Blog 3 Deforestation and Coca

Alex Clute
January 28, 2011
1500 EST

In an article from Chemical and Engineering News tries to establish a connection between the growing of coca, for cocaine that is, and deforestation in southern Colombia. According to the article source coca farming causes as much deforestation as other forms of agriculture, logging, and mining combined. It is stated that "Coca growers typically try to evade detection by working in poor, remote areas with little law enforcement." And goes onto to make the sage observation that "Typical tactics to eradicate coca plantations, such as spraying herbicides, don't seem to protect the threatened forests." Well, image that. To solve this problem the article mentions that the formation of national parks have been effective in stopping coca growing in other parts of the country.

I perceive a number of problems within this article. First off, who are these mysterious coca growers "evading detection" in "remote areas?" The article is vague on this point and that is likely because coca growers are usually poor farmers trying to get by. They grow coca because they receive a better price for coca and the price remains relatively stable. If Western nations like the US would get rid of farm subsidies to their farmers and take steps to stabilize global commodity prices then farmers in Third World nations could switch to legal crops (Oldham and Massey 2004).

By the articles own sources forested area has been reduced from 82% to 78% over the period of 2002 to 2007 and actual land devoted to coca growing is 890km² out of a total deforested area of 14,000km². In other words, the area with trees has decreased by 4% and the area with coca plants growing 6%. It seems difficult to conclude from these numbers that coca production is a leading cause of deforestation. In a study of coca growing regions in Bolivia, deforestation was seen to increase as anti-coca policies were put into effect (Bradley and Millington 2008). The author cites a number of political and social factors for this but what it boils down to is that in order to make the same amount of money growing substitute crops more has to be grown to compensate for the loss in income when farmers stop growing coca.

As for the idea of creating a national park, well of course it would stop the insidious coca growers. Once the region was a park everyone would have to find somewhere else to live, which means that poor farmers, mostly of indigenous background, would be displaced. There are better ways to handle this problem.

Coca Farming Linked To Deforestation In Colombia

Bradley, Andrew V. and Andrew C. Millington
2008 Coca and Colonists: Quantifying and explaining forest clearance under coca and anti-narcotics policy regimes. Ecology and Society 13(1):31.

Oldham, Jim and Rachel Massey
2002 Health and Environmental Effects of Herbicide Spray Campaigns in Colombia. Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies.