War On The Amazon

by Natasha Chart

Published March 14, 2009 @ 12:42PM PT

Extensive spraying of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide has turned the War on Some Drugs into a War on the Rainforest [minor formatting changes, emphasis, mine]:

... I recently received a disturbing email from southern Colombia warning that the fragile Amazonian soil could "soon be turned to desert". They were the words of a Catholic priest, so I rang a church worker whose parish lies deep in the Amazonian state of Caquetá.

Military planes targeting coca farms, funded by the US, had been spraying mists of pesticides over food crops, grazing animals and even areas where children were playing, she said: locals were complaining of breathing problems and rashes; "strips of skin" have been peeling off cows, and chickens have died; and maize, yucca, plantain and cacao crops have wilted and shrivelled.

"We fear there will soon be a very serious food shortage in the region," she said. The local parish has issued an urgent appeal.

... The US focuses on one element of the trafficking chain, the poverty-stricken peasant. But the policy is not even effective. When their land is poisoned, peasants migrate and start growing coca again. They have no alternative. Spraying simply displaces the problem.

Despite decades of spraying, coca cultivation in Colombia has grown by 500% since the 1980s, according to US state department figures. US politicians heralded a drop in cultivation after the launch of Plan Colombia, but the area of land covered by coca crops is now larger than when the plan was launched. ...

Buckminster Fuller described the taking of perfectly decent raw materials for the manufacture of profitable junk and poison as illth creation. Illth, he explained, was that category of wealth that was actually destructive of humanity's well-being.

And if ever a product fit into the illth category, it would be Roundup, especially as sprayed in far higher than recommended concentrations onto powerless populations of indigenous rainforest residents.

As the article goes on to point out, coca is often the only crop they can grow that earns them any kind of living. Moreover, the aerial spraying destroys the subsistence crops that provide their food.

It doesn't end there. Independent studies have shown that DNA damage from these aerial spraying campaigns is a far more significant problem than Monsanto's product warnings would suggest. Other health problems can also become more prevalent, including acute digestive tract dysfunction, such as vomiting and diarrhea.

As drought threatens the Amazon's viability as a carbon sink, and its continuance as a forest, it's also coming under an herbicidal attack that threatens the well-being and food security of its indigenous peoples.

A thirsty and sick forest with hungry and sick residents is an ongoing recipe for ecological and humanitarian disaster. Meanwhile, the profits of this illth are adding to the power of a company that's a worldwide enemy of agricultural sustainability. Textbook example of a vicious cyle.

I'm not fond in the abstract of thinking of the world as populated by cartoonish villains, but if that's the only kind we have, who am I to argue?

Update: A few hours after I wrote this, I ran across an op ed in the New York Times by Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma calling for an end to outlaw status for raw coca leaves, which he says have been improperly classed as a narcotic along with refined cocaine, and have been a healthful part of indigenous culture for many centuries.

(Photo credit: MacAllenBrothers on Flickr.)