“We can judge other economic developments such as the construction of cars, machinery, all industrialization, which also pollute, but we are the ones being stigmatized.”
Nelson González, rancher from San Vicente del Caguán.
“Officials care about getting results, they care about being promoted and getting a raise. For them, it does not matter if they have to spoil it... I have been a good person and they gave me problems. They did it because of work.”
Miller Medina, rancher from Caquetá.
Little by little, cattle ranching has gained greater economic relevance in the Amazonian foothills and nowadays, departments like Caquetá are considered cattle ranchers. According to the Departmental Committee of Cattle Ranchers of Caquetá, at the beginning of 2022, the number of heads of cattle in the department was 2,175,265, ranking fifth nationally with 7.4% of the total population of these animals.
Even though peasants state that this region has always been a cattle rancher, the truth is that the exponential increase in this activity began in 2015, and in four years, the number of cattle grew 77%. In this same period, more and more people began to become cattle ranchers in Guaviare and other places in the Amazon foothills. In only eight municipalities of Caquetá, Guaviare, and Meta, the number of cattle has almost doubled, going from 1,143,000 in 2016 to 2,091,900 in 2021.
The cattle economy has become the basis of the culture of its inhabitants. They do not conceive life without cattle: “People from different parts of the country came here to colonize, that is why we do not have a rooted identity like paisas have had for centuries, but cattle are our culture, it makes us feel caqueteños, we are recognized in the country for our cheeses,” says Nelson, a rancher from San Vicente del Caguán.
Taking advantage of this vocation and cattle culture, in recent years, investors and large ranchers from the region and the rest of the country have chosen the Amazonian foothills as a place to expand cattle ranching. Inhabitants of the region speak of the enormous amounts of money that circulate in the deforested areas dedicated to establishing cattle ranches of 50, 100, or more hectares. In addition, the overflights show that these farms are located in the natural parks, Tinigua and Chiribiquete, and the reserve Nukak. This is a true ecocide.
This is a problem that has not been faced since powerful politicians are behind its promotion and because it is the economic activity of the region that, despite not being suitable for cattle ranching, has decades of tradition and is the livelihood of thousands of peasants. Meanwhile, the cattle continue to eat the Amazon.
Cattle ranching: a historical problem
The expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon foothills started at the end of the 19th century and since then, its epicenter has been the current department of Caquetá. For decades, businesspeople, the state, settlers, and peasants have believed in cattle as a source of economic development, and, little by little, they have invaded the jungle; however, it was a modest activity during almost the entire 20th century in the region.
The state has always promoted cattle ranching and encouraged businesspeople to create large farms, such as Larandia in Florencia, but the expansion of this occupation in the Amazon had an obstacle: the armed conflict. The FARC ruled in the regions of Caquetá, Guaviare, and the Amazon foothills, taking advantage of the absence of the state. The ranchers knew that working in this territory would make them targets for extortion. They had the example of the merchants and farmers of San Vicente del Caguan, who had to pay a certain amount of money for their commercial activities.
With the signing of the peace process with the FARC, a new opportunity to expand the agricultural frontier in the Amazon foothills arose. On the one hand, the State handed over thousands of cows to former coca growers to get them to leave the drug business, and on the other, regional landowners and investors from other parts of the country began to deforest large tracts of land and finance cattle ranches. This is the only way to explain the accelerated growth of the bovine population in the region since 2016.
The cattle ranching expansion has taken place in forest reserve lands, natural parks, and indigenous reservations, and it has done more damage than the coca crops themselves because while a lot of land is needed to raise cattle, a few hectares are to produce cocaine. The main affected are the Indigenous people, who see how cattle devour their ancestral territory.
Cattle ranching in this region has accelerated the pasture planting in the Amazon, which would not only destroy the forest, but would also have critical effects on the world climate and the rainfall cycle of the American continent.
According to the IGAG, Caquetá only has 9,000 hectares with a pure cattle capacity, and Guaviare has 7,000 hectares, only 0.1% of the surface of each department.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
The trampling of cattle compacts the soil and makes it unusable, even for planting pastures. This is one of the reasons why some ranchers decide to deforest the Amazon jungle.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
The landscape of areas where deforestation is recent shows cows grazing next to felled and burned trees.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
The Colombian state has been the main person responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon foothills and has promoted and financed cattle colonization several times in this region.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
Thousands of buffaloes are added to the number of head of cattle that graze on Guaviare lands, a species that further aggravates the problem of soil compaction due to trampling.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
Although in poor condition and almost impassable in winter, the Guaviare cattle farms are connected by trail networks that lead to the main road that arrives in San José de Guaviare, a place where cattle are traded and dispatched to other parts of the country.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
A good part of the population of the Amazon foothills defends cattle ranching and considers it part of their culture. They say that, thanks to it, they have a decent life and legal income.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
The ranchers of the Amazon foothills ask the government and Colombians not to point at them and judge them as deforesters.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
Some ranchers and peasants, aware of the responsibility of ranching in the disappearance of the Amazon Forest, have begun to implement sustainable ranching, but are asking for government support.
Photo: Santiago Ramírez.
Cattle herds in Calamar, Guaviare.
In Caquetá and Guaviare, when there is no shortage, a kilo of live cattle fluctuates between 7,000 and 8,000 pesos.
