Subnational assessment of legal and illegal deforestation in the Colombian Amazon: consequences for zero deforestation commitments

Abstract

AbstractDeforestation has been at the heart of the transformation of the Amazon. Global concerns over deforestation and its impact on climate change have resulted in the adoption of a number of initiatives in the framework of zero deforestation. However, undifferentiated application of the concepts of zero net, gross, and illegal deforestation has revealed a lack of understanding of their scope and of challenges to their implementation. Zero legal and illegal deforestation is, in particular, a controversial subject from the point of view of regulation and sovereignty but an essential aspect from the perspective of public policy design. In Colombia, zero deforestation commitments make no mention of legal deforestation. Papers that analyze deforestation and official data sources fail to incorporate the legal dimension in their analysis. This article addresses this gap by identifying areas where deforestation is legal and where it is illegal in one deforestation hotspot of the Colombian Amazon, the administrative department of Guaviare. Our results show that deforestation has increased since 2013, mainly occurs in illegal zones, and that Guaviare department, 85% of which is covered by forest, has very little legal deforestation potential. Our findings reveal that assessing the legality and illegality of deforestation is more complex than often assumed and must become a priority, especially in forested countries where regulation on forest and land management is shared between different level of governments and institutions.