Article: State Department Publication Examines Drug Trade's Environmental Impact

17 April 2001

Article: State Department Publication Examines Drug Trade's Environmental Impact

Coca cultivation and processing degrading Andean region's environment

By Domenick DiPasquale
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The cultivation and processing of illicit drug crops, in particular coca, is causing significant environmental degradation throughout the Andean region, according to a new State Department publication.

"The Andes Under Siege: Environmental Consequences of the Drug Trade" describes in great detail the impact that coca cultivation and refining has had on the environment in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Among the consequences are tropical deforestation and soil erosion that occur as drug growers clear new land in fragile ecosystems, as well as extensive land and water pollution that result from the massive and indiscriminate dumping of the various chemicals used to turn raw coca leaves into cocaine.

According to the publication, the expansion of coca cultivation, production, and trafficking in the three countries has led to the destruction of "at an absolute minimum, 2.4 million hectares of fragile tropical forest in the Andean region over the last 20 years." The drug trade caused extensive deforestation in Peru and Bolivia in the 1970s and 1980s, when Andean coca cultivation was centered in those two countries. The subsequent shift in coca cultivation to Colombian territory during the 1990s now poses a significant threat to that nation's ecology.

Colombia's rich bio-diversity -- which includes 55,000 plant species and 1,721 bird species on just 0.7 percent of the world's land mass -- is under threat from drug traffickers who grow both coca and opium poppy crops in ecologically sensitive regions. The publication reports that since 1985 Colombia has lost more than one million hectares of tropical rain forest due to the cultivation of illicit drug crops.

"The environmental impact of the drug trade cannot be measured solely in terms of the hectares or square kilometers affected," the publication adds, since "the very act of refining raw coca leaves into finished cocaine creates significant environmental damage."

The production of cocaine is a three-step process: from raw coca leaves to coca paste, from coca paste to cocaine base, and then from cocaine base to finished cocaine HCl. The publication says that at each step in the process significant quantities of chemicals are used and subsequently dumped.

The publication quotes a 1993 study by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration which showed that producing one kilo of cocaine in the Chapare region of Bolivia required three liters of concentrated sulfuric acid, 10 kilos of lime, 60 to 80 liters of kerosene, 200 grams of potassium permanganate, and one liter of concentrated ammonia. Looking at the problem another way, a scientific report in the 1990s from the National Agrarian University in Lima, Peru, estimated that more than two metric tons of chemical waste were generated for each hectare of coca processed to produce cocaine.

By comparison, glyphosate, the commercial herbicide currently used for aerial eradication of illicit drug crops in Colombia, "poses virtually no risk to humans, animals, or the environment," according to the publication. The herbicide is used in more than 100 nations, including the United States, for agricultural purposes. The publication says that glyphosate has been the subject of "an exhaustive body of scientific literature, based on independent research and subjected to peer review in the scientific community," that has shown it not to be a health risk to humans.

The publication also points to the larger environmental repercussions of the drug trade on the Earth's biodiversity. While the contribution of narcotics cultivation and processing to the global scale of deforestation and pollution is minor, "every patch of lost forest is potentially significant because of the incredible diversity of species there."

As long as the narcotics trade flourishes in the Andes, the publication concludes, "the region's rich biodiversity that constitutes an irreplaceable natural heritage for all humanity remains under siege."

The full text of the publication can be found at http://www.usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/andes/homepage.htm