Coca Eradication - Environmental Impact

Environmental Impact

Plots denuded of coca plants by mechanical means (burning or cutting) or chemical herbicides, such as Monsanto Company's Roundup, are abandoned and cause serious problems with erosion in seasonal rains. Because of the continuous high demand for coca, once a plot is destroyed the planters simply move further into the forest, clearing new lands for coca production. It is this vicious cycle of unsustainable cultivation-eradication that has caused the environment in coca producing zones to suffer substantial decline.

Aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide, one of the most controversial methods of coca eradication, has taken place in Colombia exclusively because of that government's willingness to cooperate with the United States in the militarized eradication of coca after signing Plan Colombia in 2000. In fact, Colombia is the only country in the world that permits aerial-spraying of drug producing crops. In many cases the spraying is carried out by American contractors, such as DynCorp, using planes and helicopters to spray Roundup on coca plantations. Aerial spraying has been repeatedly condemned by human rights and environmental activists because of its effect on human populations and local soil and water systems. In December 2000, Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen found that "because the chemical is sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent health complaints . Burning eyes, dizziness and respiratory problems being most frequently reported." In some areas, 80 percent of the children of the indigenous community fell sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhoea and eye infections. Because the glyphosate is sprayed from the air, there is a much higher chance of human error when spraying suspected illegal coca plantations. In many cases the wrong fields are sprayed, resulting in not only a total loss of the farmer's crop- but the loss of that field altogether as nothing will grow where the herbicide has been sprayed. Though official documentation of the health effects of glyphosate spraying in Colombia are virtually non-existent, neighbouring Ecuador has conducted studies to determine the cause of mysterious illnesses amongst people living along the border of Colombia and has since demanded that no aerial sprayings occur within 10 km of the border because of the damages caused to the people, animals and environment in that area.

In addition, the U.S. has also been involved in the development of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to wipe out coca. In 2000, the Congress of the United States approved use of Fusarium as a biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia (and another fungus to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan), but these plans were canceled by then-President Clinton, who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nations have since banned its use throughout the region. (The use of biological agents to kill crops may be illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975.)

On June 25, 2003, the Superior Administrative Court of the Colombian department of Cundinamarca ordered a stop to the spraying of glyphosate herbicides until the government complies with the environmental management plan for the eradication program. It also mandated a series of studies to protect public health and the environment. The Colombian State Council, the country's maximum administrative authority, later overruled the court's decision to stop fumigations.

Recently, Boliviana negra, a roundup resistant type of genetically engineered coca plant has been introduced, which was found to both resist roundup herbicides as well as have an increased yield.