cannabisnews.com: Large Amounts of Amazon Rainforest Being Lost 





Large Amounts of Amazon Rainforest Being Lost 
Posted by FoM on January 30, 2002 at 07:38:19 PT
By Eric Green, Washington File Staff Writer
Source: U.S. Department of State
Illegal drug cultivation in South America is destroying large amounts of the Amazon region's rainforest, a State Department official says.About 2.3 million hectares of rainforest have been destroyed over the last 20 years in the Amazon basin due to the cultivation of coca, the crop used to make cocaine. This figure amounts to about one-quarter of all the deforestation that occurred in the area during the 20th century, said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs.
Briefing reporters January 28, Beers said the evidence shows that an "enormous amount of cutting" is occurring "for no other purpose than illegal drugs."Speaking at the State Department's Foreign Press Center on the environmental damage caused by the drug trade, Beers said that in Bolivia "slash-and-burn" clearing of new coca fields resulted in the destruction of nearly 40,000 hectares of forest land in that country's Chapare region in the 1980s and '90s, while in Peru the amount lost was even larger.Another problem caused by the drug trade, said Beers, is the large amount of toxic pesticides that coca growers put in their fields to get a higher return on their coca crop. Beers said that in Peru, for example, 346 metric tons of pesticides are used annually. These substances are then washed down by rain into the watershed, damaging plants and animals directly or indirectly via the food chain.Beers charged that coca producers have no conscience in terms of how they are ruining the rainforest. For instance, coca growers cut down forests to grow their illegal crop, and then abandon these areas after only two to five years. They then move on to other areas, cutting down even more of the rainforest.Beers indicated that because of the "clear-cutting" of forests, "quite significant" amounts of toxic runoff end up in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. As evidence of this environmental damage, he said illicit crop cultivators cut down four hectares of forest for each hectare of coca planted, and two and a half hectares for each hectare of opium poppy.Reporters asked Beers to compare the pesticides used by the coca growers to those used by the United States in its aerial drug eradication campaign in Colombia. He pointed out that "cocalleros" (coca growers) use a herbicide called glyphosate in much larger quantities than is used in the U.S. program. The coca growers also use far more toxic chemicals, such as paraquat and parathion, which he said are "sprayed indiscriminately" on the fields in order to kill weeds and thus allow coca bushes to grow more rapidly.By contrast, he said, all the independent studies conducted so far suggest no health risk to humans from the amount of glyphosate used in the U.S. spraying campaign."It is certainly true that the herbicide [glyphosate] itself, if taken in a significantly concentrated fashion, just like baby shampoo, will kill you. But we don't spray it at that level," Beers said. "We spray it at something considerably less than that kind of toxicity, and we do not believe and have not seen evidence that it is harmful either to the environment or individuals, despite the numerous press reports to the contrary."Beers said the United States, in partnership with the governments of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, seeks to raise the issue of how coca production is hurting the Amazon region "so that people understand the seriousness of it." Beers referred to a pamphlet produced by the State Department, called "The Andes Under Siege: Environmental Consequences of the Drug Trade," which offers detailed information about the problem. The pamphlet is available on the Internet in English and in Spanish at: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/andesAnother speaker, Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombia's ambassador to the United States, said the U.S. aerial drug eradication campaign and his own government's social development programs are beginning to achieve success in bringing more stability to his beleaguered nation.Moreno declared that the long-standing internal conflict in Colombia "must be resolved by Colombians," and added that this view is wholeheartedly supported by the United States.The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov (State Department official describes widespread deforestation) (740) Complete Title: Large Amounts of Amazon Rainforest Being Lost to Illegal Drug ProductionNewshawk: puff_tuff Source: U.S. Department of State Author: Eric Green, Washington File Staff WriterPublished: January 29, 2002Web site: http://usinfo.state.govThe Washington Fileshttp://usinfo.state.gov/products/washfile.htmRelated Articles & Web Sites:U.S. Fumigationhttp://www.usfumigation.org/Colombia Drug War Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htmAerial Herbicide War on Drugs Poisons Landhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11779.shtml60 Minutes: Herbicide Problems http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11734.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #7 posted by debbie on February 26, 2002 at 22:27:11 PT:
hello
hi can you send me a map of the amazon rainforest for my project
please
bye
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by wades on January 31, 2002 at 09:04:54 PT
How do you know when a drug warrior is lying?
