A Colombian warlord became the Amazon rainforest’s most unlikely protector. Now he is cutting it down

Deforestation fell by a third when the guerrilla leader Ivan Mordisco violently enforced a logging ban, but now he has changed tack and is threatening Cop16 biodiversity talks

In the Amazon states of southern Colombia, uniform patches of cattle pasture suddenly give way to trees so numerous and densely packed that the blots of emerald, lime green and white overlap as vines, leaves and tree trunks merge into one.

According to official figures, this place is an international success story: the frontline of the country's fight against deforestation, which it slashed last year by 36%.