The international media is having a collective meltdown over Colombia’s presidential election. Abelardo de la Espriella, a conservative businessman endorsed by Donald Trump, just narrowly defeated the progressive candidate Iván Cepeda. Instantly, mainstream pundits dusted off their favorite apocalyptic script: the right-wing "Tiger" is going to single-handedly incinerate the Amazon rainforest to drill for oil.
It is a neat, lazy narrative. It is also entirely wrong.
The conventional wisdom insists that left-wing politicians protect the environment while conservative ones destroy it. This flat-earth view of geopolitics ignores how conservation actually works on the ground. I have watched international organizations dump hundreds of millions of dollars into high-minded climate summits while the actual forests they claim to protect burn under the watch of progressive governments.
The reality is that Gustavo Petro’s administration left behind an environmental disaster disguised as a progressive wonderland. De la Espriella’s rise is not a death sentence for the Amazon. It might be its only hope.
The Myth of Left-Wing Conservation
For four years, the global press fawns over Petro’s rhetoric. He spoke at international forums, promised a total transition away from fossil fuels, and banned new oil exploration contracts. The media clapped.
Meanwhile, on the ground, his "Total Peace" policy was a catastrophic failure. By trying to negotiate with every armed group, cartel, and dissident faction simultaneously, his administration retreated from remote regions. They effectively ceded territorial control to criminal syndicates.
When the state steps back, criminal organizations step in.
The biggest driver of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is not legal multinational oil corporations. It is illegal gold mining, illegal logging, and industrial-scale coca cultivation run by armed groups. These illicit operations do not comply with environmental regulations. They do not do environmental impact assessments. They dump tons of mercury directly into the Amazon basin, poisoning rivers and wiping out entire ecosystems.
Petro’s toothless stance allowed these criminal cartels to operate with impunity. Pretending that signing an international climate treaty protects trees while armed gangs clear-cut thousands of hectares for drug trafficking is the height of elite delusion.
Security Is the Ultimate Environmental Strategy
Environmentalists panic because de la Espriella wants to use Salvadoran-style, heavy-handed security tactics. They claim militarizing remote regions will harm local communities.
They refuse to admit a basic truth: you cannot enforce environmental laws without state sovereignty.
If a park ranger cannot enter a protected area of the Amazon without getting shot by a drug cartel, your environmental policy does not exist. It is just a piece of paper sitting in Bogotá.
Imagine a scenario where a government actually deploys the military to reclaim territory from illegal miners. By targeting the financial engines of these criminal networks—destroying illegal dredging equipment, reclaiming state control over rivers, and locking up cartel leaders—you do more to stop deforestation in one week than a dozen progressive carbon-credit schemes achieve in a decade.
De la Espriella’s plan to increase military pressure on criminal networks is exactly what the Amazon needs. Total sovereignty must precede total conservation.
The Hypocrisy of the Fossil Fuel Ban
The competitor article wrings its hands over de la Espriella’s promise to revive Colombia’s oil sector and explore fracking. The logic goes that any expansion of fossil fuels is inherently anti-Amazon.
This ignores basic economic reality. Colombia is facing a severe fiscal crunch and an energy self-sufficiency crisis precisely because the previous administration tried to shut down the golden goose of oil revenues before any viable alternative existed.
When a developing nation craters its legal economy by banning its primary export, it does not magically turn its citizens into tech entrepreneurs or ecotourism guides. It drives impoverished rural populations straight into the informal, illegal economy. When legal jobs disappear, illegal logging and coca farming become the only ways to feed a family.
Furthermore, legal energy projects operate under intense scrutiny. Publicly traded companies face massive pressure from international investors, courts, and local watchdogs. They are forced to implement mitigation strategies.
Illegal operations face zero scrutiny. By suffocating the regulated energy sector, the progressive establishment accidentally subsidized the unregulated, destructive shadow economy.
Real Data Over Rhetoric
Let us look at the hard numbers that the mainstream press loves to ignore. Under previous enforcement-heavy administrations in Latin America, targeted security interventions consistently yielded measurable drops in environmental crimes. When governments cut off the illegal supply chains, forest clearing drops.
Yes, there are risks to de la Espriella's approach. Aerial fumigation of coca crops can cause collateral damage to surrounding vegetation if executed poorly. His aggressive focus on economic growth means environmental regulatory agencies will have to fight harder to enforce standards against legal projects.
But dealing with a transparent, regulated corporation in a court of law is a luxury. Trying to regulate a heavily armed cartel in the middle of a lawless jungle is an impossibility.
The premise of the question surrounding Colombia's election is entirely flawed. The media asks: "Will the new right-wing president destroy the Amazon?"
The real question we should be asking is: "How much longer could the Amazon survive under a government that refused to police the criminals tearing it down?"
Stop evaluating environmental policy by the poetry of the politicians who write it. Start evaluating it by their ability to enforce the law. De la Espriella is a businessman who understands power and sovereignty. If he successfully establishes state control over Colombia’s lawless frontiers, the Amazon might finally get the protection it actually needs.
