- This article is republished from Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Amazon rainforest in southern Colombia stretches lush and green across the horizon, but beneath its dense canopy lies a shifting reality. The southern province of Putumayo – a remote region bordering Ecuador, at the edge of the country’s Amazon – has long been dominated by coca plantations and burdened by the perennial shadow of the country’s armed conflict.
With its fertile ground for coca – the raw material for cocaine – the remote area has fostered a web of illegal activity that drives both local economies and the violent dynamics of armed groups vying for control.
For many in Putumayo, coca has remained an economic mainstay, a guaranteed income in a place where legal alternatives are scarce, infrastructure is limited, and state presence is intermittent at best.
