In Colombia, the FARC's clandestine routes have become those of deforestation

Using a simple rope that she stretches across the road, Rosa charges a toll ranging from $0.50 to $14 (from 43 euro cents to 12 euros) to any vehicle that wants to use the clandestine road she guards, which crosses the Amazon from one end to the other, between the towns of Miraflores and Calamar, in the department of Guaviare, in eastern Colombia. Although she is accompanied only by her children, no one dares to contradict her, because the state does not make the law in the region.

Built illegally by settlers in the 1970s, this road was later expanded by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, who used it to travel undetected and to smuggle all sorts of contraband into Venezuela and Brazil.

But paradoxically, it was after the signing of the 2016 peace agreement with this Marxist guerrilla that this road became one of the backbones of Amazon deforestation, explains Mongabay in a series of reports devoted to the paths that scar the primary forest, like so many brown scars visible on the satellite images broadcast by the media.

Indeed, taking advantage of the FARC's withdrawal, "settlers and foreigners have ruthlessly cut down thousands of hectares to plant coca leaves, raise cattle or simply appropriate the forests."

Although in theory Amazonian lands are inalienable, “local authorities chose to ignore that this was an illegal road and used public funds to expand it irregularly,” in order to promote better connectivity, benefiting private interests, Mongabay states in another article .

Unlike the FARC, which limited the deforestation of a forest that protected them from bombing, the dissident groups that still refuse to lay down their arms encourage it, in particular because they levy a "tax" on cattle ranchers and large landowners who use these highways of crime to illegally appropriate Amazonian territories.

As a result, Colombia has lost 107,000 hectares of forest by 2024, while peace negotiations with dissidents undertaken by Gustavo Petro's government are stalling, Mongabay states in a third article.

And the scene is repeated in the department of Caquetá, further south, where a team from the magazine Voragine visited. There, dissidents are even ordering cars to drive on these roads with their windows down and motorcyclists to ride without helmets so they can be identified, while also decreeing a curfew after 8 p.m., under penalty of severe penalties that can include death.

In total, nearly 28,000 kilometers of illegal roads cross the Amazon, according to the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), affecting Native American reserves and natural parks along the way. That's the equivalent of a round trip between Paris and Tokyo.