Coca Cultivation Research Articles

Enacting democracy in a de facto state: coca, cocaine and campesino unions in the Chapare, Bolivia

ABSTRACT In Bolivia's Chapare coca growing region, the campesino union is the cornerstone of social and political organisation that governs by a principle of 'leading by obeying'. Yet, under the Morales' government, union leaders disengaged from their bases. As a more top-down approach emerged, union-led action against excess coca cultivation and cocaine production impacted negatively on some peasant households. An ethnographic analysis of popular disaffection challenges normative ideas of ‘authoritarian’ rule. It also contributes to debates on how state-level interventions intersect with the goals of the social movements that put them in power.

The State's Developmentalist Illusion and the Origins of Illegal Coca Cultivation in Peru's Alto Huallaga Valley (1960–80)

AbstractThe origin of illicit economies has been understood as a consequence of ‘low stateness’ (i.e. low reach of the state). Given the limited stateness in many regions, however, this article seeks to explain how only some sub-national territories have become vulnerable to illegal drug trafficking. To make this case, the representative example of the Alto Huallaga valley, in the Peruvian Amazon, is analysed. This article argues that ineffective development and settlement efforts by the Peruvian state in the Alto Huallaga, rather than the absence of the state, produced socio-ecological conditions in the region, in the late 1970s, that made it more vulnerable to the illegal economy. At the same time as international demand for illegal cocaine was expanding, two conditions resulting from frustrated state development plans came together: an enclave of poor peasants who were not self-sufficient and a natural environment impoverished by soil degradation and intensive deforestation, paradoxically not suitable for any crop except coca.

Consequences of Violence Against Social Leaders In Colombia

I study the causal effect of violence against social leaders on coca cultivation and land restitution requests in the Colombian context from 2012 to 2018. Using the timing of unexpected killings of social leaders in an event study approach, I provide evidence that the start of the violence against social leaders increases hectares of coca by a magnitude of at least 0.27 standard deviations and reduces land restitution requests by a magnitude of at least 0.29 standard deviations, both in the medium term. As more leaders get killed, the effect becomes larger over time. Attempts to kill social leaders have a similar impact on the outcomes. I provide evidence that suggests that this effect is driven by the deterioration of the collective action capacity of civil society, which is depreciated as more violence is exerted on social leaders.

DIVERSIDAD DE AVES EN EL INTERFLUVIO NAPO-PUTUMAYO-AMAZONAS, AL NORTE DE LA AMAZONÍA PERUANA


 
 
 
 
 
 El estudio de los hábitats de la avifauna es fundamental para comprende los patrones de abundancia, diversidad y distribución de las especies. Por ello, se revisó bibliografía y bases de datos generadas en estudios donde se usaron transectos y redes de neblina para conocer la riqueza ornitológica en el interfluvio Napo-Putumayo-Amazonas, su composición por tipos de hábitats, especies amenazadas y principales amenazas. Se analizó la riqueza observada y esperada, así como la similitud entre los hábitats inundables (varillal pantanoso y aguajal mixto) y de tierra firme (colina baja, terraza alta y terraza media). Se compiló el registro de 558 especies, que representan más del 50 % de las especies estimadas para Loreto, siendo los bosques de colina baja los que presentan la mayor riqueza de especies. La composición de especies varía por tipo de hábitat inundable y de tierra firme, pero comparten especies, siendo la terraza media la que alberga especies de bosque inundable y tierra firme. Las familias Thamnophilidae, Tyrannidae y Furnariidae son las que están mejor representadas en todos los hábitats. La avifauna es muy diversa y alberga especies únicas, amenazadas y potenciales para el aviturismo. Lamentablemente, la zona también tiene amenazas que ponen en peligro la supervivencia de las aves, como la pérdida de hábitats por la deforestación, por la agricultura migratoria, cultivo de Erythroxylum coca y/o industria maderera, tráfico de especies y sobrecaza, por lo que es importante implementar planes de manejo de especies, planes de conservación de hábitats prioritarios o planes turísticos que garanticen la conservación de la avifauna.
 
