating in decision-making to secure their interest, reduce law enforcement and legitimize their activities (Mcsweeney et al. 2017).

Table 1 Definition of key concepts.

Concept Definition

Causal mechanism Complex systems of interlocking entities (e.g., actors, organizations, structures) that transfer energy, information, or matter to other entities in the system, producing an observable outcome under specific conditions

Theory-building A method used to identify the intervening causal mechanism Process-tracing between an independent and dependent entity by making inferences on hypotheses about how the process took place and how it generated the observable outcome. It combines inductive and deductive approaches to build a theory about a causal mechanism explaining the causal relationship between two entities in a case study, that can later be generalized to similar cases

Hegemony A dominant class exercises power by achieving consent in both civil society and political society

Rentier capitalism A form of capitalism where accumulation of capital is obtained through ownership and not production

Land speculation The trade in land to achieve a capital gain as a result of a rapid change in land prices

Conduct-shaping A form of power that refers to direct effects that can be observed and empirically verified

Context-shaping A form of power that “is an indirect, latent, and often unintended consequence of human behavior and includes the effects that (re)produce structures and events that alter the parameters of subsequent action” (Boonstra 2016).

Sources of power Sources of power do not cause the exercise of power but rather are attributes of power. These resources include the following sources of power: human, mental, monetary, artifactual, and natural

Land tenure The set of property rights associated with land, and the institutions that uphold those rights

Narco-ranching The process where DTOs convert forest and other types of landcover to pastures in remote rural areas to launder money, claim territorial control and smuggle drugs

4. METHODS

This section contains a description of the methods I used to understand the drivers of deforestation in deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. Firstly, I explain how I conducted a literature review for identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the region (section 4.1). Subsequently, I describe how I used Theory-building Process-tracing for unpacking the causal process of deforestation by identifying the entities and processes under which this causal relationship holds and analyzing how the historical drivers and dynamics set the conditions for the studied phenomenon (section 4.2).

4.1 Identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the historical direct and indirect drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. Primarily attention was given to identified drivers after 1950 – due to the growing national and international interest that the region gained after this year (Sierra 2000, Viña et al. 2004, Perz et al. 2005). Academic literature was searched for in English and Spanish using different combination of the keywords: “drivers”, “deforestation”, “forest clearing”, “forest loss”, “land-use change”, “land cover change”, “Colombia”, “Colombian Amazon”, “Amazon”, “Amazon region”, and “Amazonia”, and booleans AND and OR. This search was conducted using Scopus and Google Scholar databases between September and October 2020. Other relevant literature recommended by experts and gathered in previous investigations was included in the review (e.g., academic literature, policy documents, reports, and grey literature). Text analysis was later used to inductively identify synergies and common elements among drivers and patterns of deforestation, leading to three distinct deforestation periods – 1500-1950, 1951-1999, and 2000-2019 – and four themes – boom crops, land access and titling, narco-ranching, and conservation and environmental policies.

4.2 Unpacking the causal process underpinning deforestation

Findings of the literature review in combination with 15 semi-structured interviews (Appendix G), and two pre-recorded publicly available panel discussions from the School of Local Scientists for Restoration3 (Jerez 2019, Peña 2019) were used for unpacking the causal process of deforestation in the region. Interviews were conducted online (Zoom version 5.4.9) due to current travelling and social restrictions, and audio recordings were destroyed after anonymized responses were transcribed. Participants included key national and regional actors from academia, multilateral organizations, public sector, and civil society (Table 2). Due to the difficulties to conduct online interviews with local actors and grassroot organizations, panel discussions were used to represent local insights regarding deforestation in the region. Panel discussions included the reflections of Kelly Peña, a sociologist and activist working with indigenous communities in the department, and Cesar Jerez, founder of the Association of Peasant Reserve Zones (ANZORC), on the interculturality and territorial planning of the Amazon. Theory-building Process-tracing was used to guide content analysis for identifying relevant entities, relationships, processes and conditions (codes Appendix H), and formulating plausible causal relationships. Causal relationship formulation was done deductively, inductively or both depending on whether theoretical evidence was useful to explain the observed outcome. New information was gathered throughout the analysis until a sufficient causal explanation was reached (Figure 4).

3 Escuela de Científicos Locales por la Restauración 17

Table 2 Description of interviewees. Societal sector, nationality and affiliation of participants.

Interviewee Sector Nationality Affiliation

1 Academia Colombian School of Local Scientists for Restauration

2 Academia Colombian Dejusticia4

3 Academia French The French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD)

4 Academia Colombian Pontificia Javeriana University

5 Academia Italian Rosario University

6 Public Sector Colombian National Natural Parks

7 Public Sector Colombian Research Institute SINCHI

8 Public Sector Colombian Ministry of Environment

9 Military Colombian Department of Transnational Threats Analysis

10 Civil society Colombian Center for Alternatives to Development (CEALDES)5

11 and 12 Civil Society Colombian Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS)6

13 Multilateral French Food and Agriculture Organization of organization the United Nations (FAO)

14 Civil Society Colombian FEDEGAN (National Federation of Cattle Ranching)

15 Diplomat Colombian UK embassy

4 An action-research center for legal and social studies. 5 Non-profit association formed by an interdisciplinary team of professionals from the social, environmental and basic sciences, which seeks to build alternatives to the socio-environmental conflicts typical of the current development model. 6 NGO working for sustainability and equity of rural local communities. 18

Figure 4 Steps for the identification of plausible causal relationships and conditions explaining deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon.

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Here, I summarize the findings regarding the identification of historical drivers of deforestation (section 5.1). Firstly, I present a general overview of the deforestation in the region throughout the studied years. Subsequently, I make a detailed description of the deforestation drivers based on their theme classification: boom crops (section 5.1.1), land access and titling (section 5.1.2), narco-ranching (section 5.1.3), and conservation and environmental policies (section 5.1.1) (Appendix K). Later, I explained the logics underpinning deforestation of 1) poor and landless peasants (section 5.2.1), 2) narco-trafficking organizations (section 5.2.2), and investors (section 5.2.3), and the overall causal mechanism of deforestation (section 5.2.4). Finally, I discuss the future scenarios for potential solutions (section 5.3), and limitations of this research (section 5.4).

5.1 Identifying the historical drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon

Three main deforestation patterns were identified over a period of 520 years (1500 – 2019). From pre-colonial times to the early 20th century, land-use change was reported to be the lowest (Etter et al. 2008, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018). Later and up until the 1950s, colonization caused most of the deforestation in region, and it was heavily driven by natural resource extraction7 and urban development to hold control over the region (Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018). With the introduction of the coca crops, the region experienced growing deforestation between the 1960s and 2000s (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). During the 21st century, cattle ranching significantly grew becoming the main deforestation driver in the country in 2008 (Etter et al. 2008, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019). After the implementation of the Peace Accords, cattle ranching together with spontaneous colonization and coca crops consolidated the main drivers of deforestation in the study region (Krause 2017, González et al. 2018, IDEAM 2019a, 2019b, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019).

7 Primarily mining of gold and emerald, and exploitation of cinchona and rubber 20

5.1.1 Boom crops in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon

Coca plantations were introduced to the Guaviare and Caquetá departments in the 1970s (Murcia et al. 2007, González et al. 2018). Due to the growing international demand for cocaine and the lack of state presence of the region, the Amazon experienced a rapid growing of the coca economy in the 1980s (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015). The expansion of coca crops was heavily promoted and financed by criminal organizations and insurgent movements across the country (Roca et al. 2013). The coca plantations became the major driver of deforestation during the following decade (Etter et al. 2008, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013).

In an attempt to regain control over the region, the national government promoted the colonization of the Northwestern Amazon and criminalized coca plantations (Special Plan for the Colonization of the Middle and Low Caguan 1985, Law 30 1986). Subsequently, the national government in close collaboration with the U.S.A launched the Plan Colombia to eradicate coca production and narcotics commercialization in 2000 (García 2013). During the first decade of the 21th century, interdiction policies atomized coca crops (Etter et al. 2006, Murcia et al. 2007, Armenteras et al. 2013b, García 2013, González et al. 2018, Tellman et al. 2020) spreading the plantations to Nariño department and the Pacific region (Rincón-Ruiz et al. 2013, Mendez Garzón and Valánszki 2019, Anaya et al. 2020).

Atomization also led to the expansion of the colonization frontier and the abandonment of old settling areas in the Northwestern Amazon (Armenteras et al. 2013b, Tellman et al. 2020). Abandoned areas were either left to forest recovery (Etter et al. 2006, Ruiz et al. 2011, Sánchez- Cuervo et al. 2012, Armenteras et al. 2013b) or sold to land buyers who converted abandoned areas to pastures for cattle ranching (Etter et al. 2006, Armenteras et al. 2013b). With the peace negotiations in 2012 and until 2019, the region experienced a regrowth of coca plantations (UNODC and Gobierno de Colombia 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, González et al. 2018, Krause 2020). Today, the region has observed a new reduction of coca plantations, which are now concentrated towards the Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca departments (UNODC and Gobierno de Colombia 2019, 2020).

5.1.2 The historical conflict for the access to and titling of land

Land concentration can be tracked back to the colonial (1600-1800) under extensive ranches called haciendas8 (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018). In 1873, the national government launched the first rural agrarian reform seeking to reduce land concentration granting land titling to peasants in remote forest areas (Law 106 1873, González 2005, Roca et al. 2013).

At the beginning of the 20th century, a second agrarian reform together with the civil war, international demand for commodities, the development of infrastructure promoted deforestation (Law 200 1936, Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018). This was reinforced by the growing oil-industry (Decree 1056 1953, Sierra 2000, Viña et al. 2004, Krause 2017) in the Putumayo department in the 1950s (Viña et al. 2004, Etter et al. 2008) and the low enforcement of conservation policies (García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Dávalos et al. 2014).

In 1965, a new agrarian reform was launched (Law 135 1961) further increasing forest clearing (García 2013, Dávalos et al. 2014). Although the reform increased land titling from about 90,000 to 600,000 hectares per year, political interests were able to defund the public agency and land distribution soon petered out (González 2005, Faguet et al. 2020). This unattended claims for land re-distribution of smallholders triggered a new armed conflict between the rising left-wing guerrillas – e.g., FARC9 and ELN10 – and the national government across the country (Krause 2017, 2020).

Guerillas rapidly became the de facto state in vast rural areas, regulating land-use, natural resource access and others (Clerici et al. 2020). The conflict for land access led to another rural agrarian reform in 1982 (Law 35 1982) driving a new way of migrants to the Amazon basin (Etter et al. 2008, García 2013, González et al. 2018). In the Caquetá department, the colonization wave was reinforced by a growing livestock industry financed by the national government and the World Bank (Viña et al. 2004, García 2013, Revelo-Rebolledo 2019).

8 Haciendas were devoted to cattle raising, sugar cane and cacao (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018), and were responsible for deforestation in the Caribbean and Andean region (Etter et al. 2008, González et al. 2018). 9 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia 10 Ejército de Liberación Nacional 22

An economic crisis in the 1990s forced the national government to launch a new agrarian reform to increase farmers’ access to land (Law 100 1994, Law 160 1994, Law 333 1997). The new legislation recognized communal property rights of small-scale farmers under the legal name of Peasants Reserve Zones (Law 160 1994). Similarly, indigenous people’s communal property right was recognized in 1991 under the new Constitution (Law 21 1991). These rights were later granted to African-American communities in 1993 (Law 70 1993). Recognition of communal property of these groups increased the number of public land titled to ethnic and peasants communities across the Amazon (Etter et al. 2008, Peláez et al. 2015, González et al. 2018).

