Colombian cocaine trade killing rainforest 741,000 acres cleared every year with slash and burn cultivation
World News • May 2008 • Views: 270
So far, Colombia’s coca producers have destroyed 5.5 million acres of rainforest – an area larger than Wales – with slash and burn cultivation.
About half a ton of pesticides, fertilisers, sulphuric acid and other chemicals are then used to turn every acre of coca into pure cocaine.
Francisco Santos Calderon, the vice-president of Colombia, told The Daily Telegraph that the environmental “devastation” caused by drug producers had gone largely unnoticed. The loss of rainforest was the hidden consequence of buying cocaine in Europe or America.