About 2.3 million hectares of rainforest have been destroyed over the last 20 years in the Amazon basin due to the cultivation of coca, the crop used to make cocaine. This figure amounts to about one-quarter of all the deforestation that occurred in the area during the 20th century, said Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs.Q: How do you know when a drug warrior is lying?
A: Whenever his lips are moving.
A hectare is 10,000 square meters, or about the area of two football fields. There are 100 hectares per square kilometer, or real close to 251 hectares per square mile. The figure of 2.3 million hectares works out to just shy of 9,200 square miles, or a square about 96 miles on a side. Thus Mr. Beers is telling us that 11.5 million hectares or 45,834 square miles of rainforest were destroyed in the Amazon basin in the 20th century, an area equivalent to a square about 214 miles on a side.
The rate of deforestation in the Amazon basin is an uncertain number and something of a political football. A figure attributed to the National Remote Sensing Agency of Brazil puts the average for that country alone at 5.4 million acres annually for the period 1979-1990. That's 33,750 square miles, every year, or, over the 11-year period, about 8 times as much deforestation as Mr. Beers cites for a span of 100 years.
Another figure based on NASA analysis of Landsat data from 1978-1988 yields a figure for Amazonia as a whole of 3.7 million acres per year. This number, the one preferred by critics of the Greens, is still 55 times the annual rate cited by Mr. Beers in his official role as a spokesman of the United States Department of State.
I figured all of this out using Google and a calculator in a few minutes. I realize that this was a press release, not a newspaper story, but how many reporters do you think will do what I did?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by Jose Melendez on January 30, 2002 at 10:46:55 PT:
Can't have it both ways...
From:
http://www.cannabistimes.com/current/war.html
U.S. Seeks Drug War Expansion in Andean Region 
"Plan Colombia is a plan for peace. From the beginning we have stated that there is no military solution to Colombia's problems." 
- Assistant Secretary of State, Rand Beers 
From:
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/11/thread11627.shtml
Although the Taliban was effective in greatly reducing poppy planting, many officials believe the leadership maintained stockpiles of opium and used the ban to limit the supply and increase the drug's value. 
Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers said earlier this month that the Taliban did not ban opium farming "out of kindness, but because they wanted to regulate the market: They simply produced too much opium." 
Source: Washington Post December 24, 2001 
Arrest Prohibition - Drug War is TREASON!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by goneposthole on January 30, 2002 at 09:19:35 PT
Large amounts 
of Mississippi River Valley forest lost to agriculture. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana,Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. have all sacrificed Their forest and grass biomes to foresting and agriculture, oil drilling etc. What percentage is that? Coast to coast, border to border pesticides and herbicides have been applied until hell won't have it. How much has been lost? Basically everything. Hemp will save it all. A fact that stands tall.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by Cannabis Crusader on January 30, 2002 at 08:38:58 PT
Dark Star
You beat me to it. LOL!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by Cannabis Crusader on January 30, 2002 at 08:32:05 PT
One sided view if I have ever saw one
I wonder if this would happened if we weren't waging chemical warfare on farmers?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by Dark Star on January 30, 2002 at 08:00:48 PT
Propaganda
This smacks of propaganda and not facts. The problems in Colombia have to do with too many people and poor distribution of wealth. Do you believe for a minute that the alleged environmental degradation due to drug cultivation remotely compares with that from Amerikan herbicide application? If so, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell to you.
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment