Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Progress in Eradicating Coca by Hand

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BOGOTA, Aug 16 2004 (IPS) - Three thousand families in the northwest Colombian department of Antioquia have benefited from the government's Family Forest Ranger program for eliminating illegal coca bush by hand and protecting the environment. The initiative was developed a year and a half ago. Representatives of the families from the towns of Necoclí and Turbo announced on Aug. 9 that they had eradicated 1,600 hectares of coca, the raw material for cocaine. The government pays 260 dollars per person every two months, and provides technical assistance to replace coca with other crops.

But the government's main approach to the problem of drug crops is to spray them with glyphosate herbicide, which last year was applied to 11,731 hectares and which environmentalists and other activists say is harmful to health and to ecosystems.

Ricardo Vargas, Colombian representative of Acción Andina, a group that studies the illicit drug trade in the region, told Tierramérica that the manual elimination of coca crops should be part of an integrated policy for local development.