The Colombian Amazon region

• The Amazonia region covers parts of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
• It accounts for 4.9% of the world's continental area, with 7.4 million km².
• The Amazon River basin is the largest globally, averaging 230,000 m³ of water per second, about 20% of the Earth's freshwater on the terrestrial surface.
• The Colombian portion of the Amazon, located in the northwestern part of the Great Basin, accounts for 6.4% of the Amazon biome and 41.8% of the national territory.
• The Colombian Amazon region includes the departments of Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo, and Vaupés.

Land Use

• The Colombian Amazon area comprises 48 million hectares with three main land-use types.
• The conserved zone occupies 38 million hectares.
• There are 178 indigenous reserves on 25 million hectares.
• 12 national natural parks cover approximately 8 million hectares.
• Additionally, 8 million hectares are under forest reserve status (Law 2 of 1959).
• The remaining 8 million hectares comprise the already intervened area, with overlaps in 4 million hectares.

Amazonian Characteristics

• The Amazon is interconnected with the rest of the country, despite being perceived as remote, uniform, and uninhabited.
• The connection between the Andes and the Amazon is a major source of biophysical richness.
• The region has climate and ecosystem variability, and includes the Eastern mountain range slope with a broad range of temperatures and environmental conditions characteristic of a tropical country.
• The Amazon region has social, economic, and environmental diversity, which is categorized into four subregions in Colombia.
• The Amazonian ecosystems are fragile since most are located on poor soils vulnerable to rain and sun.
• Once the forest is cut, the soil fertility quickly depletes.

Population

• The Amazon region has changed rapidly in recent years.
• Perceptions have not adjusted to new dynamics from external and internal changes, tied to the higher demands as a result of population growth.
• From 1985-2005, the average population growth rate for Amazon departments was higher than the national average.
• These changes have created new pressures on Amazonian space, expressed in intervened expansion areas, deforestation and grassland conversion, expanded extractive activities like fishing and mining, and the establishing illicit crops, which result in adverse effects.
• The Amazon is inhabited by settlers in rural and urban settlements seeking income-generating activities and aspire to living standards similar to the rest of the country.
• However, 45.8% of households in the region have unmet basic needs, higher than the national average of 27.7%.
• Indigenous groups account for 17% of the Amazonian population.

Indigenous Groups

• Indigenous groups have a rich cultural and linguistic diversity.
• They have sustainably used the region's resources with a knowledge of its biodiversity and ecosystem function.
• Indigenous communities are connected to the outside world and want to participate in economic and social dynamics.
• Greater awareness of the Amazon shows how its complex ecosystems, the wealth of resources in this territory, and the ethnic variety demands prudent administration and better policies and measures to protect biological and cultural resources.
• Protection is required to prevent the risk of misuse of natural resources due to the extreme fragility of its ecosystems.

Geopolitics

• The Amazon has national and international geopolitical relevance due to:
• The international scarcity strategic resources
• Its environmental and ecological importance
• Its condition as a cross-border region with illicit economies
• Its cultural heritage

Possible Scenarios for the Colombian Amazon Region

• The Colombian Amazon faces scenarios that show diverse futures, depending on national bets facing topics relevant to the region.
• These include geopolitical border vision, the importance of climate change, the conservation and protection of indigenous culture and knowledge, the increasing pressure for natural resources like minerals, land, water and oil, productive bets and the orientation of research, infrastructure development, and the fight against illegality.
• These scenarios can manifest in different ways and times for each identified subregion, and have the purpose is to promote a country's collective vision for this region.

Loss of Forests

• Although the Amazon still has riches, neglect due to relative isolation and a lack of knowledge led to abandonment by the State.
• While conservation levels are better than in other Amazonian countries, the exploitation and gradual harm is depleting its natural resources.
• The absence of the State led to few improvements in population living conditions in health, infant mortality, and education.
• Inhabitants are losing their ability to secure their basic means of support.
• Research is emerging and the forest, biodiversity, cultural wealth, water abundance, and natural resources are being lost.

Over-Exploitation

• The exploitation of natural resources in a territory unprotected by institutions leads to destruction.
• Pressures from agriculture, timber exploitation, and land settlement combined with mining, oil exploitation, and mechanized agriculture.
• The region's participation in national production increases.
• The beneficiaries are not the local population or the country, and inequality increases.
• Population migration from other regions accelerates, and foreign emigration becomes noticeable.
• Natural wealth beings to disappear and the economic resources of local entities increase, but remains insufficient for rising needs.
• It becomes difficult for the local population to obtain fish, their main source of protein.

Balance

• The dichotomy between exploitation and conservation is solved through agricultural exploitation in highly transformed zones.
• Mining and oil extraction are authorized where it does not threaten biodiversity conservation and cultural protection.
• State oversight is placed on illegal mining, compliance with rigurous environmental standards is guaranteed, and large scale migration, permanent settlements, and the construction of infrastructure that threatens sustainability is avoided.
• By increasing its presence in the territory, the State delivers basic services, which improve the welfare of the population.
• The region becomes less dependent on national transfers and its economy mostly remains under a productive sector.

The Forest

• A focus on conservation leads to defining a vocation for conservartion,.
• The recognition and appreciation of ecosystem services and products from the Amazon are realized.
• Recovering the ancient knowledge of indigenous communities and investing in research allows for improving the understanding about biodiversity and benefits for humanity and the region's role in climate regulation.
• Low-scale, low-impact, high-value-added productive systems consistant with the Amazon biome are developed.
• Ecotourism, regulated fishing, agroforestry systems, Amazon fruit processing, payment for stored and captured CO2, and bioprospecting are promoted as main productive bets.
• Exploitation using low environmental impact, along with traditional practices, allows the generating of export products for specialized markets.
• Rivers are used for Amazon travel and telecommunications and air transport are promoted.
• The additional costs of conservation and relative isolation are assumed by by the country and the international community.

Deforestation

• Expansion agriculture frontier, extensive cattle ranching, forest fires, and logging for timber trade are the main drivers of tropical forest deforestation.
• Other dynamics taking place, such as colonization and population displacement, mining, and illicit crops are also increasing pressure on the forest.
• From 2005 to 2010, 238,360 hectares annually in the country were deforested.
• The Amazon recorded an annual loss of 79,800 hectares of forest.
• SINCHI(Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas) estimated a higher annual deforestation rate between 2000 and 2007 (153,000 hectares/year):
• 44% in Caquetá
• 16% Meta
• 16% Putumayo
• 12% Guaviare

Policy

• The main public policy strategy for the Amazon region is conservation for its resources and ecosystems.
• In future scenarios, the Amazon loses forest cover with deterioration of the ecosystems.
• Maintaining wealth is required and no development should cause its destruction or eliminate any resources.
• A great national investment is considering the area permanently reserved.
• Uncertainty regarding the consequences of destruction would be irresponsible, particularly for future generations, and makes exchanging economic prices untenable.

Regulation

• Defining the scopes, instruments, and territorial differentiation to promote conservation requires a territorial planning program oriented to physical and population differences of the subregions.
• This covers defining protected areas, definitions on forest reserves and integrated management districts (DMI) and regulates income activities and conditions under which they can be carried out.
• Additionally, freezing the dynamics of forest reservation removal with a focus on land titling is also crucial.
• The population, particularly in the territories of indigenous people is an essential partner in the sustainable development of the Amazon because of its adaptive understanding of the relationship between society and nature, productive ecological practices, and community.

Development

• The adoption of sustainable development models are required as a social agreement.
• The social well-being development of indigenous communities demand approaches that will be the same, and others that are different from the rest of society.
• Striving to halt deforestation with progressive limits in the next five to ten years, and as a way of protecting the conserved area, it is necessary to strengthen the policies for economic and social life in the agricultural frontier region.
• Satisfaction of basic living qualities is a driving dimension of environmental sustainability.
• In the intervened zone, there are large quantities of land whose productive and sustainable use should minimize the expansion and promote high-destruction.
• A drive for new development should be based on knowledge production and application and the cultural appropriation of the settler population of the Amazon territory.
• Comprehension of the Amazon forest as a source of wealth, not as an obstacle to development, alongside the scale and nature of its resources, involves a shift in conventional paradigm and a long-term effort.
• It will be particularly necessary alternative production initiatives based on the sustainable use of forests, through applying knowledge

Change

• Education is vital in the understanding of the ways of valuing the Amazon region.
• The proposed new developments institutional strengthening requires promoting the use of economic, financial, and regulatory levers historically.
• One of the challenges is to encourage regional institutional agreements.
• Sectoral development expectations and national, regional, and community jurisdictions face each other with increased frequency in the Amazon territory.
• The funding allocation is based on institutional design for regions with conventional economies, not designed to support the conservation needs.
• Modification of incentives, mechanisms, regulations are needed.
• Comprehension of the Amazon as an identifiable and diverse landscape needs to originate at national order.
• The area will require custom applications due to social, cultural, environmental and economic issues that will vary among the sub-regions.

