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November 21st,
2000 - Fumigation Threatens Amazon, Warn Leaders, Scientists |
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Plan Colombia:
Fumigation Threatens Amazon, Warn Indigenous Leaders, Scientists By Danielle Knight Inter Press Service November 21, 2000 Washington - The spraying of
chemical herbicides to destroy coca fields in southern Colombia could
seriously threaten the rainforests and wildlife of the Amazon and the health
of indigenous and small farming communities, warned scientists and indigenous
leaders here. As part of a 1.6 billion
dollar US emergency aid package to Colombia, the South American country is
preparing to undertake a large-scale fumigation of illicit coca plants using
the herbicide glyphosate. Indigenous leaders, at a
press conference here Monday, said the use of glyphosate, manufactured by the
US-based company Monsanto, is not stopping coca from being grown. Instead, it
is killing their food crops and causing a series of health problems and water
contamination. ''The fumigation has caused
damage to our yuca and sugarcane crops and has caused sickness in our
children,'' said Francisco Tenorio, president of the Regional Indigenous
Organisation of Putumayo, a region in Colombia. In Putumayo and other
regions, including Guaviare, Meta and Caqueta, communities have reported that
indiscriminate fumigation has caused illnesses, destroyed pastures and food
crops, poisoned livestock and contaminated water supplies, he said. Emperatriz Cahuache,
president of the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon,
displayed a map illustrating how the areas of coca and marijuana cultivation
overlaps with indigenous territories and the areas that have been fumigated. ''These fumigations are
contaminating the Amazon and destroying the forest,'' said Cahuache. Photos taken in Colombia
displayed at the press conference showed food crops destroyed by fumigation
along side thriving coca plants that somehow escaped the herbicide. While supporters of the
aerial spraying say glyphosate is no more harmful than table salt, Elsa
Nivia, director of the Colombian affiliate of the Pesticide Action Network,
an environmental advocacy group, said the herbicide is ''toxic'' to all
plants. ''It is impossible to say
that this herbicide can be applied in a way that is not harmful to the
environment,'' she said. In the United States, the
Environmental Protection Agency's own study on the herbicide published in
1993 noted that in California, a state that is required to report pesticide
poisonings, glyphosate was ranked third out of the 25 leading causes of
illness or injury due to pesticides. Labels on glyphosate
products in the United States advise users to avoid applying it to any body
of water. Nivia warned that the
ecological impacts of the pesticide in the Amazon is not completely known
since it has not been tested in a tropical ecosystem.. David Olson, director of the
conservation science programme at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), compared the
effects of spraying glyphosate in Colombia with the use of Agent Orange
during the US war with Vietnam. He said both caused large
areas of forest to be contaminated and stripped of their leaves, causing a
loss of habitat for species and increased fragmentation of intact forests. ''From a global
bio-diversity perspective, defoliating and poisoning vast areas of Colombian
forests is like dynamiting the Taj Mahal, a global jewel of humanity's
cultural heritage,'' said Olsen. Aquatic ecosystems are
particularly sensitive to glyphosate and wildlife, especially frogs and
insects will be directly affected, he said. ''Many will die from contact
with the spray,'' he said. ''The loss of habitat, foods, shelter, moisture
and soil nutrients will affect all species.'' The survival of Colombia's
abundant bird species is also at risk from the fumigation, according to Luis
Naranjo, director of international programmes at the American Bird
Conservancy, a US advocacy group. He said a recent scientific
study of a part of Putumayo, confirmed that about 500 bird species were
living in the region that is now the main target of the drug eradication
campaign. ''Unless the current
policies to face the drug problem in the country are revised, we will be
facing the extinction of many of the organisms that make the country's biota
so distinctive,'' said Naranjo. Human rights activists and
Colombian drug policy analysts at the press conference said there is strong
evidence that aerial fumigation and other source control efforts are
ineffective at curbing overall drug production and reducing drug use in the
United States. Even though the Colombian
government fumigated coca and poppy from 1992 to 1999, the country remains
the world's leading producer of coca, said Ricardo Vargas, a sociologist with
Accion Andina, a Colombian-based organisation that researches the impact of
counter-narcotics policies.. ''Despite these realities,
Colombia is preparing to repeat yet again a policy that has failed
repeatedly,'' he said. Sanho Tree, director of the
drug policy project with the Institute for Policy Studies, criticised the
focus on drug eradication, interdiction and law enforcement. He pointed to a study by the
RAND Corporation, a California-based think-tank, which found that dollar for
dollar, providing drug treatment to cocaine users in the United States is 10
times more effective than drug interdiction programmes and 23 times more cost
effective than trying to eradicate coca at its source. ''If decreasing drug use is
our ultimate goal, why aren't we putting more resources into our woefully
under-funded domestic drug treatment programmes where each dollar spent is 23
times more effective?'' asked Tree. © 2000 IPS. External link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/112100-01.htm |