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COLUMN ONE
Drug Crops Ravaging Colombia
In their hunger to expand poppy and coca fields, narcotics producers are
wreaking havoc on the environment. Coffee farms and the watergiving cloud
forest are among the victims.

SAN JORGE DE LAS HERMOSAS, ColombiaIn the
mountains of central Colombia, where the coffee bushes
meet the clouds, this country's most famous legal export is dying of
thirst. Coffee farmers complain that, for four years, the soil here has
gotten progressively drier and that it rains less and less often, leaving
their bushes parched and unproductive.

The mystery of the climate change clears up along with the morning
mist: The uncovered peaks are a blaze of red and purple flowers
bordered by the brown dirt of fields that opium poppy farmers have
already harvested. Only a few of the mountaintops still have their
olivecolored natural cover. The effect on the eyes is a crazy quilt
of colors. The effect on the environment is a disaster. The scattered
dark green patches are all that is left of the cloud forest of
lichenladen trees that trap the fog and condense it into water for
the plants downhill. By cutting down the watergiving cloud forest to
cash in on Colombia's emerging illegal exportheroinpoppy
producers have toppled the delicate balance needed to grow Colombian
coffee. Coffee farmers herelike banana growers in Santa Marta on
the northern coast and fishermen along the Inirida River near the
Brazilian borderare learning that the damage from illegal drugs
extends beyond political corruption and violence. Narcotics producers
are wreaking environmental havoc, destroying the livelihoods of
lawabiding Colombians today while stealing the inheritance of future
generations, experts warn. "The war against illegal drugs would be
completely justified on environmental grounds alone," said Hector
Moreno, director of PLANTE, a government program to develop
alternative crops for coca and poppy farmers. Illegal drugs have
accelerated both the pace and scope of the destruction of Colombia's
rich, diverse environment. Largescale narcotics producers are beyond
the law, respecting neither nature reserves nor prohibitions on
highly toxic chemicals nor restrictions to prevent erosion. By
changing the climate and poisoning the rivers, drug lords have forced
Colombians to abandon legal occupations and enter their illegal
industry. Few experts have studied the environmental havoc related to
drug production because illegal crops are grown mainly in
guerrillacontrolled jungles and mountains, making research difficult
and dangerous.

And because the consequences of drug production for legal crops like
coffee and bananaseffects such as climate changes and environmental
shiftsare fairly recent and are measured over longer time periods,
most of the evidence of damage now is anecdotal and nearly impossible
to quantify. But those who have done studies, such as Luis Eduardo
Parra, who heads the Colombian government's Environmental Audit of
Illegal Crop Eradication, have concluded that "Colombia's environment
is seriously threatened. In itself, that might not be important. But
what is important is that we are a genetic bank for the world.
"Colombia is considered one of the seven countries with
megadiversity," a huge richness in plant and animal species, Parra
said. Ranked by number of species in relation to the size of the
country, he said, Colombia comes in fourth after Brazil, Madagascar
and Suriname. Species that are being lost to poppy and coca
production might eventually be needed for medicine or to end a
plague, experts warn.

Mountains and Jungles Imperiled Because cocathe leaf used to make
cocainegrows at about sea level in the jungle and poppies grow in
the mountains above 6,000 feet, illegal crops threaten two
environments. In five years, growers of coca bushes have destroyed a
portion of the Amazon rain forest equivalent to twice the area of Los
Angeles. In just four years, poppy farmers have cut down a cloud
forest bigger than New York City. "These Andean woods are our real
water factory," Moreno said, referring to the South American cloud
forest. "Because of the steepness of the mountains, poppy cultivation
has generated irreversible problems of erosion." Growers clear the
land to plant poppies, leaving no plants that will hold soil during
rains. Erosion caused by poppy cultivation has produced landslides in
Chaparral, just down the road from here, Parra said. The growers also
leave none of the lichencovered trees that collect moisture from the
clouds like natural sponges. That water runs down the trunks and
collects to form streams.

"When you cut down the trees, you change the climate," Parra said.
"Coffee growers are going to end up without their water resources,
neither streams nor rain." The banana growers near Santa Marta in the
northern province of Magdalena are facing the same problem, according
to U.S. Embassy research. So much of the forest in the Sierra Nevada
of Santa Marta has been destroyed for poppy production that rain has
decreased, adversely affecting banana production, although exact
figures are not available, the embassy reports. That's because
without trees, there is less precipitation. At lower altitudes,
nearly onethird of the Colombian jungle cleared each year is slashed
and burned to make way for coca bushes, Parra said. For every acre of
coca bushes planted, he estimated, growers burn away four acres of
jungle, because the fire is uncontrolled and destroys a larger area
than they can farm. Plants that survive the fire then are killed by
cultivators' chemicals. The growers know that coca bushes, like
poppies, will not produce to their maximum if other plants nearby are
competing for nutrients. Parra reached behind his desk and pulled out
an empty gallon jug labeled "paraquat"a herbicide so toxic it is
banned in the United Statesthat he found in the cocaproducing town
of Miraflores on the Vaupes River in southern Colombia. An estimated
200,000 gallons of such harmful substances are poured into Colombia's
soil each year to clear the ground for coca bushes, PLANTE's Moreno
said. He emphasized that most of the damage is not done by small coca
farmers like Celina Martinez and her husband, Felix. They plant a few
coca bushes along with their corn and yucca on the Guayabero River
that flows through San Jose del Guaviare, the capital of a notorious
cocaproducing province. But hidden behind those small farms,
protected by guerrillas and financed by drug traffickers, lie
thousands of acres of coca plantations that are destroying the
Colombian Amazon, he said.