 
 
 
 

Ecologies of drug war and more-than-human health: The case of a chemical at war with a plant

Drawing on an ecological approach, we trace how the political-economy of drug wars are locally materialised in relation to health. We take the case of coca cultivation and eradication as our example. To make our analysis, we trace the different ways that the chemical glyphosate is materialised in a war with the coca plant in Colombia. Glyphosate has been used for decades in aerial fumigation campaigns to eradicate illicit coca cultivation. Our analysis traces the more-than-human effects of glyphosate in relation to health. This leads us to outline a more-than-human approach to harm reduction; a harm reduction which positions health as a matter of ecology, paying attention not only to the nonhuman actors affecting human health but also to the health of environments which are themselves always in-the-making. We envisage harm reduction as a collaboration in which humans ‘become-with’ their environments.

Corrective lenses for a myopic state: Unseeing coca or not unseeing comunidades negras in Colombia?

Abstract Colombia's Pacific region is a vast expanse of tropical forest that lies between the borders of Panama and Ecuador -the bulk of which is titled to Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities — increasingly subject to 'the illicit' and 'the illegal'. Coca cultivation, cocaine trafficking and gold mining are the principal activities framed as threats to the nation's security, biodiversity, and economic potential. Employing ethnographic evidence and critical geographic theory this article applies the notion of 'seeing like a state' (Scott, 1998) to the context of coca cultivation in southwest Colombia. It specifically theorizes how this mode of vision impacts Afro-descendant communities seeking legibility, sustainable peace and alternative development. This article argues that the corrective measure for this vision problem is not 'unseeing' illicit crops or other illegal activities but making rural Colombian communities legible in a way that they cannot be unseen. It features the insights of the leader of a comunidad negra (Afro-descendant community) who has managed various alternative developments projects and has witnessed the transformation of his community and others impacted by the recent coca boom in this region of Colombia. It frames these insights as part of the struggle for ethnic territorial rights throughout the Americas.

Colombia’s transition to peace is enhancing coca-driven deforestation

Forests cover 70% of the Colombian territory, which includes part of the Amazon. Recent studies have examined how the country’s tree cover dynamics are affected by coca cultivation and its internal armed conflict. In light of Colombia’s recent peace agreement, this study examines whether the impact of coca cultivation on forest loss is conditional on the conflict (i.e. whether the impact varies across different levels of conflict intensity). This conditional association is supported by a state-of-the-art spatial panel data analysis, covering the entire territory throughout 2006–2019. As the conflict becomes less intense, each hectare of coca is associated with a larger extension of forest loss.

US Foreign Assistance, Coca Crops and Alternative Development in Colombia: What Can We Learn From the Past?

This position paper was prepared for the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission, which was established by the Congress of the United States to evaluate US anti-drug policies and programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. This report provides an overall assessment of US alternative development assistance in Colombia, identifying lessons learned, and making recommendations. The focus is on coca cultivation, drawing on developments over the past two decades.

The end of gunpoint conservation: forest disturbance after the Colombian peace agreement

In November 2016, after 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the primary rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) reached a peace agreement. The agreement incorporated three changes to institutions governing forest land occupation and use: (a) the demobilization of FARC from forested places, (2) the future distribution of legal land titles and new road construction into forests, and (3) the eradication of illicit crops. However, we document unprecedented rates of forest disturbance in the months following the peace agreement in biodiversity hotspots across the country. Are the declaration of peace and the increased rates of forest disturbance related? Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the impact of the Colombian peace agreement on forest disturbance. Focusing on the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt (AATB), we used automated satellite image disturbance detection methods and ethnographic data to quantify and interpret forest cover change from 2010 to 2018 that span wartime, peace negotiation, and post-peace agreement stages. Our findings indicate that during the post-peace agreement period (2017–2018), the area of forest disturbance increased by 50% (about 238 000 ha) across the AATB in comparison with the four-year peace negotiation stage (2013–2016); these changes reflect the end of FARC-led gunpoint conservation in the region. Forest disturbance also spread deeper into the Amazon watershed and increased in area by 187% within the AATB’s protected areas. We find that following the peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC, key actors (viz. drug cartels, large landowners, campesinos and dissidents) with expectations of favorable land tenure policies swept into the region; this led to increases in large-scale cattle ranching, coca cultivation dispersal, and speculative illegal land markets each of which contributed to the widespread forest disturbance that we mapped. The rapid increase in forest disturbance occurred despite the interest of the international community in promoting forest conservation initiatives in the AATB and Colombia’s existing conservation and land titling frameworks for public lands. Our findings underscore the need for conservation strategies sensitive to rapid institutional and demographic changes in the course of the peace agreement to prevent forests from becoming an unexpected casualty of premature and unstable peace.

