Colombia: AIDA Report Highlights Need for Alternatives to U.S.-Backed Aerial Spraying

Source: AIDA
Contact: Anna Cederstav of AIDA, 510-550-6700,
acederstav@aida-americas.org or Rafael Colmenares of ECOFONDO (011)
571-691-3452, ecodir@ecofondo.org.co or Astrid Puentes of AIDA (011)
5255-5212-0141, apuentes@aida-americas.org

BOGOTA, Colombia, Aug. 22 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Six years since the Aerial
Spraying Program of Plan Colombia (PECIG) began, the program has failed
to meet its goal of eliminating 50 percent of illicit crops in Colombia.

The program has seen an investment of nearly US$1.2 billion and has led
to the spraying of more than four times the initial area of coca crops.
Nevertheless, in 2005, both the

United Nations and the U.S. government actually reported an increase in
the area covered by illicit coca crops in Colombia. Additionally,
despite legal prohibitions, the Colombian government started spraying in
the Macarena National Park in early August. The inefficiency of the
spraying program and the associated harmful environmental and social
effects demonstrate the need for alternative solutions. The
Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) has released
a report analyzing and calling for significantly increased government
support of such alternatives.

Read "Alternative Development Strategies in Colombia: the Need to Move
Beyond Illicit Crop Spraying" online at: http://tinyurl.com/h82rt

"The lack of results from the spraying program indicates a need to
reevaluate the program," asserts Anna Cederstav, AIDA's program
director. "This new report shows that successful alternative development
programs can produce concrete results, without the negative impacts that
are currently caused by the spraying in Colombia."

In addition to generating adverse environmental and social impacts, the
spraying program has harmed alternative development projects underway in
Colombia, many of which are funded by the governments of Germany, the
United States, and the Netherlands, as well as the United Nations. In
one case, fair trade organic coffee crops grown under the program
Empresa Cooperativa del Sur del Cauca, COSURCA, a program funded by
USAID and the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime, were destroyed by
spraying campaigns in May and June of last year. In addition, in 2004,
2005 and 2006, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in the Sierra
Nevada, Narino and Cauca reported that their territories were sprayed,
without consultation of the community groups, as required by Colombian
and international law.

The report compares the lack of results of the spraying program with the
significant successes of participatory and sustainable alternative
development projects that have been implemented, and calls for a
re-evaluation of the current strategy to focus on voluntary manual
eradication of the crops, and alternative projects that take into
account the social and geographic conditions of the region. ECOFONDO, a
Colombian coalition of more than 130 environmental NGOs, supports this
recommendation. According to Rafael Colmenares, ECOFONDO's director,
"there exist other successful programs to eradicate illicit crops in
Colombia that don't have as high economic, social, environmental and
health costs as the spraying effort. It is these programs that should be
backed, as they can bring real, lasting solutions to this problem."

Alternative programs reviewed in the report include: the Sustainable
Systems for Conservation (a project of the Colombian National Parks
Unit); Participatory Environmental Management for Peace and Sustainable
Development in Colombia (a program developed by ECOFONDO with support of
the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); and voluntary
eradication programs supported by the United Nations. Many other local,
state- supported programs exist that are producing positive results as
well. These programs, implemented at just a fraction of the cost of the
spraying program, have benefited thousands of families and will continue
to do so in the long run.

"We are convinced that the immediate implementation of alternative,
sustainable and participatory programs -- by the state and communities
-- can bring about real solutions to the complex problem of illicit crop
cultivation in Colombia," said Astrid Puentes, AIDA's legal director.
"Continuing spraying, such as that occurring in National Parks, while
ignoring programs that deliver food and jobs to Colombia's rural poor,
will contribute to the deterioration of the humanitarian situation and
lead to an intensification of the crisis in Colombia, resulting in
severe environmental impacts and the waste of millions of U.S. tax
dollars and Colombian funds on an ineffective program."

Read the Executive Summary of the Report at: http://tinyurl.com/fnxqj

Read the complete version of the Report (Spanish Text) at:
http://tinyurl.com/hqal9

FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.aida-americas.org