The latest attempt for land re-distribution and titling was consolidated in 2016 with the signing of the Peace Accords (Mesa de Conversaciones 2018). The first section of the Accords explicitly seeks the implementation of an integral agrarian reform across the country (Mesa de Conversaciones 2018). Yet, its poor implementation and the increasingly evident interest of the right-wing ruling party for defunding the agreements has slow down the titling process (Congreso de la República 2020, Contraloría Generla de la República 2020). At this rate, it is estimated that compliance with the agreements will take 25 years (Contraloría Generla de la República 2020).

5.1.3 Narco-ranching

A 60-year armed conflict began in the 1960s with the formation of several left-wing guerrillas in the 1960s11. With the consolidation of coca crops in the 1980s, many guerrillas engaged in drug trafficking to finance their military and political activities (González et al. 2018). Later, the consolidation of guerrillas across the country and the failure of the Colombian state to regain territorial control led to the creation of multiple paramilitary counter-insurgent groups in the 1990s (e.g., AUC12 and AGC13) (Roca et al. 2013, González et al. 2018). Paramilitary

11 Fuerzas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Ejercito Popular de Liberación (EPL), and Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19) 12 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia 13 Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia 23

also engaged in drug trafficking to defend their political interests and secure territorial control14 (Roca et al. 2013). The growing civil conflict resulted in high social restlessness serving as the perfect setting for the consolidation of the country’s drug economy (Viña et al. 2004, González 2005, Perz et al. 2005, Etter et al. 2006, García 2013, Roca et al. 2013, Peláez et al. 2015).

In the Amazon, large portions of forest were protected under the brutal regime of the FARC guerrilla, who used the forest as a natural fortress against the Colombian army and other armed groups (EIA 2019, Krause 2020). FARC rigorously controlled the number of hectares that inhabitants could cut down (EIA 2019). With the implementation of the Peace Accords the country experienced the down-scale of the civil conflict (González et al. 2018, Revelo- Rebolledo 2019). The power vacuum that resulted from FARC demobilization led to an anarchy situation in many rural areas, where new illegal actors and settlers started to occupy old rebel areas (Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019, Clerici et al. 2020, Furumo and Lambin 2020). In the Amazon, FARC demobilization has been followed by spontaneous colonization, unplanned infrastructure development, coca plantations and speculation (Krause 2017, González et al. 2018, IDEAM 2019a, 2019b, Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019).

5.1.4 Conservation and environmental policies

The government launched the forest economy legislation in 1952 (Law 2 1959). This created the Forestry Reserve Zone of the Amazon banning large-scale agriculture, cattle ranching and natural resource exploitation in large portions of the Amazon. Later, the National Natural Resource Code (Decree 2811 1974) allowed the creation of many protected areas in the region during the mid 1970s and late 1980s15 (Mbaididje-Bianguirala 2019). In 1993, the government consolidated the national policy for natural resource management16 and in 2000 the Ministry

14 Drug profits were used by paramilitary groups to expand cattle ranching and oil-palm production in many frontier areas (Etter et al. 2008, Salisbury and Fagan 2013, Sanchez-Cuervo and Aide 2013, Fergusson et al. 2014). It is estimated this criminal organizations control over six million hectares in the country (Richani 2012).

15 Amacayacu Natural National Park (1975), La Paya Natural National Park (1984), Cahuinari Natural National Park (1987), Serranía del Chiribiquete Natural National Park (1989), and Puinawana Natural National Park (1989) and Nukak National Natural Reserve (1989) 16 tThis legislation created the Research Institute SINCHI responsible for managing, conserving and studying the natural resources of the Amazon region. 24

of Environment facilitate the implementation of a new national policy for protected areas called Parks with People17 (Peláez et al. 2015).

In recent years the growing environmental concern to protect the Amazon has resulted in the implementation of a large number of public policies and strategies for its conservation. In 2015, the national government launched the Vision Amazonia project as part of the REDD+ strategy in the country. The national government also launched the Colombian Tropical Forest Alliance in 2017 to signing four public-private zero deforestation agreements for beef, milk, oil-palm, and cacao (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2020). Later, the national agricultural frontier was delimitated (Decree 1257 2017, Resolution 261 2018), and other perversive incentives for deforestation for land titling were removed (Decree 902 2017). The Amazon was declared a subject of rights in 2018 (Sentence 4360 2018) and in 2019 the national government launched a military strategy to crackdown on illicit deforestation activities – called Operación Artemisa (Van Dexter and Visseren-Hamakers 2020). Yet, deforestation continues to grow in the Amazon (IDEAM 2019a, 2019b).

17 This legislation led to the incorporation of INDERENA as part of Ministry of Environment facilitate the later implementation of a new national policy for protected areas known as Parks with People in 2000. The new policy acknowledge the social and economic interests of local inhabitants for managing natural protected areas (Peláez et al. 2015). 25

5.2 The causal mechanism underpinning deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon

In this section, I first describe the three main logics driving forest clearing in the region, and later explain the underlying mechanism of the overall causal process (section 5.2.4). The first section explains the intertwined relationship between coca cultivation and cattle (section 5.2.1). The second section narrates how criminal organizations acquire and deforest to monopolize illegal activities (section 5.2.2). Lastly, I describe how investors use deforestation for capital accumulation through land speculation (section 5.2.3).

5.2.1 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Seeking to escape poverty

As described in the previous section, Colombia has a long history of land concentration, which has made land access for poor peasants difficult resulting in violent conflicts across the country. With the demobilization of FARC guerrilla, controls over land-use were weakened in the Amazon basin presenting an opportunity for poor and landless peasants and squatters to access public lands as a mean for reproducing their traditional peasant economy and accessing new sources of income. Consequently, peasants and small farmers see informal appropriation of public lands as an opportunity to escape rural poverty.

However, due to the poor economic integration of the Amazon, new colonizers have been forced to engage in the well-established coca and cattle ranching economies of the region resulting in the conversion of forests to coca crops and pastures. According to interviewees, these economic activities are the best, if not the only, available resource of income in remote forest areas due to their connectivity to regional and global markets. In the case of coca production, drug traffickers directly collect coca leaves and paste at the production locations, avoiding peasants the need for road infrastructure for market access. Similarly, cattle’s mobility and non-perishable characteristics allows peasants to easily access the beef and milk markets – primarily in the Caquetá and Guaviare departments – despite poor infrastructure.

Notwithstanding is the intertwined relationship between cattle ranching and coca cultivation in the Amazon, where cattle ranching is used by peasant to incorporate coca surplus into the legal economy. Cattle also is a conduct for saving money over time providing peasants with insurance against injury and sickness year-round: “[…] something that livestock and coca have in common, and that is why livestock is consolidated, is that if one of your children or your 26

mother gets sick, you can sell a cow and you have 600 thousand [pesos]or you can sell a kilo and take your 600 thousand [pesos]. In contrast, with the other products you have no guarantees on how to handle that." (Researcher, February 24, 2021). However, the growing herd size also creates the need for constant pasture expansion and land acquisition due to the higher price of land in better connected zones. Thus, pasture expansion tends to occur in remote forest areas, as describe by a government official of the Amazon Institute for Scientific Research (SINCHI), “the deforestation balloon swells to that side because it cannot do it to the other side. If I was Colombia, and this is the Amazon, I cannot inflate [the balloon] inwardly because the land is much more expensive inward, it's that simple” (March 5, 2021).

On the other hand, peasants’ need to access land for reproducing their economy has catalyzed social mobilizations for acquiring land titling since 1980s. An example was the mobilization of coca growers that during this period led to the consolidation of the Zona de Reserva Campesina del Guaviare in 1996 (ANZORC 2019). Mobilization have also created and deepened intercultural conflicts over land tenure between peasants and indigenous groups across the region. In many cases, conflict is solved through armed violence as described by sociologist Kelly Peña (2019) “[…] a colonist began to establish himself in an area today called Charras, and when cutting down the jungle he met the Nukak [indigenous people]. The Nukak said that they show up because this man was cutting down his ancestral Pipirelas and that caused them pain, and [then] the man warns the commissioner of that time that the Nukak were appearing where he was founding [his land]. Months later […] this man had called the police. The guy shoots the Nukak killing three of them”.

5.2.2 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Monopolizing illegal activities

The FARC guerrilla used to curb capital accumulation by limiting forest conversion to coca crops and cattle ranching, taxing illicit drug products and regulating price of labour (Richani 2002a), which in turn resulted in low levels of deforestation across the region. When FARC demobilized in 2016, the region experienced the weaking of these forms of control providing a window of opportunity for narco-traffickers and other criminal organizations to increase capital accumulation by monopolizing the labour force and means of production of coca leaf and paste, gold mining, logging, and other illegal activities in the region.

Under the logics of a capitalist mode of production, this implies appropriation of the means of production and access to labour force. On one side, this has led to the conversion of peasants and indigenous people to free workers and the de facto appropriation of land in insurgent areas. The former has changed coca cultivation dynamics in the regions forcing local inhabitants to migrate to frontier areas: “[...] because people do not cultivate coca on their farms, they cultivate coca on the colonization frontiers, no longer in their own farms. They go for a few seasons to a plot where they [drug traffickers] set up absolutely everything for them to do it.” (Researcher, February 24, 2021).

For indigenous people, land dispossession reinforces the loss of cultural heritage that began during the colonial period with the evangelism campaigns of the Catholic church in the Amazon. With the loss of their territories for cultural reproduction many indigenous communities have been forced to become raspachines (coca leaf-peakers) in remote areas where peasant colonization is less prominent. An example of this is the rapid disappearing of the Nukak indigenous people which were a non-contacted community up until the 1960s. As explained by Kelly Peña (2019), this dynamic has led to a loss of the traditional practices and knowledge, “This generation of young people grew up in displacement, in dispossession, due that they are [drug] consumers and work in the cultivation of coca. They no longer hunt, there is no traditional knowledge. […] Young people are workers of the raspa, they are dedicated to that.”

On the other side, findings indicate that criminal organizations attain territorial control by 1) financing forest conversion to coca crops and pasture along trafficking routes or 2) using coercion and armed violence to dispose peasants and indigenous inhabitants from their lands, a phenomenon that has been reported in the region since 1996. This has also led to conflicts among trafficking organizations for securing trafficking routes increasing armed confrontation. Violence tends to be concentrated in key areas for securing trafficking routes, particularly closer to the border with the Pacific region – e.g., Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca department –, which is the main access route to the USA market.

5.2.3 Understanding the logics of deforestation: Rentier capitalism

The FARC demobilization has also presented a window of opportunity for cattle ranchers, investor, agribusiness, landlords and narco-bourgeois who use deforestation for capital accumulation through land privatization and commodification. In the Amazon, these actors do this by 1) persuading peasants to sell their lands paying high amounts of money for low-priced lands in frontier areas, and 2) directly financing conversion of public (public lands and Natural Protected Areas) and communal land (e.g., Indigenous and Peasants Reserves). The former is incentivized by obscure property rights in rural areas, where peasants and squatters know the difficulty of obtaining formal titling. The latter involves the use of low-priced workforce for forest conversion.

Deforestation and appropriation of low-priced lands in the Amazon generate high surplus, which are expected to grow with revenues coming from agrarian production and land speculation as remote areas become more connected with urban centers. Additional surplus from agrarian production mostly come from cattle ranching since speculators can easily access the consolidated regional beef and milk markets, as explained by a former government official “They know how to lift up [its] value, when the road is coming closer, when the school is coming closer, they are giving [it] value, that is a business from the start. [Later,] you put cows because that is another business that you add to the speculation of the land, and with cows you have meat or you have milk” (January 19, 2021). Conversion of forest to pastures is also reinforced by the prestige and power that large landholdings and cattle ranching grant: “The man who has a social status is the cattle man. You have to go on horseback, wearing a hat, with several women by your side, singing “corridos” and have your own iron to mark your own cattle, that is the best consideration of success that exists” (Government Official, January 21, 2021).

