Fumigations on National Parks

COLOMBIA-FUMIGATIONS ON NATIONAL PARKS.


During her visit to Colombia (April 2005), Condolezza Rice asked de Colombian Government to suspend the interdiction to fumigate on National Parks.
On September 15th, the Colombian administration announced they might agree, in spite of, the fact that the record number of fumigations in 2004, there was no eradication at all.

The National Resources Code expressly prohibits fumigations in National Parks and indigenous territories, the spraying with glyphosate would violate the Convention on Biological Diversity, ratified by Colombia in 1994, and Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, which protects indigenous people.

The first step is the fumigation in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (North slope), UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1997, the Macarena and Catatumbo.

There are very little coca crops in those reserves and they are trying to convince us that manual eradication is impossible.

What other option exists? The Colombian government, with U.S. support, can work on the ground.
This means manual eradication. The Colombian police claim to have eradicated 17,000 hectares of coca plants so far this year, employing 1,800 people. That’s 50 percent more coca than is believed to be in Colombia’s parks, so we know that the capacity to carry out this eradication exists. (Colombia’s park service could do much as well, if it were not so woefully underfunded.)
Of course, the main reason why the United States supports fumigation in Colombia and nowhere else is security, the danger that manual eradicators would be subject to guerrilla or paramilitary attack. But even if the Colombian government cannot control its territory despite years of military aid and investment, it should at least be able to control its parkland for the periods when eradication would take place. “It is said that there are places where manual eradication is difficult due to security,” writes El Tiempo columnist Daniel Samper. “Of course it is difficult. One elects governments to solve difficult problems with imagination and without inflicting social damage. To choose a deluge of poison is very easy, something that would occur to an above-average private.”
But working on the ground also means helping people who are so isolated and economically desperate that they have chosen to grow coca in national parks. Just like ex-combatants, just like displaced people, these individuals and families need their government’s help. Nearly all of them will voluntarily pull up their own coca plants if they could live with some semblance of law and order, with access to medicine and drinkable water, with a hope that their kids might be educated, in proximity to a road that led to places where people might buy their legal products, and with credit and assistance to help them produce and market those legal products. Most would welcome regular contact with civilians who represent their government.
Instead, though, U.S. policy does not aim to improve the Colombian government’s presence on the ground. By working from the air only, the fumigation strategy will do nothing but drive coca-growers deeper into Colombia’s parks.
Adam Isacson-Center for International Policy-Washington

There are four Indian communities living in the Sierra:
The Kogis: 12.000 to 15.000.
The Arhuacos: around 15.000
The Kankuamos: around 13.000.
The Arsarios or Wiwas: 2.000

All of them are paying a heavy tribute in order to maintain their culture and identity.

The Indians are trapped in the middle of an armed conflict, on the North the AUC, on the South the FARC, the bombings of the official army and the Monsanto’s poisoned rains send by the planes of Dyncorp.


El Espectador _Por: Alfredo Molano Bravo
Yosemite es uno de los parques nacionales más bellos de los EEUU. Cascadas de 1000 metros, rocas gigantescas, bosques de pino, secuoyas de 2000 años. Una tarjeta postal, un emblema. Pues bien, en ese paraíso hay siembras de marihuana. Conocí a un mexicano que va a ganarse unos dólares en los cultivos que tienen los gringos. ¿Qué pasaría si Bush diera la orden de fumigar desde el aire? Las manifestaciones contra la medida serian gigantescas y al hombre lo botarían de la Casa Blanca. Lo digo por el prurito que tienen nuestros arrodillados gobernantes de poner como ejemplo a USA. Ahora el Congreso de los Estados Unidos ha ordenado bombardear con glifosato los parques nacionales y las áreas protegidas de Colombia.

By Paquita on Oct 1, 2005, 03:13 in Friendly Talkzone.

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