The Effects of Aerial Spraying of Coca Crops on Child Labor, School Attendance, and Educational Lag in Colombia, 2008-2012

Since 1999, one of the main strategies the Colombian government has used to mitigate coca cultivation is to spray the crops with herbicide, which is carried out from airplanes. This paper evaluates the consequences of this strategy for rural households in areas where coca is cultivated, specifically the effects of aerial spraying on child labor and education. Since the areas where spraying takes place are fundamentally different from those where it does not, I use a two-stage least squares model, instrumenting for aerial eradication with the number of days high-speed winds in the municipality made spraying difficult. These were days in which the wind was one standard deviation above the municipality's monthly average. This corrects for possible sources of endogeneity due to selection bias. The results of this study show that aerial spraying was associated with a one percentage point increase in the likelihood that children ages 12-17 would work instead of going to school. Crop spraying was further associated with a 0.15 percentage point increase in the probability that older siblings in families living in a coca-growing area would fall behind in school, and a five percentage point increase in the probability that younger siblings would drop out of school. Thus, the findings of this research, based on data that cover the period from 2008 to 2012, suggest that the war on drugs has the potential to generate new barriers to educational access for children who live in areas where aerial spraying occurs.

Forests in the time of peace

ABSTRACT The signing of Colombia’s peace agreement in 2016 signaled the end of a decades-long war between the government and the FARC (Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), but also an emerging assault against the country’s forests. This article aims to understand the interactions between forests and peace. In doing so, it traces landscape transformations of deforestation and possibilities for making landscapes livable in the midst of disturbance. Drawing on field research, including interviews and participant observation carried out in Colombia from 2016 to 2018, it reveals how deforestation is driven by ongoing colonization and land grabbing, mostly dedicated to extensive cattle ranching, coca cultivation, and campesinos’ transition to ‘licit’ agricultural alternatives. The article also shows how emerging coordination among farmers and forests following forest disturbance contributes to an interpretation of peace in which forests are integral. The article concludes with a call to incorporate forests in the construction of peace.

Social Investment and Smallholder Coca Cultivation in Colombia

Colombia is the largest supplier of coca leaf in the world, and fields smaller than one-hectare account for more than 60 per cent of cultivation. Despite the obvious relevance of smallholding growers to the strategies to control illicit crops, there are few insights into what motivates these smallholders to cultivate coca. We analyse the motivations of coca growers by estimating a discrete choice model including head of household characteristics, household variables, and agricultural unit attributes. We found that extremely poor farmers are more likely to grow coca than non-poor farmers in the same area, while households connected to the energy grid, with access to credit, and receiving cash payments for their licit crops, are less likely to grow coca crops. Our results suggest that strategies aiming to discourage farmers from growing coca should: 1) target specifically the poorest households in the region and not just seek to improve general living conditions, 2) expand rural electrification, and 3) enhance legal productivity by providing access to credit, technical support, and/or contracts on harvests before planting.

Emerging evidence that armed conflict and coca cultivation influence deforestation patterns

The effect of armed conflict on deforestation in biodiverse regions across Earth remains poorly understood. Its association with factors like illegal crop cultivation can obscure its effect on deforestation patterns. We used Colombia, a global biodiversity hotspot with a complex political history, to explore the association of both armed conflict and coca cultivation with deforestation patterns. We generated spatial predictions of deforestation pressure based on the period 2000–2015 to understand how armed conflict and coca cultivation are associated with spatial patterns of deforestation and assess the spatial distribution of deforestation pressure induced by armed conflict and coca cultivation. Deforestation was positively associated with armed conflict intensity and proximity to illegal coca plantations. A deforestation model including 14 variables was 78% accurate in predicting deforestation at a 10 km2 resolution. On their own armed conflict and coca cultivation had a notable effect, particularly in the Amazon, but in combination with other variables it was small. Deforestation pressure induced by armed conflict and coca cultivation was highest in Tumaco and Catatumbo regions and in la Macarena, Sierra Nevada and San Lucas mountains—all areas of high biodiversity and conservation importance. In some regions, lack of governance after the peace accords is increasing armed conflict, and our results suggest that those increases in conflict may increase deforestation in those areas. The methods used here can be replicated to help understand the complex ways in which armed conflict affects deforestation patterns in other regions.