This mechanism is also used by narco-bourgeois and other criminal actors to legitimize their economic activities and launder money. As stated by an official of the FAO, deforestation is heavily incentivized by the precariousness of rural property rights and informality of agricultural production in the region, “It may be that part is [related to] money laundering dynamics. Why? For the same reason that there is so much dirty money in Colombia and that

it is so easy to spend it in agricultural production, which is mostly still informal, at least in the first links of the chains, where everything is paid in cash.” (March 23, 2021). Investors use bribe, coercion and/or their political connections to influence policy and avoid law enforcement securing land tenure, in many cases, in banned areas (e.g., Natural Protected Areas, Reservas Campesinas, Resguardos Indígenas etc.). Examples of this political alliance are the legal allegations against several former regional majors and governors that have been accused of driving deforestation for land grabbing and using public policy and funding to illegally benefit palm oil and cattle ranching expansion in the region.

5.2.4 The underlying mechanism of deforestation: Accumulation of different forms and sources of power

As explained in the previous sections, the power vacuum that resulted from the FARC demobilization weakened the control over capital accumulation and allowed multiple actors to capitalize from deforestation. New and old squatters and peasants saw in this an opportunity of acquiring land for establishing a peasant economy subsidized by coca cultivation and cattle ranching, a productive cycle that was instituted in the region in the 1980s. Meanwhile, narco- traffickers and investors seek the integration of the Amazon to the global and national markets illegally appropriating lands to monopolize illegal surplus and speculating with land prices through primitive capital accumulation.

Capital accumulation increases actors’ ability to reshape and reorder the landscape and societal organization in colonization frontiers by accumulating different forms and sources of power, namely social power. This is deepened by the historical weak presence and assistance of the state in the region. Table 2 summarizes the identified forms and sources of power that these actors acquire through deforestation. Notwithstanding is that this classification of actors in the region is schematic and, in reality, many of these actors transit between positions. Figure 5 conceptualizes social power accumulation and the potential overlap between actors in the region. Deforestation as a conduct for accumulating social power has resulted in a sharp increase of forest conversion to pastures for low-productivity cattle ranching and an increase in the production of coca leaf and paste in the region despite the attempt of the state and other multilateral organization to curb deforestation in the region. Access to cheap labour and land

in frontier areas heavily increase surplus of powerful actors incentivizing deforestation and reinforcing preexisting power and material asymmetries between actors.

Deepening political and economic domination of traditionally powerful actors such as regional elites, and old and emerging narco-bourgeoisie increases these actors’ influence over the civil and political society at regional and national levels. Evidence of this is the growing states’ interest in attaining the regions’ economic growth through agribusiness and cattle ranching, as stated by a researcher, “Yes, there are very important entities in Colombia that lobby, where extensive cattle ranching is pushed. You know that FEDEGAN18 has a lot of power in Colombia. Much of the political class is cattle ranchers, so they have a direct interest in maintaining certain types of processes. Why saving biodiversity, the animals, with all this mountain doing nothing? Let's make it productive” (January 27, 2021). Material domination also allows powerful actors to drive the consolidation of the cattle ranching culture shaping the regions’ social consciousness and mental models “A cultural factor, I would say that historically in many of these areas cattle [ranching] is seen as a symbol of power, of economic prosperity. So, I think that there is a lot of people wanting to have cattle.” (January 21, 2021).

It is expected that a growing influence of historically powerful actors over the region’s civil and political society will allow them to attain hegemony over the region. However, the growing international pressure on the country’s national government to secure the conservation of the Amazon basin has also created the need for the state to showcase actions curbing deforestation. Complying with these international demands is in the interest of the national elites whose material bases depends on corporate conglomerates heavily linked to foreign capital investments (Richani 2002b). This produces a tension between the national and regional dominant classes as explained by a researcher “In Guaviare, and in other areas of the Amazon, some local elites depend a lot on cattle ranching and, although their planning strategies and POTs19 address environmental issues, their constituencies and [political] networks are made of ranchers or people who are seeking to introduce agroindustry or putting mining or oil in the Amazon. At the national level [the government] is very pressured by the international

18 National Federation of Cattle Ranching 19 Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial (POTs) are the country’s administrative figures for regional land-use planning 31

conjuncture, by the Paris Agreement, etc. So, there is a very difficult tension between these regional elites and national elites.” (January 27, 2021).

Conflicting interests of national and regional dominant classes result in contradictory policies, interinstitutional conflicts and compartmentalization of state agencies, where key institutions have contradicting agendas, and do little or nothing to meet zero deforestation commitments, as stated by an embassy officer “We continue to see that the Ministry of Agriculture has inherent contradictions in the way it structures its initiatives and their development plans […] I believe that very important political agendas are moved there, and [the Ministry of] agriculture has always been a political card, highly politicized in the country, clearly having the objectives of business associations and big players, where it is difficult to permeate the discourse of sustainability, because a lot of power moves there” (April 7, 2021).

Moreover, the states’ need to curb deforestation together with its collusion with powerful regional and national actors to promote the economic integration of the Amazon results in the criminalization of less powerful actors driving deforestation, where forest conversion is argued to be driven by powerful criminal organizations that have little or nothing to do with institutions or legal economies. Consequently, interdiction policies are stated to be the most suitable solutions for controlling deforestation, as argued by an important member of the National Federation of Cattle Rancher, “Fight drug trafficking very firmly and decisively, apply glyphosate, […] what is causing deforestation is the expansion of illegal crops, that is why, we must return to aspersion. As long as you are spraying [glyphosate], you are affecting the crops, them [narco-traffickers] will automatically start to have a totally different response, because they will start to lose a lot of money” (February 19, 2021).

Historical and new forms of criminalization of landless and poor inhabitants in the Amazon have resulted in a growing tension among actors in the regions deepening historical interethnic, intercultural and interclass conflicts, primarily over land access and tenure. Means of violence are regularly used for solving conflicts, which in turn legitimizes discourses claiming for military action to regain control over the region reinforcing displacement, criminalization and deforestation as explained by Cesar Jerez, (2019), “I mean, look at the Artemisa operations that are being carried out against the peasants in [National Natural] Parks. That was what I

said to Julia Miranda20, << It is absurd that they launch an operation, burn [peasants’] house, steal their pigs, chickens, everything, their livestock. I said to Julia, <> No, they are going inside because they have already been expelled from other parts. I mean, it is a totally ridiculous thing, and it makes part of the way they [the State] perceive the peasants of the Amazon. The internal enemy, the coca grower, the <>”. Moreover, the lack of hegemony of powerful actors in the region and the ability of as peasants, squatter, indigenous and ethnic groups to attained sources and forms in a capitalist economy can result in organized responses of marginalized groups to contest regional dominant classes and demand the national government for the states’ presence and assistance.

20 Former Director of Parques Nacionales Naturales or National Natural Parks 33

Table 3 Identified forms and sources of power for actors in the region.

Actor Description Power forms Power sources

Indigenous people Social mobilizations are used to force state-institutions to Conduct-shaping or Natural recognize property rights of land securing land for culture “power to” reproduction

Peasants Peasants use their own and family workforce to convert Conduct-shaping or Natural, Money forests primarily to subsistence crops and coca crops. Informal “power to” appropriation of land and surplus from coca cultivation to subsidize their livelihoods

Social mobilizations are used to force state-institutions to Conduct-shaping or Human recognize property rights of land. Examples of this was the “power to” declaration of the social mobilizations that led to the constitution of the Zona de Reserva Campesina del Guaviare

Narco-traffickers Criminal organizations use gun power to secure land Conduct-shaping or Artifactual, and criminal appropriation, and control over illegal activities and wages “power to” Natural, Money organizations

Cattle ranchers, These actors use money to buy peasants’ lands or finance Conduct-shaping or Natural, Money, landlords, investors forest conversion to pastures securing land tenure. Cattle “power to”, Context- Human* ranching and wealth provide actors with prestige and social shaping status, which can be later use this to influence policy and decision making

Figure 5 Scheme of capital and power accumulation attain by different actors in the Northwestern Amazon region.

5.3 Future scenarios for potential solutions

Findings showed that deforestation is a highly complex problem driven by an intertwined web of land tenure, speculation, and power. Yet solutions for deforestation lack to recognize this disproportionally judicializing less powerful actors in the region. Thus, attaining contextually- appropriate solutions requires the recognition of deforestation as highly unequitable, where actors directly deforesting capitalize the least. This must lead to policies that increase the cost of speculation by increasing the cost of land in frontier areas. This requires the update of the rural land registry in the Amazon (Armenteras et al. 2019a), which is expected to be contested by powerful actor whose wealth is engrained to land tenure. Simultaneously, development policies should incentivize the profitability of the conservation economy providing a feasible economic alternative. Here, strategic territorial planning is key to avoid that stable market demand for timber and other forest products ends-up incentivizing infrastructure development and agricultural expansion. These solutions should aim to provide a mechanism for a more just development rather than to stop deforestation in the region.

5.4 Limitations

Due to travelling restrictions, it was impossible for me to interview local actors and grassroot organizations and, as result, this research misses local actors’ perspective on how they perceive, respond and resist to deforestation dynamics in the region. This should be taken into consideration when making inferences for decision-making and for future research on this matter. Also, it is important to highlight that here I presented a mechanism scheme about a real-world causal process and, as a result, findings represent a simplified version of reality, where actors are expected to transit and belong to one or more classifications/positions. Notwithstanding is that deforestation is a highly dynamic, constantly evolving, and complex causal process influenced by multiple social, political and economic external conditions and drivers at the national and international levels. Thus, it likely that the casual process here presented changes in the coming years.

6. CONCLUSIONS

Understanding drivers of deforestation across countries sharing the Amazon rainforest is key to curb deforestation in the region. This research attempt to contribute to this growing body of knowledge by unpacking the underlying causal relationship of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon. Findings indicate that the region has experienced three deforestation periods in 520 years mainly linked to boom crops, land access and titling, narco-ranching, and conservation and environmental policies.

This research also indicated that the power vacuum resulting from FARC guerrilla demobilization presented an opportunity for peasants, squatters, narco-traffickers, cattle ranchers, landlords and other investors to capitalize from converting forests to coca crops and pastures for cattle ranching. Capital accumulation has increased actors’ ability to reshape the landscape and societal organization by accumulating social power. Traditional elites, and old and emerging narco-bourgeoisie have capitalized on preexisting power asymmetries by disproportionally accumulating social power, seeking to consolidate territorial hegemony and dispossessing historically marginalized groups from their means of subsistence and production. This has resulted in the instauration of a capitalist economy based on land rent and drug trafficking deepening forest loss, inequalities and conflict over land access, and increasing the tension between national and regional elites.

All this creates the need for the consolidation of a new political system with effective institutions that guarantee policy implementation and law enforcement for controlling land grabbing and speculation. This is heavily dependent on the ability of peasants, indigenous and other marginalized groups, and national elites to elaborate an accord for consolidating the states’ authority and legitimacy in the region. Yet cooperation will rely on the national elites’ ability to engage with local inhabitants in a more horizontal decision-making process to improve local people’s material conditions by providing access to land for material reproduction of rural economy and culture. With the historical mistrust and conflict among actors in the region, trust building is expected to be hard and long lasting to attain.

