NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: COLOMBIA'S DRUG WAR PART 1 OF 2
1-"More than 100,000 acres are deforested each year to grow coca, marijuana, and opium poppies. Paradoxically, the drug war waged by the US and Colombian governments has exacerbated deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Growers have been pushed higher up the slopes and in to more remote, virgin forests of the Andes (aided by an increase in opium cultivation which favors higher altitudes) as a means of escaping the law. Seventy three percent of the Andes, an area that is vital to the conservation of Colombia's water supply, has been deforested as a result of both migration and drug cultivation."
2-"Due to the illegality of coca and poppy growth the farmers place their fields on hillsides, which are more difficult for the government agents to reach than fields located on the valley floors. Because the government does pursue an active eradication campaign, the farmers rarely expect to enjoy long-term cultivation of their fields and, consequently, rarely employ soil conservation techniques. The coca fields are planted along the contours of the land with little terracing and the fields are kept bare of plants except for the coca or poppy plants. These methods, in combination with the steep slopes, serve to strip away topsoil with every strong wind and heavy rain, very quickly making the fields infertile not only for further cultivation but for jungle plant life as well. Recent observers over-flying the jungle describe it as a patchwork quilt of green broken by patches of gray desolation. In addition to causing soil infertility, the topsoil runoff fills waterways and rivers with sediment changing their courses, causing flooding, and killing fish and aquatic plant life by lowering the oxygen content of the water and smothering the river bottoms."
3-"Illicit production of methamphetamine may involve hazardous materials that are toxic, corrosive, flammable, or explosive."
