Shifting Amazon River Threatens Colombia’s Only Port in Leticia
Leticia, Colombia – September 7, 2025 – The Amazon River, the lifeblood of Colombia’s only port town of Leticia, is shifting its course, threatening to isolate the town and sparking a tense border dispute with neighboring Peru. A combination of natural river dynamics, intensified by climate change-driven droughts, has reduced Colombia’s share of the river’s flow to just 19.5%, down from 30% in 1993, according to a recent study by Colombia’s National University. This shift risks leaving Leticia, a town of 55,000 at the southern tip of Colombia, landlocked within five years, endangering its economy, food supply, and cultural ties to the river.
Leticia, located in the “triple frontier” where Colombia, Peru, and Brazil meet, relies on the Amazon for trade, with most goods arriving by boat from Peru and Brazil. A Colombian Navy study warns that the river’s southward migration toward Peru, driven by sedimentation and erosion, could render Leticia’s cargo wharf unusable. During the dry season, the wharf already sits on dry land, forcing workers to manually haul goods like rice and beer up muddy riverbanks, a process locals liken to “18th-century labor,” per KUNC. This has slowed trade and driven up costs, threatening the town’s survival.
The environmental crisis is compounded by a diplomatic row over Santa Rosa, a small island in the Amazon River near Leticia. Formed in 1974 from sediment, Santa Rosa was never formally assigned to either Colombia or Peru under the 1922 Salomón-Lozano Treaty, which set the border along the river’s deepest channel. In July 2025, Peru’s Congress upgraded Santa Rosa’s status to a district, prompting protests from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who flew to Leticia to assert Colombia’s claim. “Colombia demands respect for its sovereignty,” Petro declared, as reported by LatinAmerican Post. Peru, asserting long-standing administration over the island’s 3,000 residents, dismissed Colombia’s objections, escalating tensions.
Climate change exacerbates the issue, with severe droughts reducing the Amazon’s water levels by up to 90% in some areas, according to Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (France24). This has left steep, sandy banks where boats once docked, isolating indigenous communities and disrupting trade routes. “The Amazon is drying up,” Leticia’s mayor, Elquin Uni, told AFP, noting that basic goods now take months to arrive, spiking prices. The Yahuarcaca lake system, vital for biodiversity and local fishing, faces desertification if the river’s flow continues to diminish, per ColombiaOne.
Proposed solutions, like dredging or installing submerged groynes to redirect water toward Colombia, have been ignored since 2006, despite warnings from researchers like Lilian Posada García. “The core issue is institutional inaction,” she told ColombiaOne. Meanwhile, locals like biology professor Santiago Duque emphasize the river’s centrality: “We depend on daily trade between the three countries to survive.” On X, sentiments range from alarm—“Leticia could become a ghost town if this continues”—to calls for diplomacy to resolve the border dispute.
The shifting Amazon not only threatens Leticia’s economic lifeline but also challenges century-old treaties, turning a natural phenomenon into a geopolitical crisis. Without urgent action, Colombia’s only Amazon port risks becoming a relic, cut off from the river that defines it.
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