Under this scenario, the role of academia, NGOs, multilateral organization and other civil societal groups is key to facilitate this process by acknowledging their political role in society and recognizing their colonial past and historical debt with local inhabitants, primarily indigenous and ethnic communities. Thus, national and international aid, research and assistance for conservation should be 33

used to bridge between actors and facilitate true participatory processes where marginalized groups can reimagine and/or materialize their own means and ideas for being and becoming forest inhabitants. Conservation should be seen as an opportunity to enhance the ability of marginalized groups to exercise and attain new forms and sources of power in determining local visions of sustainability.

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APPENDIX A. ETHICS REVIEW

Title of project: Understanding land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazonian Region Estimated start and end date of project: September 2020 – June 2021 Lead researcher submitting this form: Paula Andrea Sánchez García Supervisor(s): Grace Wong Date ethics review form first submitted: October 26, 2020

Signature of Researcher/Student*: Date: 14 Oct 2020 Signature of Supervisor(s)*: Date: 14 Oct 2020 * Electronic signatures/ typed names are accepted. All signatories should be cc:d on the submission. Name of reviewer: Amanda Jiménez Aceituno Date of review: 22 October 2020 Reviewer(s) comments: The researcher has properly addressed all the questions in relation to the ethical procedures to be considered in this project. Furthermore, the level of detail provided in the responses reflects that ethical issues have carefully be considered. I don´t find any concerning issues in relation to ethical procedures not being appropriate addressed in this document, but please, consider if some clarifications might be useful in the following cases (see also comments along the text for a better understanding): àSection1, Q6: Q4 of self-assesment says that you will not collaborate “with other institutions, agencies or individuals from outside SRC” , so I am a little bit confused. Which collaborators are you referring to here? àPag 25: I would frame this differently: “Deforestation can be caused by illegal activities” or “can be linked to illegal activities”. But it is also a consecuence of legal activities, decisions, etc. This makes more clear the point you try to rise about this research not involving “the investigation of any illegal behaviour”. Furthermore, investigating illegal logging is not among your research questions, but the focus is on land speculation, although it might be cited as an important driver of deforestation or I guess be connected -directly or indirectly- with land speculation.

à Pag 26: “For this reason, if for any reason participants disclosure corrupt behaviours that they or other participants carry out, I will consciously avoid giving any personal opinion, advices or judgement to participants”. I will consider the anonymization of any kind of personal data that can put a third person on risk (especially if this third person is a participant) à Pag 35: Add that not filming will be made, especially if Zoom or Skype software will be used for the recording. à Plain statement: Unclear to me in relation to this statement when the transcription is anonymized (seems to be only after 2 years!). Maybe add something in relation to this: “For the interviews and transcripts, participants will be given a pseudonym to guarantee the anonymity of responses” à Not sure where to place it, but I am missing something about anonymizing the transcripts, I mean info within the transcripts that can point to specific people, the interview or a third person (see also comment in pag. 26) à Also, I realize now that I am missing in the consent form to ask permission to use the anonymized data in subsequent research, as stated in Section 4, Q9.

Finally, some tiny edits have been suggested in the text to increase clarity. Reviewer signature:

Date of response: October 28 of 20202 Researcher response to reviewers’ comments:

- Response Section1, Q6: Yes, you’re right. I don’t have any collaborators. This was my mistake. I have changed my answer to N/A.

- Response Pag 25: I re-write the section so it is clear that deforestation can be driven either by legal or illegal activities. - Response Pag 26: I deleted this part and re-write like this: “[…] I will dispose any sensitive information that links particular individual with corrupt behaviours, and I will make sure that this information is treated anonymously through the analysis.” - Response Pag 35: I add this information to my response: “[…] I will not conduct any film recording.” - Response Plain statement: I re-write this section, and make clear that: 1) I would be the only person having access to the information; 2) transcriptions will be anonymized to remove all personal information; 3) the audio material will be disposed within 2 years of this study. - Response “Not sure where to place it, but I am missing something about anonymizing the transcripts”: I made some changes in the data management plan to make sure it is clear how the data will be manage and store, and to state how I will anonymize participants’ responses: “[…] Consent forms and audio files will be saved under the participants’ assigned pseudonym in the following format: Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.mp3. Participants’ pseudonyms assignation will be done through an actor type numeration” - Response Section 4, Q9: I included this information in the consent form: “I………………………………………………………, agree to participate in the “Understanding land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazon Region” research and provide consent to be audio recorded, and that my anonymous responses can be stored and used in further research.”

Research Abstract/Summary Deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is historically linked to cattle raising, agricultural expansion, and illegal crops. However, since the signing of the peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, new evidence suggests that land speculation is significantly driving deforestation in the region. Still, little is known about the social, political and economic mechanisms that underpin land speculation in the region. Consequently, additional efforts are needed to better understand the causes underpinning deforestation and land-use change in the Colombian Amazon. In this study, I will use Process-tracing to further unpack the relationships between land speculation and deforestation. The study will include the text analysis of relevant secondary information (e.g. reports, historical archives, policy documents, research papers, etc.) and in-depth interviews with experts and other key national and regional actors. It is expected that interviewed actors will be researchers, government and NGO officials, members of the civil society and grassroot organizations. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation, all interviews will be conducted online. It is expected that this analysis will lead to a basic understanding of the causal relationship between land speculation and deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Findings will also provide scientific evidence to better inform policy makers and researchers to reduce deforestation in the region.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

1. Does your project require assessment by EPN? Consult section 0 for useful links regarding EPN requirements

¨ YES, send the approval to [email protected] when you receive it ¨ NO, complete section 0 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form

2. Does the project involve human subjects (this may include study or workshop participants, informants, people being audio/video-recorded, people whose personal data occur in the collected or analysed material, etc.)?

¨ YES, complete section 3 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form ¨ NO

3. Do you need to process (e.g. collect, retrieve, store, manage) any personal data (e.g. names, contact information, video/recordings)? For more information about what is considered personal data and the GDPR requirements see the information on section C in this document

¨ YES, complete section 4 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form ¨ NO

4. Does your research involve collaboration with other institutions, agencies or individuals from outside SRC?

¨ YES, complete section 5 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form ¨ NO

5. Does your research involve the use of data/material provided by an external source (e.g. other researcher, agency, data repository, database) or archival work?

¨ YES, complete section 6.1 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form

¨ NO

6. Does your research involve international travelling or working abroad?

¨ YES, complete section 6.2 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form and attach the risk assessment ¨ NO

7. Does your research project require completing a risk assessment (i.e. if there are any conceivable health and safety risks associated with this project beyond standard office work)?

¨ YES, attach the risk assessment ¨ NO

8. Does your research involve environmental fieldwork (e.g. sampling, directly monitoring a site, environmental disturbance, trans-boundary movement of specimens /samples)?

¨ YES, complete section 7 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form ¨ NO

CHECKLIST ¨ I have read the SRC ethics principles ¨ I have completed sections 1 and 2 of the Interim SRC Research Ethics Review Form that applies to all research projects ¨ I have appended all relevant documents If so, which documents have you appended? ¨ Permission letter (where appropriate, e.g. interviews, surveys) ¨ Consent form (where appropriate, e.g. interviews, surveys) ¨ Plain language statement (where appropriate, e.g. interviews, surveys) ¨ Collaboration agreement (where appropriate, e.g. collaboration projects) ¨ Risk Assessment (where appropriate, see self-assessment Q. 6 and 7) ¨ Data Management Plan (see template and resources in section C above)

Can we keep this Ethics Reviews form as an exemplar stored for future use at the SRC?

¨ YES ¨ NO

Please delete YES/NO, adding short statements where appropriate/requested to explain which box has been selected. Highlight all responses in yellow. If possible, please combine this form and all appendices into a single document and name the document YEAR-MONTH_ Name of researcher_ Project Name.

SECTION 0. EPN motivation. This must be completed for all research projects.

1. Please, motivate in the box below why your research project does or does not require to be submitted to EPN. If you have had additional discussions or advice (e.g. from SU research support department,) please attach or paste in this correspondence: I will conduct a desktop study and interviews to understand deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. This research not entail handling personal information concerning race or ethnic origin; political views; religious or philosophical convictions; trade union membership; health sexual orientation or sex life; genetic data, biometric data; nor legal offences involving crimes, criminal convictions, procedural coercive measures or administrative detention. It is important to highlight that, although illegal deforestation occurs in the study area, I will not conduct interviews with actors conducting illegal/informal deforestation in the region. Moreover, the information I collected is intended to capture the process and dynamics underpinning deforestation, which mean I do not seek to identify individuals involved in forest clearing. Consequently, I do not expect to handle any personal information of individuals involved in illegal deforestation in the Colombian Amazon.

To motivate your reply, you may use the following resources: a) https://www.researchethics.lu.se/research-ethics-information/ethical-review/when-is-ethical- permission-required b) Please click on the link below that guides you to a decision tree provided by SU. If you answer ‘yes’ to one or multiple of the following questions, your project may require assessment by Etikprövningsnämnden (EPN). Swedish version: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdiAMkGMfJz0k53W9Azt4mIxJJA9HcnYMc0kULlhi RG7Opacg/viewform English version: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf4SiF9mQtwwAWYXvJgaz89aCudUYY7tdMl9b0_C 22hAdNF0Q/viewform 52

According to the link above, does your project require assessment by EPN? YES ¨ NO ¨ BOX TO BE COMPLETED BY REVIEWERS: please explain why you agree or disagree with the assessment (and its motivation) of this project’s need to be submitted to EPN I agree with the assessment made by the researchers that this project, in the way it has been designed, does not entail potential risks for the participants or the processing of sensitive information. And because of this, I think this project does not need to be assessed by EPN

SECTION 1. Legal and Moral Responsibilities and Codes of Conduct, dissemination and benefit sharing This section must be completed for all research projects. 1.1. Legal and Moral Responsibilities, and Codes of Conduct 1. List the stakeholders of your research and their individual interests/concerns to support an explicit statement of what conflicts of interest may occur. Could conflicts of interest conceivably arise between the researcher(s), funding bodies, the institution, and/or research subjects/environments?

YES¨ NO ¨ List of interview actors (The researcher will not disclosure individuals participation among respondents to avoid creating conflict and tensions among participants and to ensure anonymity of participants and their opinions): • Researchers • Government officials • NGO officials • Members of grassroot organizations • Members of civil society

How will any conflicts of interest be addressed? N/A

2. Are you aware of codes of conduct from professional associations that should guide your research? Please identify the relevant code(s) below. YES¨ NO ¨

Colegio Nacional de Ecólogos (CONALDE) is a non-profit organization in charge of gathering all professional Ecologist in Colombia. The Ethics Code of this organization guides its members to conduct research and working activities in a legal and ethical way.

Have these codes addressed any issues not covered in this assessment but that are relevant to your study? If yes – please list them here and refer to the codes in the appropriate questions of this Ethics Review Form.

No, all ethical concerns in the Ethic Code of CONALDE have been already addressed in this assessment.

3. Have you reached agreements relating to intellectual property, publication and authorship with all relevant research partners/stakeholders/supervisors? YES ¨NO ¨ N/A ¨ 1.2. Dissemination 4. What is the moral responsibility to provide feedback or results to the research participants/ funders/ partners? If there are any legal obligations to provide feedback or results this should also be listed here.

I feel a strong moral responsibility to provide feedback and share final analysis with all participants in this research. Still, relevant information and the final analysis will be shared only with participants that want to receive the findings from this study.

