Drop in logging comes in the middle of efforts to secure crucial Amazon jungle after years of record damage.
Logging in Colombia fell by 36 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, the nation’s environment ministry stated, as President Gustavo Petro’s federal government works to stop record-breaking damage in the Amazon.
In a declaration on Monday, the Environment Ministry stated logging was up to simply over 792 square kilometres (305 square miles) throughout Colombia in 2015, below around 1,235 sq km (477sq miles) in 2022.
“It is great news, however we absolutely can not state that the fight is won. We continue to face illegal economies,” Environment Minister Susana Muhamad informed press reporters in the capital, Bogota.
In Colombia’s Amazon area particularly– typically the chauffeur of the nationwide figure– logging decreased 38 percent to around 443sq km (171 square miles), below near 712sq km (275 square miles) in 2022.
When he was chosen in 2022, Petro assured to prioritise environmental management and stop Amazon logging by restricting agribusiness growth into the rain forest, to name a few procedures.
The left-wing leader likewise has actually contacted abundant countries to cancel foreign financial obligation in exchange for saving locations such as the Amazon, whose damage researchers state might intensify the international environment crisis.
Advancing peace talks in between the federal government and armed groups in the location, in addition to monetary rewards for farmers in the Amazon to assist with preservation, drove the drop in logging in 2015– a 23-year low.
It followed logging had actually fallen about 29 percent in 2022.
Ecological specialists have stated the reduction in logging was likewise most likely connected to orders from dissident groups of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters prohibiting logging.
Muhamad, the environment minister, stated on Monday that the strong existence of federal government militaries in these locations in addition to development made with peace talks will be essential to keeping a down pattern.
In spite of the drop, Muhamad in April alerted that logging had actually increased in 2024 in the middle of dry conditions worsened by a strong El Nino weather condition phenomenon.
In August 2023, Colombia was among numerous South American nations that consented to introduce an alliance to safeguard the Amazon.
Along With Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, the nation signed a joint statement setting out an almost 10,000-word roadmap to promote sustainable advancement, end logging and battle the organised criminal offense that fuels it.
Colombia will host the COP16 United Nations biodiversity top in the city of Cali later on this year.