Is There a Balloon Effect? Coca Crops and Forced Eradication in Colombia

One explanation for the increasing number of hectares with coca cultivation is that eradication strategies displace coca crops but fail to completely clear affected areas. In the drug policy literature, that dynamic shifting is commonly known as the balloon effect. This study integrates georeferenced agricultural data through spatially explicit econometric models to tests the hypothesis that forced eradication generates spillover effects. Using annual data for 1,116 contiguous municipalities in Colombia between 2001 and 2010, we estimate a spatial Durbin model (SDM) with municipal and time fixed effects. At municipal level, we find no evidence of the balloon effect. Our results suggest that aerial eradication activities in a municipality reduce the new area under coca cultivation by 8 percent inside that municipality and by 3 percent in neighboring municipalities. Therefore, and contrary to the balloon effect hypothesis aerial eradication generates negative spillover effects. Our results provide deeper insights for policy design. In our analysis, we are able to distinguish between the change in coca cultivation as a result of eradication activities inside and outside the municipality.

Paramilitary Violence in Colombia: A Multilevel Negative Binomial Analysis

ABSTRACT Although Colombia is well known for its persistent leftist guerrilla conflict, the country also suffers from paramilitary violence. This study examines the potential factors related to persistent paramilitary violence in the form of human rights violations. How has paramilitary activity, and its causes, changed over time? Why does it persist in some areas after Uribe’s demobilization process but not in others? We use multilevel modeling to explore the determinants of paramilitary human rights violations. A varied range of aspects potentially associated with the paramilitary presence at the municipal level for the period 2002–2015, such as state presence, resources, greed, grievances and conflict are analyzed. The study uses information about paramilitary human rights violations from the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP). Results suggest that the demobilization process reduced the initial paramilitary motivation to fight against leftist guerrilla. However, other factors such as coca cultivation or ranching remained significantly related to the paramilitary activity. The analysis at the municipal level provides clear warnings for continued violence cycles threatening any undergoing or future peace processes or demobilizations and calls for a more nuanced concept of state capacity to understand paramilitary violence.

Contested natures: Coca, the War on Drugs, and ecologies of difference in Colombia's Afro-Pacific

<p>While there is growing consensus that the 'war on drugs' has failed to decrease drug consumption in the Global North, we know much less about how drug production has impacted communities of the Global South. This is particularly true for the cultivation of coca leaf in Colombia, which is increasingly planted in isolated rural areas such as national parks and in the collectively titled lands of ethnic communities (indigenous and Afro-descendant) where it is both difficult to detect and to eradicate. This article explains how Afro-descendant communities in Colombia have resisted both coca cultivation and a controversial war on drugs strategy to eliminate coca –aerial eradication – through a framework of ecological difference. It also explores why political ecologists can be important allies in this struggle and in the greater context of socio<em>-</em>environmental justice for rural communities in the Global South. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Key Words:</strong> rural, ethnic, difference, war, coca, Colombia</p>

The Effect of Interdiction on Coca Cultivation in Colombia

This paper studies the effect of interdiction on coca cultivation in Colombia. Though directed against intermediate and final stages of cocaine production, this strategy could also have an impact on coca cultivation by affecting monopsonistic activities of ilegal groups. My results suggest that different types of interdiction operations have a negative effect on coca crops. In particular, I find that the presence of dismantling of laboratories causes a reduction of 0.003 to 0.006 hectares per squared kilometer in coca cultivation, coca base seizures cause a reduction of 0.003 to 0.008 hectares per squared km, coca leaves seizures cause a reduction of 0.006 to 0.019 hectares per squared km and cocaine seizures cause a reduction of 0.009 to 0.061 hectares per squared km. I interpret these results as evidence that interdiction is an effective anti-narcotic strategy; however,a cost-benefit analysis is needed to evaluate its convenience over other strategies, like aerial spraying campaigns.