5. How will the research findings, associated publications and, where feasible, data be made available, in the context/region/locality where the research is meant to have an impact or to be used? Consider how findings will be made understandable and useable for the different stakeholders.

All academic papers will be published in open source/access journals in order to make information available to people in the country. In addition, I will personally e-mail copies of academic publications to those participants who want to receive feedback in English. Additionally, and to ensure that findings are available in the country’s native language, I will create a info-graphic summarizing findings in Spanish, which will be e-mail to participants with copies of academic publications in English.

6. How will the findings publications and data be available to your collaborators? N/A.

SECTION 2. Potential Harm, Discomfort or Stress for Living Human Subjects or Non-humans This section must be completed for all research projects.

If you answer yes any of the boxes please provide a response showing that you have considered the nature of the risk and state what measures will be taken to prevent, mitigate and/or minimise the potential problems and to protect the participants. If you answer NO or N/A provide a brief motivation for your answer.

YES / NO Is there foreseeable potential for psychological harm or stress to the researcher or other members of the research team (including those recruited locally)?

Because findings from this investigation can affect the economic, political and social interest of some social groups or elites in the country, it is expected that people might try to criticise and discredit my work. I am aware of this issue and, if I find that this is affecting my mental and emotional health, I will seek for medical advice and care (e.g. psychologist). However, it is important to highlight that this is very unlikely due to the increasing number of academic publications and reports addressing deforestation in the region.

YES / NO Is there foreseeable potential for physical harm or discomfort to the researcher or other members of the research team (including those recruited locally)?

It is expected that this desktop research does not represent any potential harm or stress to the researcher.

YES / NO Could the research induce any psychological stress or discomfort?

Respondents might be criticize and discredit for their participation in this research. This might cause psychological stress or discomfort. However, the likelihood of this occurring is expected to be very low, especially because the research will not include local/regional agents of deforestation in the Amazon. In addition, individuals participation in this study will be completely anonymous, and extra precautions will be taken to avoid disclosing participants’ identities and/or opinions (see data management plan). Also, participants will be informed about their right to end the interview at any point and avoid answering questions that they think may represent a physical or psychological risk for them.

YES / NO Does the research require any physically invasive or potentially physically harmful procedures? This research does not intent to conduct any experiment, procedure or activity that represent a potential physical harm for the participants.

YES / NO Does the research involve the investigation of any illegal behaviour?

Deforestation can be driven by both legal and illegal activities. Regarding illegal activities, this research does not intend to interview people conducting these activities. On the contrary, information will be gather through the analysis of secondary information and regional and national key actors. In this sense, this investigation does not represent a risk for local inhabitants that might or might not be involved in illegal activities driving deforestation. In addition, all participants will be previously informed about the aim of the research, the purpose of the interview and their right to stop the interview at any point or refusing to answer any question.

YES / NO Is there foreseeable potential for legal actions (e.g. being sued) applied to the researcher or other members of the research team (including those recruited locally)?

Although in some cases deforestation might be driven by an illegal activity, this research will not disclosure/manage any type of sensitive or personal information regarding the individuals conducting this activity. Still, it is important to highlight that deforestation in the region is also caused by legal activities, and/or state-driven policies and legislation.

YES / NO Is it possible that this research will lead to the disclosure of information about child abuse or neglect? If there is a real risk of such disclosure triggering an obligation to make a report to the relevant authority, a warning to this effect must be included in the information and consent documents.

This research will not include the collection, processing, treatment or analysis of information related to children or child abuse

YES / NO Is there any purpose to which the research findings may be put that could adversely affect participants of the study, collaborators, or actors affected indirectly (e.g. cause conflict)?

It is not expected that this research findings could adversely affect participants or collaborators. Still, I will inform participants about their right to stop the interview at any point or avoid answering any questions that they consider might affect them in any negative way.

YES / NO Could the research adversely affect members of particular groups of people?

The research finding might negatively affect groups/people whose economic activities or interests are somehow linked to the deforestation of the Colombian Amazon. Still, this research will not disclosure any personal information regarding the individuals that are or might be part of these groups.

YES / NO Is there foreseeable potential for violation of, or clash with, cultural or social norms/practices?

I was born and raise in the country, which gives me a broad knowledge of the cultural and social norms and practices. Still, I intend to conduct all interviews and analysis to the best of my ability and knowledge to avoid any violation of, or clash with, cultural or social norms/practices. It is important to highlight that in the national, regional and local context corrupt behaviours and activities are common. For this reason, if for any reason participants disclosure corrupt behaviours that they or other participants carry out, I will consciously avoid giving any personal opinion, advices or judgement to participants. I will strictly limit my interviewer role as to facilitate the conversation and actively listen to participants. Additionally, I will dispose any sensitive information that links particular individual with corrupt behaviours, and I will make sure that this information is treated anonymously through the analysis.

YES / NO Does this research benefit any stakeholder (participant of the study or affected by it), collaborators or research partners (directly or indirectly)?

It is not expected that this research will directly or indirectly benefit any stakeholder, collaborator or participant.

YES / NO Will the true purpose of the research be concealed from any stakeholder (participant of the study or affected by it), collaborators or research partners? Consider what information will be concealed and why.

All information about the purpose, funding and other relevant information will be provided to the participants.

YES / NO Could this research adversely affect any stakeholder (participant of the study or affected by it), collaborators or research partners (directly or indirectly) in any other way? Clarify:

It is not expected that this research can affect participant or stakeholders in any other way.

SECTION 3. Rights of Human Subjects If the research involves living human subjects, or if your work requires interaction with people in the course of your research (e.g. gaining access to land-owners’ land).

THE PARTICIPANTS 1. How many participants will be involved in the study?

I will identify participants based on the literature review and further analysis. For this reason, it is difficult to know for sure how many respondents will participate in this research. Still, it is expected that interviews will involve around 10-20 people.

2. Vulnerable Groups. If you answer YES to the following then you are likely addressing a vulnerable group and a special consideration must be given to achieving informed consent and preventing harm.

Does the research specifically target (tick as appropriate): YES ¨ NO ¨ Children under 18 years of age? YES ¨ NO ¨ People known to have special educational needs? YES ¨ NO ¨ Anyone who is physically or mentally ill (to the extent that they may not be able to provide consent)? YES ¨ NO ¨ Anyone who might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol? YES ¨ NO ¨ Members of a vulnerable or stigmatized minority? YES ¨ NO ¨ Anyone who is vulnerable in other ways? (If yes, explain)

3b). Potential Conflicts of Interest/ Influence on results Are any participants (tick as appropriate): YES ¨ NO ¨ In a client or professional relationship with the researcher(s) YES ¨ NO ¨ In an unequal working relationship with the researcher(s)? YES ¨ NO ¨ In any other dependent relationship with the researcher(s)?

If you have ticked any of these boxes, discuss mitigation measures below:

PARTICIPANT SELECTION 1. What are the criteria for the selection of participants? How will you decide who will be included/excluded from the study?

Selection of participants will be based on participants’ expertise and knowledge regarding the subject of interest.

2. How will participants be recruited? (e.g. adverts, personal contacts, email, recruitment through employer)

If information is publicly available, participants will be recruited via personal e-mail or telephone number. Otherwise, relevant participants will be contact through their working place contact information.

Required Appendices:

• If using advertisements append a copy of the advertisement or a description of its contents and details of where it will be advertised. N/A • If contact details will be obtained from private sources, you will need an approval letter? Please append a copy. N/A • If recruitment will be conducted by a third party (e.g. employer, doctor) do you have a letter requesting their assistance, and/or a letter confirming their willingness to assist? Please append a copy. N/A

PARTICIPANT REWARDS 1. Will participants receive any financial or other material benefits because of participation? Describe the benefits and how these will be distributed. Consider if it will be appropriate to the local context, and how will you avoid it becoming an inducement that interferes with free consent of participants?

Participants will not receive any financial or material reward compensation for their participation in this study.

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION AND CONSENT

Consider the measures that will be used to protect and/or to inform participants:

YES ¨ NO ¨ Is anyone to be interviewed in a language that they are not fluent in? YES ¨ NO ¨ Is anyone who might have difficulty in reading and/or comprehending any printed material distributed as part of the study?

When the research interacts with living humans you must have a Plain Language Statement (PLS) that explains to potential participants what your research is about. In some contexts, the provision of a written PLS will be inappropriate. Nonetheless, a statement such as this should form the basis of any verbal communication with participants about your research objectives. In some contexts, it may be appropriate to supplement verbal communication with an illustrated/visual equivalent of the PLS. Please append the document you will use to the Ethics Form.

1. Checklist of PLS contents, tick as appropriate: Institution and research unit identification Details of the project title 60

Details of the researcher(s) and how to contact them Details of what the project will require (e.g. involvement in interviews, completion of a questionnaire, audio/film recording), the estimated time of commitment, and any risks involved The source of funding Advice that ethics have been considered by the SRC research Ethics subcommittee Advice about parameters of anonymity and confidentiality A statement that participation will not affect any on-going interaction (if the research subject(s) is/are in a dependent relationship with the researcher) Advice that involvement in the project is voluntary and that participants are free to withdraw consent at any time Advice as to the arrangements to be made to protect confidentiality of data, including that confidentiality of information may be subject to limitations Advice as to whether data is to be destroyed after a minimum period Advice that if participants have any concerns about the conduct of the research they can contact the SRC Ethics subcommittee in the following email: [email protected] Any other relevant information

Motivate why any boxes have been left empty: N/A

2. Will the PLS be translated into the local language? YES ¨ NO ¨ Note that back-translation may be necessary to avoid misinterpretation of essential information.

I will conduct all my interviews in Spanish. Since I am a native Spanish speaker, the PLS will be originally design and written in Spanish to avoid misinterpretation of essential information. After that, the PSL will be translated to English for reviewers to have access to the content material.

3. Will written consent be sought from participants? YES ¨ NO ¨ Note that in some contexts written consent may not be obtainable or meaningful. If written consent will not be obtained for some or all participants please explain why circumstances make obtaining written consent problematic or inappropriate.

If YES, does the written consent include? (tick as appropriate): 61

Institution and research unit identification Details of the project title Details of the researcher(s) and how to contact them Confirmation that the project is for research purposes Confirmation that involvement is voluntary and that participants are free to withdraw at any time Confirmation of the particular requirements of participants Advice on legal limitations of data confidentiality Participants request to receive a summary in Spanish and other related academic publications Any other relevant information Motivate why any boxes have been left empty:

N/A

4. Will the written consent form be translated into the local language? Again, consider the need for back- translation. YES ¨ NO ¨ If not, why:

I will conduct all my interview in Spanish. Since I am a native Spanish speaker, the consent form will be originally design and written in Spanish to avoid misinterpretation of essential information. After that, I will translated the consent form to English for reviewers to have access to the content material.

5. Will verbal consent be sought from participants? YES ¨ NO ¨ How this will be recorded and will you need a witness?

N/A

6. Informed consent should be obtained in the native language of participants. What arrangements will be made to do this, including where necessary providing a back-translation of the consent form?

All interviews will be conducted in Spanish and, since all participants are native Spanish speakers, the informed consent will be in the participants mother language. Consequently, there is no need for providing a back- translation of the consent form

7. In some cultures (e.g. hierarchical societies, organizations, companies) it may be appropriate to obtain consent from a community leader or a ‘senior family member’ (e.g. father, husband) before approaching a prospective participant. What arrangements will be made to obtain the appropriate consent?

N/A.

Note that this should not be construed as a substitute for individual consent, which must still be obtained from each prospective participant.

8. In the case of minors participating in the research on an individual basis, the consent or assent of parents must be obtained. How will this consent or assent be obtained?