The price of cattle varies depending on the place of purchase. If the owner takes it to the main regional collection centers, the maximum price is paid; if the buyer has to go to the farm, the price is reduced depending on how far it is from the collection center.
Most of Guaviare's live cattle are traded in Guamal, Meta, and Bogotá.
Use cattle to profits
This is a traditional way of raising animals and trading them in the cattle-raising areas of the country, in which a farmer gives peasants several calves to fatten them on his farm. In Caquetá and Guaviare, ranchers have practiced this type of business for decades. It is a tradition. However, in recent years it has been used by some wealthy ranchers to drive deforestation. The case explained below refers to Caquetá but occurs in other parts of the Amazon with slight modifications.
Large ranchers from Florencia, Huila, and neighboring departments finance settlers or landless peasants to deforest and open pastures located mainly in forest reserve areas, natural parks, and indigenous reservations such as Bajo Caguán or the Tinigua natural park.
The calves travel long journeys in barges that cross the rivers of the region or in trucks that transit the trails specifically for this purpose.
The cost of deforesting one hectare is around 3,000,000 pesos, which is paid by the rancher. Nevertheless, there are also cases in which the farmer or settler clears the forest, hoping to find a farmer who will give him calves.
For the business to be profitable, it is necessary to deforest large tracts of jungle, since one hectare supports just one or two cattle.
One to two cattle graze in one hectare, which is the size of a football field.
Between 50 and 100 ha are needed to fatten 100 head of cattle. In general, the rancher finances the opening of several medium-sized and/or small paddocks.
Illegal armed groups authorize and encourage the use of large areas of land to plant pastures, in places dominated by them. The reason is that they need to create a social base in the same way that the FARC did in previous decades.
Two years later or when animals reach 450 or 500 kilograms, the breeder delivers them to their owner, who gives him a percentage of the sale.
Once the cattle return to their farms of origin, ranchers make it seem as if they had grown there to maintain an appearance of legality. Moreover, the peasant is paid his part, which can be around 200,000 pesos per animal.
An increase in areas used exclusively to plant pastures to feed cattle, more CO2 emissions, and a rapid loss of the soil fertility that remained, in addition to deforestation, are some of the consequences of developing cattle ranching in unsuitable areas.
Cattle ranching and social conflict
In 2018, at the same time that deforestation and the number of head of cattle increased, the government of Iván Duque launched Operation Artemisa, a military strategy that had the cooperation of the Prosecutor's Office, the Police, and the Ministry of Environment to fight against deforestation. Every time an operation was conducted, Duque, his ministers, and senior military commanders felt proud and spoke of their commitment to defending the environment and the Amazon.
However, behind that conservationist idea, it was hidden a history of legal abuses and stigmatization of the peasants, as they were treated as the great deforesters of the Amazon. NGO reports and testimonies inform of the arbitrariness committed by the public forces against peasants who were prosecuted and imprisoned, while those responsible for and financing deforestation are still free.
Operation Artemisa maintained the same logic of the fight against drugs: to attack the weakest link in deforestation (in this case the peasant) and prefer a military solution over dialogue. Even worse, Operation Artemisa did not stop deforestation or cattle ranching.
San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá.
For one deforested hectare to plant coca leaves, 60 are deforested to raise cattle.
In the country, there are no exhaustive controls to establish where the cattle were raised, which means that the animals fattened on lands where it is not allowed are sold easily in the market.
To motivate farmers to maintain sustainable practices with the environment, the government launched, in September 2021, the Cattle Ranching Environmental Seal. However, this is not binding.
Cows are eating the Amazon
Deforestation in the municipalities that surround the Chiribiquete Natural Park has not given up. Its persistence goes hand in hand with the increase in the bovine population.
The Serranía de Chiribiquete National Natural Park, also known as the "Sistine Chapel" of the Amazon because of the anthropologist Carlos Castaño, who 40 years ago rediscovered several murals with cave paintings in the tepuis of Cerro Azul, is located in the municipalities of San José del Guaviare, Miraflores, and Calamar from the department of Guaviare and San Vicente de Caguán, Solano and Cartagena del Chairá belonging to the department of Caquetá.
4,268,095 hectares is the extension of Chiribiquete Park.
There are more than 70,000 pictograms in Chiribiquete.
In 2018, it was declared a Mixed Heritage (cultural and natural) of Humanity.
San Vicente del Caguán
Accumulated deforestation: 99,166 ha.
La Macarena
Accumulated deforestation: 75,021 ha.
Cartagena del Chairá
Accumulated deforestation: 92,650 ha.
San José del Guaviare
Accumulated deforestation: 74,785 ha.
Mapiripán
Accumulated deforestation: 42,589 ha.
El Retorno
Accumulated deforestation: 37,357 ha.
Calamar
Accumulated deforestation: 42,259 ha.
Solano
Accumulated deforestation: 31,446 ha.
Cattle and cowboys on the San José - Calamar highway.
Even though coca continues to be one of the causes of deforestation, cattle ranching and the illegal appropriation of vacant lots have become its most important source. In the last six years, the economic dynamics of departments like Guaviare have shifted from coca planting and cocaine production to cattle ranching. This does not mean that crops for illicit use are not a problem anymore; on the contrary, part of the income produced by drug trafficking and illegal mining is invested in the deforestation of thousands of hectares to allocate them to cattle ranching. In other words, these illegal businesses are not isolated from each other, but rather dependent on each other, while deepening the degradation of the Amazon.