- Former fighters in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are working to restore the Colombian Amazon through a cooperative called Comuccom.
- Their goal, despite ongoing conflicts and danger, is to plant 1 million native trees to counteract deforestation from illegal mining, logging, ranching and coca cultivation.
- Those involved in the effort, many of whom were just children when they joined FARC, have already planted 125,000 trees; another 250,000 trees are ready in their cooperative nursery.
PUERTO GUZMÁN, Putumayo, Colombia — Duberney López Martinéz was only 13 when he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2003. “Since I can remember, my family has always been involved in insurgent movements,” he says. “At 13, I ran away from a coercive father at home, and a friend invited me to join the FARC in the Putumayo selva. I … decided to join after seeing a group of boys my age killed and cut up by paramilitary at a checkpoint.”
Today, Duberney, 33, lives with his wife and young son after spending more than a decade fighting in the FARC 32nd Front and two years in jail. In 2017, after being released, as part of his reintegration into society after the ceasefire, Duberney got involved in the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon. He and another 23 ex-FARC members are promoting the ecological restoration of the Colombian Amazon as part of the Communitarian Multiactive Cooperative of the Common (Comuccom) located a few kilometers from Puerto Guzmán, in southwest Colombia on the border with Ecuador.