N/A

9. Will the consent or assent (at least verbal) of minors participating in the research on an individual basis be obtained? How will this assent be obtained? And if it will not be obtained motivate why this is not needed.

N/A

10. In the case of participants with special educational needs, will arrangements be made to ensure informed consent? What arrangements will be made? And if it will not be arranged motivate why this is not needed.

N/A

11. Will administrative consent (e.g. from an organisation or employer) be sought in lieu of participants’ consent? Consider why individual consent is not necessary (maximum 50 words).

N/A

RESERCH TEAM

1. Will the research involve employing local field assistants (including guides and translators)?

YES ¨ NO ¨ If yes, how will you ensure that research procedures are understood and followed by all member of the research team?

N/A

Note that guidance relating collaborative working and the employment of local field assistants can be found in the ESPA Ethics Self-Assessment Guidance Notes.

SECTION 4. Data protection and confidentiality See section C in this document for useful links to complete this section

1. What kind of personal data will you collect, process or store?

I will collect participants’ names and contact information. No other type of personal data regarding participants’ race or ethnic origin, political views, religious or philosophical, convictions, trade union membership, health, sexual orientation or sex life, genetic data, biometric data will be collected, processed or stored.

2. Does your data include any sensitive data or special category data? ‘Special category’ data are afforded extra protections and relate to data that could be used in a discriminatory way (e.g., data on religion, ethnicity, political opinion, trade union membership, genetics, biometrics, health, sexuality). YES ¨ NO ¨ 3. Why will the research need to collect, store or process personal data? Please, briefly reflect on the purpose of processing such data and how will the results be used. N/A

4. Will the research require the collection of personal information (e.g. from educational establishments, employers, other agencies) about individuals without their direct consent? YES ¨ NO ¨ If so, consider what information will be sought and why written/verbal consent for access to this information will not be obtained from the participants themselves. 64

N/A

5. Will any part of the research involving participants be audio/film recorded or recorded using any other electronic medium? YES ¨ NO ¨ Please state what medium is to be used and how the recordings be will used.

Interviews will be recorded using a voice recording device, and then they will be transcribed and coded to further conduct data analysis. I will not conduct any film recording.

6. Who will have access to the raw data and how will confidentiality be maintained?

I will be the only person having access to personal data and the original audio material (consent forms and interviews). The personal data and consent forms will be stored in a separate encrypted folder in my personal computer. For the interviews and transcripts, participants will be given a pseudonyms to guarantee the anonymity of responses. I will store this information in a BOX account to avoid disclosure of the participants’ responses in case of losing my personal computer. I will use box because the servers of this internet cloud are located in the EU, which guarantees that the collected data will be protected by the EU legislation.

7. How will participants be identifiable during the data collection, in different data sets and in final publications and archived data (e.g. Will you anonymise data or quotes? Will you use pseudonyms? Will you identify people’s role or organisation?)?

As previously stated, all participants will be given pseudonyms in relation to audio and transcript materials. After that, all further data analysis, final publications and archived data will treat refer to responses anonymously by indicating only the participants’ type of actor (e.g. government official, NGO official, social leader, researcher). Identification of participants will not be possible after the anonymization of the processed data. However, participants responses, consent forms and personal data will be store separately (BOX account and personal computer) to minimize the risk of disclosure of the participant’s opinions.

In case of research with human subjects, describe how their consent to this level of identification will be sought.

Before interviewing participants, I will explain the data collection, agglomeration, processing and analysis and how their personal data will be anonymized in the research.

8. Will contact details be collected to provide feedback and disseminate results to research participants? YES ¨ NO ¨ If so, consider what contact details will be collected from participants, how will they provide consent to store that data, when will it be deleted, and how will you maintain confidentiality.

For those participants who want to receive related academic publications and the research summary, their names and e-mails will be collected.

9. Will the data files/audio/film footage be disposed of after the study? YES ¨ NO ¨

Explain which data will be retained or disposed of, and if so when and how will it be disposed of.

All audio material will be disposed within 2 years of the study. Contact information will be disposed after all willing participants have received the research summary and related academic publications. The only material that will be retained are transcripts (if participant consent is given).

10. Will the data be made available for secondary use or future research? YES ¨ NO ¨ If yes, explain in what form will data be made available and how will you ensure the confidentiality and consent agreements when data is made available

For participants who have given their consent to use their responses in future research, transcripts will be retained. Because transcripts won’t store the participants’ personal data, further identification of participants will not be possible. On the contrary, if participant do not want their answers to be used in further investigations, transcripts will be disposed after the examination seminar.

11. Will the data be transferred or stored in a country outside the EU? YES ¨ NO ¨

If yes, what arrangements are in place to make sure it complies with the EU General Data Protection Requirements (Chapter V of the GDPR) and ensure the confidentiality and consent agreements in the partner country?

12. Is it planned to import personal data from non-EU countries into the EU? YES ¨ NO ¨

If yes, does it comply with the laws of the country in which the data was collected?

13. Please list the names of the people who are intended to be data controllers and processors*:

Data controllers: Paula Andrea Sánchez García

Data processors: Paula Andrea Sánchez García

*‘Data controllers’ determine if and how data are processed. ‘Data processors’ process data on behalf of the data controller. Both are required to ensure that data is collected and processed in a transparent, accurate and secure manner, only for the original purposes for which it was collected.

SECTION 5. Collaborative Working

1. Will the research be undertaken in collaboration with academic or government researchers outside the SRC? YES ¨ NO ¨

2. Will the research involve collaborating with an NGO, company, or other non-academic organisation/group?

YES ¨ NO ¨

3. Have you a written agreement pertaining to the collaborative relationship? YES ¨NO ¨ N/A ¨

4. How will you ensure that research procedures adhered to in this form are understood and followed by all member of the research team and collaborators? N/A

SECTION 6. Institutional/ Agency Consent

6.1. Working with external data

1. Where data are, or have been, obtained from another agency, archive, database, or source, is it clear that the intended usage adheres to their terms of supply? Please motivate your answer and add any terms of use or agreements as an appendix when necessary. YES ¨ NO ¨N/A ¨

All research or information obtained from another agency, archive, database, or source will be properly reference and cite in this research to ensure authors will be recognized for their authorship.

2. Where other researchers’ data are being used, is it clear that the intended usage adheres to their terms of supply? YES ¨NO ¨ N/A ¨

3. Are issues of data handling and consent dealt with adequately and following procedures agreed with agencies, archive, and/or land managers? YES ¨NO ¨ N/A ¨

6.2. Travelling abroad

4. Will any places you will visit fall under the avoid or do not visit categorization by the Swedish Min of Foreign Affairs? If yes, motivate why your project requires travel.

YES ¨ NO ¨

This research will not require travelling abroad You can consult the official information in the following website: https://www.regeringen.se/uds- reseinformation/ud-avrader/

5. Have permissions for research been obtained from national authorities in partner countries (as required, for example some countries require a research permit)? YES¨ Please describe and enclose copies in this form NO ¨ Please explain why not

6. Will all researchers have appropriate permission to work in other countries, including the correct entry visas? YES ¨ NO ¨

7. Does the research need to be, or has the research been, ethically reviewed in the host country? How has/ will the review be arranged? YES ¨NO ¨

8. Have the SRC travel guidelines been considered when arranging/deciding travel plans? YES ¨ NO ¨

SECTION 7. Effect on the Environment

Will your research involve environmental fieldwork that involves sampling or directly monitoring a site, or involve movement in sensitive environments? YES ¨ NO ¨ N/A ¨

If you answer YES please answer the questions below:

1. The fieldwork will be conducted in an environmentally sensitive area. YES ¨ NO ¨

2. Appropriate steps been taken to gain permission to access field sites? YES ¨ NO ¨

3. Does your field site require crossing sensitive or privately held land? YES ¨ NO ¨

4. Have you made an arrangement with the landowner/ responsible bodies? YES ¨ NO ¨

5. Will samples be collected and removed in sufficient quantities to have a negative physical/environmental impact on the site and/or its ecosystem? YES ¨ NO ¨

6. Will the conduct of the fieldwork significantly disrupt the site and/or its environment? YES ¨ NO ¨

7. Does the fieldwork involve sampling rare/endangered or harmful taxa/species? If YES, has the appropriate permits been acquired (if not why not)? YES ¨ NO ¨

8. Will the research involve transporting samples/specimens/soil between countries? If YES, has the appropriate permits been acquired (if not why not)? YES ¨ NO ¨

If you answer YES to 1, 5, 6, 7 or 8 please also answer and consider the following additional questions about FIELD SITES, SAMPLE COLLECTION and TRANSPORTATION OF SAMPLES…

FIELD SITES 1. How many field sites will be involved in the study?

2. What are the criteria for the selection of the field site(s)?

3. Will prior informed consent to use the field site(s) be sought from the relevant authorities (e.g. government, national cooperation partner)?

Note that informed consent is necessarily sometimes an iterative, progressive process, which benefits significantly from collaboration with local intermediaries and support organisations. Note also that national regulations may require that consent be obtained from additional stakeholders (e.g. indigenous communities).

Will the request for consent include? (Tick as appropriate): Information about the primary investigator and their affiliation Information about local partners and their affiliation(s) Project structure and organisation Confidentiality policies Comprehensive information on the source and nature of the resources to which access is sought Timing and duration of the research activity Exact geographic data on the area in which the research is to take place Purpose and objectives of the research, type of research activity Potential utilisation of research findings Definition of the research benefits derived from the purely scientific use of the resources and how they will be shared Clear and agreed designation of the beneficiaries under the benefit-sharing agreement Transparent information

4. If relevant, will the request for consent be translated into the national/local language? YES ¨ NO ¨

5. Will the above authorities and/or stakeholders receive any financial or other material benefits for providing access to the field site(s)? Consider what benefits will be offered and why, if it will be appropriate to the local context, and how you will avoid it becoming an inducement to grant access that would not otherwise be considered.

6. Will the field site(s) and location(s) be made anonymous?

7. Who will have access to the raw data and how will anonymity be maintained?

8. Will the data collected in this research be made available for secondary use? If yes, what arrangements are in place to ensure the confidentiality and consent agreements?

SAMPLE/SPECIMEN COLLECTION

1. Are the proposed concepts, methods and techniques of research the most appropriate approach to investigate the region(s) in which the field site(s) is/are located?

2. Will sample/specimen collection be kept to a minimum? What steps will be taken to ensure this.

3. Will the disturbance caused to local residents/wildlife be kept to a minimum? Have they been informed about the study? What steps will be taken to ensure this.

4. Will steps be taken to alert the host country about any impending threat to the field site area(s) (e.g. depletion of plant populations, erosion) and to make recommendations for remedial action?

5. Could the research jeopardise access to the field site(s) or country for other researchers in the future?

TRANSPORTATION OF SAMPLES/SPECIMENS 1. Are you aware of the correct classification of the samples/specimens to be transported?

2. Are the samples/specimens to be transported considered as Dangerous Goods?

Note that Dangerous Goods include ‘any goods, including articles and substances, which may pose a danger to the health and safety of people, or damage to property or the environment during carriage, except where they have been diluted to such an extent that they no longer have the hazardous properties of those goods’. See the UNECE Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, Model Regulations (Rev. 17) (2011).

3. If relevant, are you aware of the specific legislation for transporting Dangerous Goods by road, rail, sea and/or air?

4. Is there reason to suspect that the samples/specimens to be transported might include infectious substances?

Note that infectious substances are ‘substances which are known, or reasonably expected, to contain pathogens which are defined as micro-organisms (including bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, parasites, and fungi), plasmids and other agents such as prions, which can cause disease in humans or animals’. See the WHO Guidance on the Regulations for the Transport of Infectious Substances 2009-2010.