El Catatumbo: estrategia militar por encima de desarrollo rural. Estudio de caso: Víctor Ramón Navarro Serrano, alias Megateo

La región del Catatumbo está ligada a la historia del conflicto militar y el cultivo de coca en Colombia. El artículo de reflexión realiza un estudio de caso sobre la influencia socio-económica de Víctor Ramón Navarro Serrano, alias Megateo, mando del Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) en la región. Su persecución y muerte estuvieron atadas a una estrategia militarista, acorde con la presencia de tipo diferencial del Estado; esto demuestra que elenfoque bélico presenta mayor relevancia que el desarrollo rural territorial. Las acciones de los gobiernos se han centrado en un mayor despliegue de la fuerza pública y han desconocido las realidades complejas y las necesidades básicas de la población. Las dinámicas del Catatumbo han sido una barrera para desarrollar políticas de desarrollo rural territorial, debido a que estas requieren presencia de las instituciones estatales que apoyen las iniciativas de los actores sociales locales. Se puede observar que la militarización de la región ha tenido como consecuencia la estigmatización de actores y organizaciones sociales, así como rupturas entreestos y el Estado, lo que impide la generación de alternativas reales para la sustitución del cultivo de la coca.

Changes in the prevalence and correlates of cocaine use and cocaine use disorder in the United States, 2001–2002 and 2012–2013

To present nationally representative data on changes in the prevalences of 12-month cocaine use, cocaine use disorder (CocUD) and 12-month CocUD among 12-month cocaine users between 2001 and 2002 and 2012–2013. Data were derived from the 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) and the 2012–2013 NESARC-III. Between 2001 and 2002 and 2012–2013, prevalences of 12-month cocaine use and DSM-IV CocUD significantly increased and 12-month CocUD among 12-month users significantly decreased. Increases in risk of cocaine use were seen across nearly all sociodemographic subgroups while increases in CocUD were observed among women, those in the oldest age group, Whites, individuals with the lowest incomes and highest education, and those residing in urban areas. Prevalence of CocUD among users significantly declined overall and among men, individuals aged 30–44 years old, the never-married, respondents with incomes between $20,000 and $34,000, and those residing in the Midwest. Increases in coca cultivation in Colombia in recent years together with increases in the purity of cocaine entering the U.S. portend more significant increases in the rates of cocaine use and CocUD in the U.S. along with increases in cocaine-related morbidity and mortality. The results of this study support the continued monitoring of cocaine use and CocUD in the U.S., especially in view of the narrowing of the gender gap and shifts in race-ethnic, age and socioeconomic differentials seen between 2001 and 2002 and 2012–2013.

Landsat study of deforestation in the Amazon region of Colombia: Departments of Caquetá and Putumayo

The Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world in terms of size and diversity, is recognized as a source of ecological services for both local and worldwide communities. Ten percent of its territory belongs to Colombia, covering approximately 35% of the country's total area. In spite of global efforts, it continues to be vulnerable to deforestation pressures. In the departments of Caquetá and Putumayo, human activities such as logging and cattle ranching are the main causes of deforestation, which is increasing the department's vulnerability to climate change and natural hazards. However, there is a lack of consistent quantitative monitoring in the Colombian Amazon region, not only of total deforestation rates but also of specific locations and causes of deforestation, despite its high rates of deforestation compared to neighboring Ecuador. In this study, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 images over a sixteen-year period were used to map recent changes in land cover in the departments affected by deforestation. Supervised classifications were made using the Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) and expert classification system, using False Color IR composites which were effective for identifying vegetation land cover. Over sixteen years, the Tropical Rainforest land cover in the study region lost 5.2% of its area, corresponding to 3020.56 square kilometers. Overall, the study region shows an annual rate of deforestation of 0.46%, and for Caquetá alone that rate is 0.77% - about twice as high as estimates from previous studies of between 0.38% and 0.4% loss rates for tropical South America. No single factor driving deforestation was found; rather, different regions within the study area displayed different rates and causes. The particularly rapid deforestation in the department of Caquetá and the encroachment of agricultural activities into national park reserves may be explained by higher colonization pressures and intensification of illegal coca cultivation.