FIELD MUSEUM'S PROJECT DRAWS DRUG WARNING

A U.S. Agency Threatens To Cut Funding That Supports A National Park
Program In Peru

WASHINGTON -- The United States Agency for International Development has
intervened in an experimental conservation program in Peru run by Chicago's
Field Museum, cutting aid to three communities involved in the project and
calling into question the program's compliance with U.S. drug policy.

USAID, which funds much of the Field Museum's work in the vast, remote and
ecologically rich Cordillera Azul region, has labeled three communities in
the program "major producers" of coca leaf and coca paste, the raw material
for cocaine, and demanded the museum not provide financial aid in those areas.

The Field's program "must be consistent with [the U.S. Andean Counterdrug
Initiative]," USAID's assistant administrator, Edward Fox, wrote in a
letter last week to U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who has come to the
museum's defense. "This point has been discussed with the Field Museum a
number of times."

Field Museum has been deeply involved in the preservation of Cordillera
Azul since 2000, when museum scientists first explored the uncharted rain
forest in central Peru. Since 2001, when the region was declared a national
park, the museum has been a key administrator of a complex and innovative
program to involve surrounding communities in the long-term conservation of
the 5,225-square-mile area.

While coca production has spiked and waned around Cordillera Azul for
decades, Field Museum staff members have encouraged local residents to
reject drug cultivation as damaging to the long-term health of the region
and have promoted growth of legal crops. The museum has never been involved
in the U.S. government's drug interdiction efforts, however.

USAID, meanwhile, has authorized $30 million in economic and development
aid for the region, including more than $5 million for the Field Museum
program that comes directly from funds earmarked for anti-drug efforts.

That money, which is key to the Field Museum's ongoing work around
Cordillera Azul, is tied to compliance with U.S. drug policy, which states
no aid can go to communities known to produce coca, according to a USAID
spokeswoman.

The agency's discovery of coca paste production in 3 of the 66 communities
around Cordillera Azul that receive aid from the Field Museum prompted the
crackdown in late February.

Initially, the agency insisted the museum withdraw altogether from the
three communities but backed off that demand in a meeting Thursday with
senior staff members on the House International Relations Committee, which
Hyde chairs.

The museum can continue its preservation work in all of the communities
around Cordillera Azul, but no funds can go directly to the three coca
producing areas, according to a senior International Relations Committee
staff member.

Museum officials were hesitant to comment on the crackdown but say they are
cooperating with USAID and hope to find a solution.

"There are obviously nuances to U.S. government policy the museum wasn't
fully aware of before, and we are looking forward to working this through
with our partners in Peru and our friends in the Congress," said Anne
Metcalf, a Washington representative for the museum.

Field Museum has many supporters in Congress, and word of USAID's demands
immediately drew the attention of Hyde, who is closely involved in the
writing of U.S. drug policy.

In a sharply worded letter to USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, Hyde
wrote Feb. 24 that he had learned the agency had ordered the Field Museum
to stop working in communities that are either involved in coca production
or that have refused to sign an anti-coca growth pledge. Of the surrounding
communities, only 10 have signed the pledge.

"The Field Museum project has never been considered part of the U.S.
government's formal anti-coca programs in Peru, nor should it ever be" Hyde
wrote. "Instead, by fostering alternative means of income to coca
cultivation in the Huallaga Valley and by promoting active citizen
stewardship of the new Cordillera Azul National Park, the museum's efforts
can prevent the incursion of coca cultivation."

A USAID spokeswoman confirmed that as long as the other communities avoid
coca production, their funding won't be threatened.

Hyde's staff was encouraged by Thursday's meeting because they feared the
consequences of the museum withdrawing completely from any of the communities.

When the museum first came into the area, communities agreed to work with
its scientists and staff only after receiving assurances the program would
be a long-term effort, said the International Relations Committee staff member.

Many other U.S.-based programs have made, and broken, similar pledges in
the region, the staff member said.

"These are poor rural areas. The Field Museum is terrified and so is the
committee that we are going to break that promise to them," the staff
member said.