5. Do the samples/specimens to be transported contain genetically modified micro-organisms (GMMOs) or organisms (GMOs)? If these GMMOs or GMOs meet the definition of an infectious substance or are vectors that can transfer genetic material to other organisms, consider how they will be handled.

6. What procedures are planned for effective co-ordination between the sender, the carrier and the receiver? Please describe methods of communication, the partner relationship between, and the responsibilities of each of the three parties.

7. Do any other individuals need to be involved in the transportation arrangements (e.g. Institution Safety Officer)?

8. If relevant, are you aware of the regulations and licensing procedures that cover the import of plants, plant material, plant pests, soil and growing medium into the European Union?

Useful information is provided by CITES, DEFRA on animal health, DEFRA on plants and DEFRA on biological translocation policies, the Food and Environment Research Agency, and ECOLEX. Some specimens may need a Phytosanitary Certificate or a Plant Health Movement Document.

9. Is there a requirement to repatriate samples/specimens once the research is complete?

SECTION 8. Additional Statement Please add any additional explanation of ethical issues and how you will address them not covered in the comments above (500 words maximum). N/A

APPENDIX B. PLAIN STATEMENT IN ENGLISH

The research project is titled “Understanding land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazon Region”. This research is conducted by Paula Andrea Sánchez García (hereafter “the student”) as part of her Master Thesis Project at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, (Stockholm University), located in Stockholm, Sweden. Its purpose is to understand how land speculation and other drivers cause deforestation in the northeastern Colombian Amazon. To conduct this research, Paula will analyse secondary information and conduct interviews with experts and key regional and national actors. For this reason, you were asked to participate in this study.

As participant, it is important for you to know that: 1) this research is self-financed by the student with some support from SRC, 2) the SRC Research Ethics Subcommittee has evaluated the project to guarantee that your participation is anonymous and confidential and meets EU standards on personal data protection and management to minimize any potential risk that your participation might entail; 3) the student will be the only person having access to your answers and personal data; 4) transcriptions will be anonymized to remove all personal information, and 5) the audio material will be disposed within 2 years of this study. This means that all your responses will not be linked to your name when we store, process and publish the research.

Please indicate if you wish to receive later an infographic summary (in Spanish) and further academic publications related to this research (in English), and the student will send this information to your e- mail address when the research is completed. Please note that your participation in this study is completely voluntary and that you have the right to stop the interview at any time and/or refuse to answer to certain questions.

It is expected this interview will last about 1-1.5 hours. If you have any questions or need further clarification, you can the student through this e-mail address [email protected]/sanchez- [email protected] or through this cell-phone number in Colombia (+57) 316 697 3091. If you have any concerns about the ethics procedures in relation to this research, you may contact the SRC research Ethics subcommittee to this e-mail: [email protected].

APPENDIX C. PLAIN STATEMENT IN SPANISH Este proyecto de investigación se titula: "Entendiendo la especulación de tierras como un motor de la deforestación en la región Alta Amazonía Colombia". Su propósito es entender cómo la especulación tierras está causando la deforestación en el noreste de la Amazonía Colombiana. Este proyecto se realiza dentro del marco de la Tesis de Maestría Paula Andrea Sánchez García (en adelante ”la estudiante”), como parte de su tesis de Maestría en el Centro de Resiliencia de Estocolmo (SRC por sus siglas en inglés), ubicado en Estocolmo, Suecia. Para llevar a cabo esta investigación, se realizarán entrevistas con expertos y actores clave y el análisis de información secundaria. Por este motivo, y con el fin de conocer su opinión sobre este tema, se le ha invitado a participar de esta investigación.

Como particpante used debe saber que: 1) la investigación ha sido financiada por el estudiante con una minima participación del SRC; 2) el Subcomité de Ética en Investigación de SRC ha evaluado el proyecto para garantizar que su participación sea anónima y confidencial, y que cumpla con los estándares de la UE sobre protección y gestión de datos personales para minimizar cualquier riesgo potencial que su participación pueda implicar; 3) el estudiante será la única persona que tendrá acceso a sus respuestas y datos personales; 4) as transcripciones serán harána anonimas con el fin de eliminar toda la información personal, y 5) el material de audio se eliminará dentro de los 2 años posteriores a este estudio. Esto significa que sus respuestas no estarán vinculadas a su nombre cuando se almacene, procese y publique la investigación.

Indique si desea recibir más adelante un resumen infográfico (en español) y más publicaciones académicas relacionadas con esta investigación (en inglés), y la estudiante enviará esta información a su dirección de correo electrónico cuando se complete la investigación. Tenga en cuenta que su participación en este estudio es completamente voluntaria y que tiene derecho a interrumpir la entrevista en cualquier momento y/o negarse a responder cualquier pregunta.

Se espera que esta entrevista tenga una duración de aproximadamente 1-1.5 horas. Si tiene alguna pregunta adicional, puede contactar a la estudiante a través de esta dirección de correo electrónico [email protected]/[email protected] ó a través de este número de teléfono celular en Colombia (+57) 316 697 3091. Si tiene alguna inquietud sobre los procedimientos de ética en relación con esta investigación, puede comunicarse con el Subcomité de Ética de la Investigación del SRC a este correo electrónico: [email protected].

APPENDIX D. CONSENT FORM IN ENGLISH

Participation in an in-depth interview as part of a deforestation study in the Upper Colombian Amazon Region

Please read carefully and do not hesitate to ask if there is anything you do not understand or if you would like to have additional information.

You will be asked questions about your experiences and reflections of deforestation drivers in the Colombian Amazon region. This interview will take approximately 1-1.5 hours. If you consent to this interview, an indicative guide of the questions will be forwarded before the interview takes place. You should be aware that there is no compensation, nor foreseeable risk for your participation in this interview. We will treat your data confidentially and we will ensure that your responses will remain anonymous. After the audio has been transcribed, the audio files will be deleted. The transcript of the interview will be anonymized and stored in a protected place where only the researcher conducting this interview will have access to the information. Anonymous extracts from your interview may be quoted in the final Master Thesis document and, other related presentations and published papers.

You can withdraw permission to use data from your interview within 15 days after the interview, in which case the material will be deleted. In addition, you will receive a final summary in Spanish and related academic publications of this study.

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you can stop at any time or refuse to answer any question without any consequences of any kind.

The responsible for the interview is Paula Andrea Sánchez García. My contact e-mail is [email protected] or [email protected] and I’m a Master student from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University.

I………………………………………………………, agree to participate in the “Understanding land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazon Region” research and provide consent to be audio recorded, and that my anonymous responses can be stored and used in further research. I have the right to withdraw or choose not to answer any questions at any time.

Name of Participant Signature Date

APPENDIX E. CONSENT FORM IN SPANISH

Participación en una entrevista a profundidad como parte de un estudio de deforestación en la Alta Amazonía Colombiana

Por favor, lea atentamente y no dude en preguntar si hay algo que no comprenda o si desea obtener información adicional.

Se le harán preguntas sobre sus experiencias y reflexiones sobre los motores de la deforestación en la Amazonia Colombiana. Esta entrevista durará aproximadamente entre 1 y 1,5 horas. Si acepta esta entrevista, se enviará una guía indicativa de las preguntas antes de que se lleve a cabo la entrevista. Debe saber que no existe compensación ni riesgo previsible por su participación en esta entrevista. Trataremos sus datos de forma confidencial y nos aseguraremos de que sus respuestas permanezcan anónimas. Una vez que se haya transcrito el audio, se eliminarán los archivos de audio. La transcripción de la entrevista será anónima y se almacenará en un lugar protegido donde solo el investigador que realiza esta entrevista tendrá acceso a la información. Se pueden citar extractos anónimos de su entrevista en el documento final de la Tesis de Maestría y otras presentaciones relacionadas y trabajos publicados.

Puede retirar el permiso para usar los datos de su entrevista dentro de los 15 días posteriores a la entrevista, en cuyo caso se eliminará el material. Además, recibirá un resumen final en español y publicaciones académicas relacionadas de este estudio.

Su participación en este estudio es completamente voluntaria y puede detenerse en cualquier momento o negarse a responder cualquier pregunta sin consecuencias de ningún tipo.

La responsable de la entrevista es Paula Andrea Sánchez García. Mi correo electrónico de contacto es [email protected] or [email protected] y soy estudiante de maestría del Centro de Resiliencia de Estocolmo, Universidad de Estocolmo.

Yo, ……………………………….., acepto participar en la investigación: “Entendiendo la especulación de tierras como motor de la deforestación en la Alta Amazonia Colombiana”, y doy mi

consentimiento para ser grabado, y que mis respuestas anonimas sean puedan ser almacenadas y usadas en investigaciones posteriores. Conozco mi derecho a retirarme o elegir no responder a ninguna pregunta en cualquier momento.

Nombre Firma Fecha

APPENDIX F. DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN GENERAL INFORMATION

Project name: Understanding land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazonian Region

Project manager: Paula Andrea Sánchez García

Date: May 7, 2020

Version: 1

DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA

Type of study:

This research is a observational and descriptive case-based study that aims to understand the causal mechanisms that underpins land speculation as a driver of deforestation in the Upper Colombian Amazon region.

Types of data:

The types of data that this research will manage are qualitative generated from content and text analysis of secondary information, and in-depth interviews conducted with experts and key actors.

Format and scale of the data:

The format of secondary information will include Adobe Acrobat files, Word documents, Web text pages, EPUB (for ebooks), and paper documents. On the other hand, format for audio material will be MPEG audio layer 3 (MP3). It’s expected that this research will require handle a total text file of 50-200, and 40-100 audio materials.

DATA COLLECTION/GENERATION

Methods for data collection:

Data collection of secondary information will be done through a literature review and, in some cases, through additional exploratory or expert recommended search of relevant information. This will be complemented with the conduction of in-depth interviews with experts and key actors in the research topic.

Documentation and data quality:

Secondary information

All secondary information files will be saved under the following format: MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe. For the literature review, all search formulas will be register and store in a text file (SearchFormulas.txt) and each formula will be given a code (e.g. SearchFormula_001). The secondary information files found per search formula will be store in different folders under the search formula code (e.g. SearchFormula). For the secondary information resulting from additional exploratory or expert recommended search, a text file will be created to register the file’s date, source of information (e.g. expert recommendation), document relevance, and relation to categories and units of analysis (OtherSources.txt). This information will be store in one folder separated from all other secondary information (OtherSources). All folders and files related to the collection of secondary information will be store in one file titled SecondaryInformation. The storage structure will be:

SecondaryInformation >>

SearchFormulas.txt

Search Formula_001 >>

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe, MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe,

…

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe

Search Formula_002 >>

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe, MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe,

…

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe

…

SearchFormula_00i >>

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe, MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe,

…

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe

OtherSources >>

OtherSources.txt

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe, MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe,

…

MainAuthor’sLastName_year_MainTopicOfStudy.exe

Interviews

The interviews conduction will result in an audio material and a signed consent form. This material will be store in two separate folders: ConsentForms and InterviewAudios. Consent forms and audio files will be saved under the participants’ assigned pseudonym in the following format: Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.mp3. Participants’ pseudonyms assignation will be done through an actor type numeration (e.g., GovernmentOfficial_001, GovernmentOfficial_002, …, GovernmentOfficial_00i). All transcripts will be saved using the same file name as the audio materials (Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.doc) and will be store in a separate folder titled: Transcripts. This folder will be in a unique folder named Interviews with the InterviewAudios folder. Lastly, a ReadMe text file will be created to keep track of all folder names and content. This file will be store in the Interview folder. Additionally, for those participants who want to receive a brief summary (in Spanish) and further academic publications (in English) an additional Word document containing their names and e-mails will be created. This file will be saved under the name ContactInfo.doc and will be store in a separate folder titled: ContactInfo. The storage structure will be: 82

ContactInfo >>

ContactInfo.doc

ConsentForms >>

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.doc,

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear. doc,

…

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear. doc

Interviews >>

ReadMe.txt

InterviewAudios >>

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.mp3, Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.mp3,

…

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.mp3

Transcripts >>

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.doc, Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.doc,

…

Participants’Pseudonym_Numeration_MonthDayYear.doc

LEGAL AND ETHICAL REQUIREMENTS

In this particular research, the General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR) has been into consideration to protect and ensure anonymity of participant both for ethical matters and to minimize any risk of phycological or physical harm that participants might suffer from information disclosure.