To produce Colombia's 45,000ton annual coca leaf crop, growers use
17.6 tons of fertilizer and 100,000 gallons of bugkilling poison,
Moreno said. "They have no concept of ecology, much less technical
assistance to cushion the effects" of the chemicals, he noted. "They
use exaggerated doses to get a higher yield." The chemicals are
usually applied in the region's intense heat by barefoot peasants
wearing little clothingand, thus, receiving little protection
themselves from the toxins. Health officials have no statistics on
chemicalpoisoning cases linked to narcotics cultivation. They note,
however, that they are unlikely to see such reports because the
peasants are involved in an illegal activity and would not seek help
at government clinics; there also are few if any such facilities in
the jungle areas where drug crops are grown.

Chemicals Are Polluting Rivers Meantime, authorities note that the
drug trade creates another ecological woe: To process coca leaves
into the paste they sell to drug traffickers, growers use outdoor
"laboratories" that mix the leaves with 55,115 pounds of cement,
25,000 gallons of gasoline and 15,000 gallons of sulfuric acid. About
a ton of chemicals is needed to process the leaves from each acre of
coca bushes, Parra estimated. Parra has seen containers of the
oilbased chemicals used to make paste stored floating in rivers.
"Can you imagine how many spills there are?" he asked. After the
paste is made, the waste is dumped into the nearest river, he said.
As a result, fishermen along the Inirida River that runs through the
cocaproducing provinces of Guaviare and Guainia have told Parra that
they can no longer make a living. "In one day of fishing, they used
to catch about 660 pounds of fish a yard long," Parra said. "That was
their production 10 years ago. Recently, they have not caught more
than 100 pounds in a day." So now the fishermen buy their fish and
work for the coca farmers, picking leaves or mixing chemicals to make
paste. "They have stopped fishing because now there is nothing to
fish," he said.

After coca farmers abandon fieldsbecause the delicate soil plays
out in a few years of intensive cultivationand move deeper into the
jungle, cattle ranchers take over the land, which is now fit only for
pasture, Parra said. This means that an ecological system that once
nourished as many as 300 species of trees on two acresalong with a
diversity of other plants and animalshas been destroyed. The
government can do little to stop the devastation from illegal crops;
it does not control the areas where opium poppies and coca bushes
grow. Most coca production takes place in the provinces that are,
theoretically, nature reserves. In reality, however, these areas are
guerrilla territory. Insurgents decide which people and chemicals
enter their region; regulation is, for all practical purposes,
impossible. The only effective form of controland that is mostly a
bid to halt cocaine production rather than a response to
environmental concernshas been posting soldiers on the main rivers
into cocagrowing areas to block the entry of gasoline and cement.
Even then, growers smuggle the chemicals through the jungle borders
with Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil.

Growers Blame Government Spraying
In their defense, coca farmers contend that government spraying
programs aimed at destroying illegal crops are to blame for most of
the environmental damage in drug production areas.
Authorities dispute that claim, saying that glifosate, the chemical
used in aerial spraying, is safe and widely used. It is, they say,
acceptable even in the United States, which has stringent herbicide
standards. "We are not going to ask the Colombians to use anything
that is not used in the United States," U.S. Ambassador Myles
Frechette said, defending glifosate's use.
That chemicalwhich is a component of a commercially
available garden weedkiller in the United Stateshas proved
unpopular in Colombia. A former defense minister who authorized
spraying to kill illegal crops once even dumped a bucket of it over
his head in front of TV cameras in an attempt to demonstrate its
safety.

"People think that glifosate is the Great Satan," Moreno noted. "But
no one ever contrasts it with the destruction caused by illegal crop
production." Colombians allow drug producers to destroy their
environment, Parra said, "because we have not yet achieved a sense of
national ownership of our natural resources." But an increasing
number of Colombians is realizing the farreaching implications of
the devastation caused by narcoharvests, he said: "For us, putting
an end to illegal crops is urgent. We are not willing to keep on
losing our future."

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