COCAINE INROADS DAMAGE PERU FORESTS

Region With Lush Natural Beauty Also Proves Suited For Coca Crop, But A
Decade Later The Land Is Unusable

MONZON, Peru - Swaths of scarred earth blanket the hillsides of this jungle
valley -- the environmental testament of a cocaine trade striving to meet
demand in the United States and Europe.

Some 5.7 million acres of Peruvian rain forest have been hacked down in the
last three decades to grow coca, a shrub leaf that is the base ingredient
of cocaine, experts estimate. More than 14,800 tons of toxic chemicals are
dumped into the Amazon jungle every year as traffickers turn coca into raw
cocaine paste.

Poisoned water, soil erosion, landslides and the extinction of plant and
wildlife species are the immediate results. In the long term, lush tropical
valleys such as the Monzon could end up mostly desert in a matter of
decades, environmentalists warn.

"We're talking about one of the richest natural ecosystems in the world,
and it's being destroyed piece by piece," said Jonathan Jacobson, an
environmental specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Peru's capital, Lima.

The Monzon River valley stretches eastward for about 40 miles from the
Andes mountains into high jungle that gradually gives way to the vast
lowlands of the Amazon rain forest.

Dropping from 6,600 feet to 2,000 feet above sea level, the Monzon sits in
a geographical region known in Peru as the "eyebrow of the jungle." The
varied altitude nourishes a wide range of plant and animal species, making
the valley a hotbed for biological diversity.

Since the 1980s, however, the Monzon has also been a hotbed of the drug trade.

In 2001, it produced almost 20 percent of Peru's coca crop. It is the
largest coca valley in the Upper Huallaga River region, a network of
similar valleys that together constitute the most important drug-producing
corridor in Peru.

The characteristics that provide for the Monzon Valley's natural beauty
also make it ideal for coca growers.

The river cuts through steep hillsides, which provide well-drained soil
best suited for growing coca. And access to the region is poor, making it
hard for police or soldiers to get to the hills, which begin about 200
miles northeast of Lima.

Streams ripple across the dirt road that connects settlements of poor
farmers with Tingo Maria, an outpost on the Huallaga River that was a
cocaine boom town in the 1980s and 1990s.

Able to have their leaves picked four times a year, coca plants need
exclusive use of soil, leading farmers to weed constantly and to overuse
pesticides, said Raul Araujo, a forestry engineer at the National
University of the Jungle in Tingo Maria.

A plot remains productive from four to 10 years, after which the land is
useless, Araujo said. Farmers then abandon it to slash and burn another
patch of forest for cultivation.

"Since they've used a lot of chemicals, the soil gets contaminated and
unproductive," he said. "That makes it like a sterile desert, which is why
we're talking about 100,000 to 120,000 hectares (250,000-300,000 acres) in
the Upper Huallaga that are in the process of desertification."

The combination of constant harvesting, weeding and pesticide use on steep
plots also results in more soil erosion than most crops, said Jacobson at
the U.S. Embassy.

The government estimates a quarter of deforestation in Peru has been caused
by coca cultivation.

Of the country's coca-growing valleys, Monzon shows perhaps the most
visible destruction. Patches of brown dirt cover the landscape like a
quilt, with clefts where eroded soil has collapsed in landslides.

More damage lies beneath the surface.

Converting coca into cocaine requires soaking the leaves in a toxic soup of
chemicals such as sulfuric acid, kerosene and organic solvents to create an
intermediate form of raw cocaine paste.

The paste is usually exported from coca-growing valleys to be refined into
cocaine elsewhere, leaving behind abandoned pits under the jungle canopy.
Chemicals seep into the groundwater, eventually contaminating streams and
rivers.

People who lived in the Monzon 40 years ago say a net tossed into the river
used to haul in a slew of fish. Today, they say, the fish are mostly gone.

For now, scientists must rely on such anecdotal evidence to estimate the
damage, since it's too dangerous to conduct comprehensive studies in an
area overrun with hostile traffickers.

Most coca farmers in the Monzon valley refuse to acknowledge the crop is
hurting the very environment that provides their livelihoods.

In any case, stopping the desperately poor farmers from cultivating coca
will be difficult as long as there is demand for cocaine in rich nations.

Standing on his coca plot above the rushing Monzon River, Marcelino Ortiz,
52, said coca fetches far more money than any legal crop, making it too
hard not to grow it.

"We're poor people in an underdeveloped country," he said. "And we'll sell
coca to anyone who comes to buy it. Who knows where it's headed?"