ACCESSIBILITY AND LONG-TERM STORAGE

Data will be store in a box account. This will be done to avoid losing data material due to a computer loss or damage. However, because personal data and consent forms can’t be store on an internet cloud (as stipulated by EU legislation), all consent forms and personal data files containing names and e-mails of participants will be store in a separated encrypted file on my personal computer. Separation of interview content, consent forms and personal data will increase data security by ensuring that if disclosure of one source of information happens, either interview content or personal information, participants identities won’t be connected to interviews content.

Regarding data storage, all material will be permanently store and openly accessible, except for personal data and interview audio material. Personal data material will be disposed of after feedback has been given to participants, while interview audio material will be disposed after transcripts have been conducted.

APPENDIX G. INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Recent studies indicate that deforestation in the Amazon basin has rapidly increased since 2015, also the year when the negotiations between the FARC guerrilla and the national government was consolidated (González et al. 2018). What do you think is driving this high rate of deforestation in the region? 2. Who do you think is driving the deforestation in the Amazon? 3. Why do you think people are engaging in deforestation activities? And what do you think is the ultimate goal of deforestation? 4. Who do you think are the main loser from forest conversion in the Amazon? 5. Which are the mainland uses to which forest is converted in the region? Why do you think people convert forest to these land uses and not others? 6. The Amazon is one of the poorest regions of the country. Yet a large amount of money is invested to clear forests. Where do you think people get the money to engage in deforestation? 7. Which do you think are the public policies and programs enabling forest clearing? 8. Which are the policies you think should be implemented to curb deforestation in the Amazon? And why do you think they haven’t been implemented so far? 9. The Amazon is well-known for having low productive lands (Murcia et al. 2007, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI 2016), which means that after clearance the land can be used only for a couple of years for agriculture. What do you think people do with cleared lands after they becomes unproductive? 10. Colombia, as many other Latin American countries, has a very poor record of land ownership in rural areas (Armenteras et al. 2019b). Under these circumstances, is it still possible for people to sale their lands? If so, how do people engage in these market activities? 11. Are there any historical or structural factors, such as land conflict, low law enforcement or inequality, that enable deforestation in the region? 12. Do you think deforestation is will continue to grow in the coming years? And why? 13. Who do you think I should interview to better understand the drivers of deforestation in the Amazon?

APPENDIX H. CODES FOR PROCESS-TRACING ANALYSIS

Code Level Description Conditions First Structures, relationships and/or factors under which causal relationships hold/take place. Historical Second Past events at the regional level that explain current developments behaviors, patterns, and ways of doing - i.e., path dependency. Historical Third Previous events where the State has subtracted areas from the Subtractions of Amazon Forestry Reserve - “protected” areas. the Secondary Forestry Reserves or ZRF Introduction of Third Conditions that were established when the illegal crops were illegal crops introduced, but more important when the coca economy was established at the national and regional level Past colonization Third The previous attempts to integrate the Amazon basin to the processes rest of the country. Either state-driven or spontaneous The FARC Era Third The role of FARC guerrilla in law enforcement to attain territorial control. The Post FARC Third Conditions that were changed after the signing of the Peace ERA Accords in the region - e.g., law enforcement. First Third The effects of the first moment of FARC demobilization Momentum (2016-2017) Second Third The effects of a second momentum after FARC Momentum demobilization (after 2018) Structural factors Second Social, economic or political conditions that determine, condition or create the set of conditions for causality or relationships to occur/hold - e.g., land concentration, armed violence, racism, inequality etc. Coercion Third Coercion of public officers or related actor to secure the actors’ interests Colonial legacy Third The resulting effects of the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over original indigenous and other ethnic groups, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. Contradiction of Third The perception of an actor or actors of a contradiction public policies between policies or of policies with the conservation of the Amazon Corruption Third Acts of corruption such as bribery Defunding of the Third Lack of funding to ensure law enforcement or/and effective state-institutions policy implementation.

Integration of Third Level of economic, social and political integration of the peripherical peripheral regions to the rest of the country (e.g., Amazon region basin). Land Third The concentration of land tenure and ownership concentration Land tenure Third Characteristics of land tenure and ownership in the country Law enforcement Third Effectiveness of enforcement and implementation of laws and and public policies implementation Multidimensional Third The various deprivations experienced by poor people in their Poverty daily lives – such as poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standards, disempowerment, poor quality of work, the threat of violence, and living in areas that are environmentally hazardous, among others. Profitability of Third e.g., Forestry, non-timber products, cocoa, rubber, etc. economic activities in the region Racism Third Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized Recognition and Third Actor(s) ability to understand or recognize a self-evident or understanding of common problem the problem Social and Third Historical social and political turmoil that the country has political turmoil suffered at the national level - e.g., armed conflict, armed violence, force displacement, structural violence. State co-option Third Public institutions seek to secure the interest of one or more social groups. This results from systematic corruption, asymmetric power structures, colonialism. State-presence Third The presence of state institutions in peripherical regions. Entities First Factors that engage in activities transferring causal force (e.g., actor, organizations, structures) Squatters and/or Second Are these actors’ winners or losers? Do they engage in Peasants deforestation? and if so, why? - e.g., Peasants, squatters and/or small-scale farmers DTOs and other Second Are this actors’ winners or losers? Do they engage in criminal deforestation? and if so, why? organizations Indigenous and Second Are these actors’ winners or losers? Do they engage in other ethnic people deforestation? and if so, why? Investors Second People whose core business is link to land market and speculation. the majority do not live proximity to deforested

areas Are these actors’ winners or losers? Do they engage in deforestation? and if so, why? Landlords and cattle Second Are these actors’ winners or losers? Do they engage in ranchers deforestation? and if so, why? Mental Models Second Explain the way actors think determining their behaviors. Multilateral Second Which is the role of multilateral organizations? Which is their organizations and understanding of the problem? international aid National Elites Second Traditional national elites (mostly established during the Colonial period) Regional elites Second Traditional regional elites (mostly established during the Colonial period) Social values and Second Cultural and social values linked to different types of actions norms and processes that actors engage in doing. Sources of power Second Artifactual Third e.g., apparatuses, products, construction, infrastructure, art. Human Third e.g., human leverage, personnel, members, voters Mental Third e.g., information, concepts, ideas, beliefs Monetary Third e.g., funds, cash, financial stock Natural Third e.g., raw materials, physical space, land, time, organic life The State Second What is the role of the state institutions? Which is the State’s understanding and approximation to the problem? Agencia Nacional Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional de Tierra - ANT and national scale. Altas Cortes - Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional High Courts and national scale. Conservation laws Third Public instruments that were designed to curb deforestation and policies or ensure sustainable use of natural resources, particularly forests. Corporaciones Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Autónomas and national scale. Regionales - CAR Fiscalía, Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Contraloría y and national scale. Procuraduría General de la Nación Ministry of Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Agriculture and national scale. Ministry of Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Defense and and national level. National Armed Forces

Ministry of Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Environment and and national level Sustainable Development National Natural Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Parks Agency and national level National Police Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional and national scale. Notaries and Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional Registry Office and national scale. President Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional and national level Public Third Policies that intend to promote economic growth or the development regions’ development of the region or the country. policies Regional and local Third e.g., alcaldías and gobernaciones state agencies Treasury Third Their role and actions to curb deforestation at the regional and national scale. Future scenarios First What is expected to happen in the Amazon basin in the coming years? Other references First Other relevant references that should be included in the analysis Outcomes First Accumulation of Second e.g., monetary, artifactual, natural or land, human, mental different sources of power Armed violence Second A situation where two or more actors are in conflict and at least one uses armed force to resolve such conflict. Displacement Second People that are faced or coerced to migrate and abandoned their land/territories/households. Loss of cultural Second The loss of indigenous’ people culture, identity, practices and heritage traditions. Loss of Ecosystem Second The perception or measurement of ecosystem services - Services material or cultural benefits - that people obtain rom the Amazon ecosystem Processes First Activities transferring causal force Agribusiness Second Activities and actions link to the expansion of agribusiness Cattle ranching Second Why are forest and other crops converted to pastures for cattle ranching? Why is this conversion so common in the Amazon Coca crops Second Activities linked to the expansion/reduction of coca crops Colonization Second How does the colonization process work? and how is it related to the deforestation of the region? 89

Deforestation Second The process of losing forest cover Illegal gold mining Second Activities linked to illegal gold mining Illegal logging Second Activities linked to illegal extraction of timber Land abandonment Second Actions and activities linked to land abandonment, capturing the frequency and motivation of this phenomenon Land speculation Second How does land speculation work in the region? and how is it link to the deforestation? Money laundry Second Actions and activities linked to launder money, including frequency and motivations underpinning the phenomenon. Other illegal Second activities Relationship between First The links and relationships between entities. entities Conduct-shaping Second Known as power to - refers to direct effects that can be (first power level) observed and empirically verified. Conflict or tensions Second Relationships between actors, organizations or structures that reflect or show conflict, tension, disagreement, etc. Intercultural Third Conflict or tension between cultures Interethnic Third Conflict/tension between indigenous groups or/and other ethnic groups Intergroups Third Between actors within the same group, class or type Interinstitutional Third conflict and tension between state agencies Context-shaping Second It is an indirect, latent, and often unintended consequence of (second level of human behavior and includes the effects that (re)produce power) structures and events that “alter the parameters of subsequent action Cooperation or Second Relationship between actors, organizations and/or structures mutual benefit were both parts benefit from the interaction/relationship Solutions First Which are the actions to curb deforestation in the region? Why is it that these strategies haven’t been implemented or effective so far? Current solutions Second The ongoing solutions and their effectiveness Potential solutions Second Proposed solutions

APPENDIX I. TIMELINE OF THE DEFORESTATION DRIVERS’ ANALYSIS

Timeline. The figure presents the historical drivers of deforestation in the Northwestern Colombian Amazon based on the identified deforestation periods: 1500-1950, 1951-1999, and 2000-2019, and four themes: boom crops (yellow), land access and titling (brown), narco-ranching (orange), and conservation policies (green). Other important historical events are represented in white.

APPENDIX J. ETHICAL REVIEW – FINAL REVIEW

The major concern while conducting this research was maintaining anonymity of respondents while conducting the online interviews and for posterior data analysis. By following the Ethics Review guidelines and the Data Management Plan here presented (Appendix F), it was possible for me to avoid the disclosure of the actors’ participation, opinions and ideas included in this research and, as a result, I did not encounter any major challenges while conducting this research. Yet, I would like to highlight that I still need to write a summary in Spanish and share all publications resulting from this research with participants. This is highly important due to participants’ interest in having access to findings for informing future research and decision making in the Amazon.