Cautionary Principle

• The Precautionary Principle is integrated in the legal framework protecting Colombia's environment, established in the Constitution of 1991, and specified in Law 99 of 1993.
• The State is obligated to take action when intervention can cause unacceptable damage.
• Concerns should be directed to the environment, health, cultural diversity and fairness, particularly with the Amazon.
• Consequences may affect regional irreversible and unacceptable impacts due to uncertainty of severity.

Considerations

• The State must oversee these activities until there is sufficient understanding about risks.
• A wider mandate involves the empowering public local communities finds general alternatives for damage.
• In the decision making about what needs to be done is dependent on the approval rate.

Subregions

• The Amazon is not a homogeneous region.
• Social, economic and environmental dynamics vary across subregions formed on the country's internal and external elements.
• Four Amazon subregions:
• Caquetá and Putumayo in the west make up the colonized foothills.
• Guaviare and the southern municipalities of Meta are the northern subregion.
• Guainía and Vaupés compromise the northeastern subregion.
• Amazonas make up the southern subregion.

Foothills

• Configuration of the foothills is structured within the Colombian Amazon.
• A strategic component for water systems which enable high ecosystem variety (75% total population and GDP(Gross Domestic Product) of the Amazon).
• Cattle raising is the predominant productive activity.
• The exploitation of mines and quarries is a leader in subregional production.
• These activities resulted in a high increase of deforestation, the main drivers being colonization, deforestation, and illicit crops.
• Encourage territory regulations that address the conversions of productive ecosystems.

Northern Sub Region

• There is no competitive productive activity between the Amazon and industrial departments.
• Situation is a minimal contributor to regional GDP(.
• Revision of territory is in effect.
• Forest reserve areas have been occupied expecting expulsion and entitlement, with the indigenous reserves displaced.
• Land concentration levels rose and there are 500,000 hectares.
• 60% forest corresponds to degraded pastures indicating high levels of land concentration.
• 50% subregion is reserved for hydrocarbon exploration.
• Models with sustainable production such as forestall systems should be promoted.

Serranía de Chiribiquete

• Serranía de Chiribiquete was declared a national park in as can be considered the heart of the Colombian Amazon. located at the center and under confluence of converging pressures threatening cattle in Caquetá.
• The colonization in Guaviare the mining interests in Vaupés, due to locations high biological importance by an important link. Also has high archeological
• The department has a lower population of concentration than other Amazon regions.
• Vaupés and Guainía have the lowest population concentration as a population region and the least amount of GDP. Despite a lot of conservation due to 23 indigenous reserves with mining it could alter natural and culture change relationship.
• Another problem as mineral searchers on borders is a growing social conflict.
• State's presence is the growing area as a state and the region.

Southern Region

• Its geographical position makes it an important economy.
• Amazonas commerce with businesses by trade and tourism efforts.
• There is a high count of indigenous communities after Putumayo.
• There are large natural reserves that reinforce conservation an protection.
• The illegal mining is affecting illegal fishing.
• Lack of alternatives is causing people to sell lumber.

Indigenous Peoples

• Fifty indigenous populations live in the Colombian Amazon in territories which consist of 50%.
• There is no homogenous society and programs must account for the individuals with activities and resources.
• Occupations range in sizes, agriculture of survival which focus on hunting and fishing.
• There are small nomadic groups in trasnational territories.
• National border conflicts can occur regarding international laws.
• The indigenous on reservations face a decrease in size due to poor territory.
• The critical situation affects land losses.

Development

• An encompassing political strategy calls for technology
• Territorial respect has a voice which means that they have a right to be heard such as control, and preservation. All are necessary for the survival of cultures and traditions
• Improving population involves indigenous production that includes value.
• The local population is the culture to the region and provide better healthcare and systems, support a culture of respect and cooperation
• Problems that indigenous reserves face revolve around a lack with limited community governance.

Ecological Corridors

• Results in the loss of animal species and forests, but not connected.
• A aim with fragments linked by forests, as there are genes in species between forests and the promotion of the ecosystems will facilitate.

Natural Lands

• Independent value to other territory it is important to increase economic and cultural. Such as indigenous and other systems. the goal is to replenish land, which is important given market conditions as economic values and preservation. Preservation of the environmental system such as indigenous and culture.
• Other support includes trade and tourism efforts.

Valuations of the Lands

• Lack of extraction can generate lower production is key to reverse this State action.
• Public resources can be a barrier and they can be removed with economic conservation while the land remains an issue. the long with future analyses.