Save the Rainforest From the Drug War
U.S.-sponsored efforts to fumigate Colombian coca crops have utterly failed to prevent cocaine production. But they have been very effective at destroying Colombia's national parks:
Leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and narcos that control the billion-dollar cocaine trade have invaded the 2.5-million-acre Macarena, laying waste to much of it to plant coca. Most of Colombia's 48 other national parks and nature reserves are suffering similar fates. Chased from more accessible sites by U.S.-sponsored aerial fumigation, coca growers relentlessly clear forests knowing that they are beyond the reach of the U.S.-Colombian fleet of planes because spraying of the parks is prohibited by law. [Los Angeles Times]
So what's next? Are we gonna spray crop killers on this precious irreplaceable ecosystem? Doing that will just force the drug lords to burrow deeper, leaving an ever-expanding trail of flaming destruction in their tracks.
Let's face it, rainforests are awesome. They are filled with jaguars, anacondas, and large spiders that eat chickens. I don't know what kinds of animals live in Colombian forests specifically, but I'm sure there are some wicked cool creatures in there that are worth saving.
Unfortunately, there's nothing in this entire LA Times article that even vaguely resembles a plan for stopping drug traffickers from completely destroying everything. The Colombians' best idea is literally to ask that people please stop doing cocaine, a plan so useless it isn't worth the trees that died to print it out. We are on an irreversible trajectory towards the total permanent destruction of many of the world's most unique natural resources as long as current efforts to thwart illicit drug production continue. That is just a fact.
This would all be a terrible price to pay to get rid of cocaine, except that we haven't even come close to accomplishing that and we never will. Invaluable natural resources are being destroyed for nothing. Only by ending the drug war immediately can we even begin to address this rapidly expanding ecological crisis.
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Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:45amThe American people need to put their foot down, before this War on Drugs, destroys so many more things, people and places in Our World! Then once again we'll look at the situation and once again we'll determine we're Too Late. This War on Drugs needs to Stop and needs to Stop Now!
Strange Consequences
Comment posted by Giordano on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 3:44pmIt’s bizarre what can happen when humans mess with Mother Nature.
In Africa, early slash and burn agriculture and animal husbandry opened up new ponds and puddles in the eco-system that allowed increased reproduction of mosquitoes carrying the malarial parasite. The malarial parasite caused human populations to develop genetic countermeasures to malaria, which in certain genetic misconfigurations results in sickle-cell anemias and thalassaemias.
The process whereby human behavior makes changes in the environment resulting in changes in the human genome is called Baldwinian evolution after the guy who described the process, Mark Baldwin.
Giordano
Plan Colombia
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 6:09pmPlan Colombia is one of the most costly (in terms of money and lives) and useless of our foreign policy initiatives. Needless to say it costs us even more politically because of stories like these.
Emma Goldman
Comment posted by drff33560 on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 11:47ame20be61709aa74850a7000fa41b586f0
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they destroy
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 07/13/2008 - 11:24amWhen will they learn, after they destroy the rainforest they will have a big press conference and take credit for ending the coke trade in columbia . online pharmacy
Spraying Fools
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 2:23amThey will spray all over the place and it will just pop up somewhere else . When will they learn, after they destroy the rainforest they will have a big press conference and take credit for ending the coke trade in columbia . Then we will start getting coke from peru or the next latin american country looking to make big bucks from our government . The rainforest will become just another victim of the drug war.