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Coca cultivation and eradication destroy rainforest Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com September 15, 2005 1.8 million hectares of rainforest in Colombia have been destroyed to make room for drug plantations according to the director of Amazon Institute of Scientific Investigation (Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas). Colombia has long battled a cocaine-fueled insurgency in its remote regions. In an effort to destroy the rebels' chief source of income, the Colombian government has targeted coca fields with aerial spraying of herbicides. Coca provides the key ingredient in cocaine and its eradication is a fundamental part of the US-backed war on drugs. Colombia is a leading producer of coca and much of the country's coca is grown by poor farmers because it generates more income than any other crop. Typically farmers convert the plant into coca paste and sell it to groups -- including paramilitaries and Colombian rebels -- who refine it into cocaine and export it to markets like the United States, which is the world's largest consumer of the narcotic. Drug eradification efforts have focused on aerial fumigation programs where herbicides (a mixture that includes Monsanto Corporation's Roundup and Cosmo-Flux 411F) are dropped by crop-duster planes on suspect vegetation. Since the concoction is a non-selective herbicide, surrounding vegetation -- including subsistence crops and native plants -- are killed as well. Environmentalists, indigenous rights' groups, and even the government of Ecuador have complained that widespread spraying of herbicides could pose health threats to locals as well as damage to the environment. Local reports suggest that farmers often replant coca seedlings soon after spraying, making the whole exercise somewhat futile. The ecological impacts of coca production are significant as well. Each acre of requires clearing of roughly four acres of forest while the dumping of chemicals used to process coca leaves (including kerosene, sulfuric acid, acetone, and carbide) pollutes local waterways. Additionally, critics of the US's efforts in Colombia note that the eradication program has done little to slow the supply of cocaine that enters the U.S. Despite increased worldwide demand, prices of cocaine have been steadily dropping over the years on American streets, indicating availability of the drugs has not diminished.
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