By TIM JOHNSON
             Herald Staff Writer

             ALONG THE CAGUAN RIVER, Colombia -- Fishermen, hunters and loggers
             follow strict rules around these parts. They have to. Otherwise, they face the wrath
             of the rebels.

             Call it gun-barrel environmentalism.

             Nilson Rojas remembers what happened when a fellow fisherman ignored rebel
             dictates about sweeping for fish with huge seines across the swirling, muddy Caguan
             River.

             ``They made him push 100 cart-loads of sand, each one weighing 250 pounds, to help
             build a school,'' Rojas said, adding that the work lasted several days.

             Others who defy environmental rules imposed by the Marxist guerrillas of the
             Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) face fines and even banishment
             at gunpoint.

             Sometime earlier this decade, leaders of the 34-year-old insurgency took a decidedly
             pro-environmental turn. Alarmed by logging and unrestricted hunting in the jungles
             and plains of eastern Colombia, the rebels started setting up a system of fines and
             imposing strict hunting and fishing seasons.

             Government regulations

             The state has vast environmental regulations but few resources to enforce them.
             Given the resulting mayhem, local officials grudgingly admit that the rebels' armed
             pressure on peasants has reversed some environmental decline.

             ``They help, perhaps not with much maturity, but they do help,'' said Omar Garcia,
             mayor of nearby San Vicente del Caguan.

             FARC commanders boast of their environmental approach.

             ``All units are told to protect watersheds, fauna and especially the fish population,''
             said Camilo Lopez, a spokesman for the 15,000-member insurgency.

             ``Go to the riverbank and you will see that the turtles are returning, that other
             animals are coming back. . . . In some areas of the mountains, deer are coming
             back.''

             Experts on the environment say the FARC policies are simplistic at best, and riddled
             with contradictions at worst.

             Coca planting encouraged

             Rebels enforce logging, hunting and fishing restrictions, but encourage the planting of
             coca, the raw material for cocaine, in remote fields slashed out of the jungle. And
             they are inactive against the spread of cattle ranching, which is blamed for soil
             erosion that is vastly changing the rivers of eastern Colombia.

             ``Their policy is spotty,'' said Omar Tellez, a local agronomist trained at Louisiana
             State University. ``When they have nothing else to do, they start bugging people
             about the environment.''

             A little more than a decade ago, 100-foot boats weighing 500 tons could chug up the
             Caguan River all year, Tellez said. But as watersheds face harm, the Caguan and
             other major rivers become roaring torrents in rainy season and drop so low during
             the dry season that they become impassable.

             This region's abundance of flora and fauna once seemed inexhaustible.

             A common fishing technique was to throw dynamite in a river eddy and collect the
             stunned fish as they surfaced. As a result, some fishermen are one-handed.

             Hunters sold game

             Some hunters bagged so much meat that they would go town-to-town selling the
             excess. Animals, such as tapirs and peccaries, nearly disappeared.

             Rojas, the fisherman, remembers one day in the early 1990s when the 200 or
             fishermen along the Upper Caguan were summoned to a meeting with local FARC
             commanders, and to a series of subsequent meetings.

             ``First, they banned net fishing. Then they banned the use of spear guns and gaffs.
             Then they banned fishing all together so that fish populations could return to normal,''
             he said.

             Once fishing was allowed again, rebels established seasons for each species and told
             fishermen they would monitor lifestyles.

             ``They said if we had enough to buy liquor, then we were taking out too much fish,''
             Rojas recalled.

             It wasn't just the fish. Hunting and indiscriminate lumbering were also closely
             monitored, and a system of fines imposed, ranging from $15 to $650.

             Banishment possible

             ``Sometimes the fines are in forced labor -- helping to build a road or a school. If you
             are a multiple offender, they can tell you to leave the region,'' said Miguel Angel
             Lopez, the community development chief in the nearby town of San Vicente del
             Caguan

             Those acquainted with the FARC's legendary chief, Manuel Marulanda, whose
             Spanish nickname is Tirofijo, or ``Sure Shot,'' believe he is committed to
             environmental protection.

             ``Tirofijo is green. He's obsessed with the environment,'' said a prominent
             Colombian, who asked to remain anonymous. ``He's lived in the jungle for 40 years.
             He tells you, `Look at that river. It used to be clean. Now look at all the crap in it.' ''

             Others, though, are sickened by the recollection of when the FARC used to bomb
             pipelines, spilling rivers of crude oil, fighting to halt exploitation by foreign oil
             companies of Colombia's natural wealth. The bombings continue, but mainly by a
             second, smaller Marxist insurgency, the National Liberation Army.

             ``It's contradictory. They blow up pipelines for the sake of conserving resources,''
             said Francisco Leal, a University of the Andes political analyst.

             Lopez, the FARC spokesman, denies that the FARC attacks the pipelines.

             ``We used to do that,'' he acknowledged, ``but our policy is absolutely different now.
             . . . Our oil policy is totally modified. . . . We believe that what must be done with
             the oil of Colombia is not to rupture the pipeline but make oil an asset for all
             Colombians.''
 

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