COCA GROWING, ERADICATION BOTH THREATEN NATIONAL PARKS

Colombians Struggled to Save Their National Parks From Both Sides Of
the Cocaine War, Which Rely on Toxic Chemicals That Pollute the Environment

SAN FRANCISCO, Colombia - Arturo Avi is a typical small farmer in
Colombia in many respects: He's a short, sun-tanned man who barely
ekes out a living by growing corn, yuca, rice, raspberries -- and
coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Like the others, he worries about the government's massive campaign
to spray herbicides on coca farms. But he's got an advantage: His
plot lies inside a national park, where the aerial spraying has been
prohibited for years.

"I'm a little scared of fumigation. Everyone is scared of fumigation.
. . . But I know this is a national park," said the diminutive
53-year-old peasant and father of three children.

Avi is not alone. Thousands of farmers are clearing forests in parks
to make way for coca farms, and using strong chemicals to grow and
process the coca into cocaine. Colombian government officials say the
chemicals are destroying the parks. But environmentalists say the
herbicide used to kill coca plants would do even worse damage.

It's the same story throughout Latin America, home to some of the
most bountiful and beautiful national preserves on the planet: the
Galapagos in Ecuador, Costa Rica's rainforest and Venezuela's Avila
park, to name just a few. They are major tourist attractions, and
places like Costa Rica and Ecuador depend on them to survive.

Yet their governments are often too corrupt, poor, or inept to
administer the parks. In Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands are plagued
by political instability on the mainland. In Venezuela, the
government is seeking to build housing for the poor in the protected
Avila forest that overlooks Caracas.

And in Colombia's parks, the problems revolve around illegal crops
like coca and opium poppy, from which heroin is made, and the leftist
guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary fighters who operate out of
remote jungles, forests and mountains.

In the past five years, the parks have become a virtual safe haven
for the illegal crops and armed groups, with the National Police
estimating that there are now 27,000 acres of coca in 22 of the
nation's 51 parks, up from 6,500 acres in 2000.

Avi lives on the edge of the mountainous Munchique Park in southern
Cauca province, which has some small coca and poppy farms and is
largely controlled by leftist rebels. Other parks, such as the 1.6
million-acre Sierra de la Macarena, a massive and rugged mountain
formation in the eastern plains that is also largely controlled by
leftist rebels, has an estimated 1,500 acres of coca.

A 950,000-acre area along the northern coast known as the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta, which is mostly controlled by right-wing
paramilitary groups, has some 900 acres, according to police estimates.

'Frustrated'

"We feel frustrated because we see the drug traffickers getting
stronger and we can't do anything," said Col. Henry Gamboa, head of
National Police's anti-narcotics aerial spraying branch.

Colombia receives upwards of $700 million per year in U.S. aid to
fight drug trafficking. But coca acreage in the parks neatly dodges
the war on drugs and makes for a peculiar dilemma: spray herbicide in
the parks and risk damaging the ecosystem, or spare the parks and
give a free ride to coca and poppy growers who over the long term may
do even more damage with their use of pollutant chemicals.

Processing coca leaves into coca base and later cocaine requires a
witches' brew of chemicals, from hydrochloric acid to paint thinner,
often dumped into the nearest stream at the end of the day.

On a helicopter flight over the Santa Marta national park organized
by the National Police earlier this year, journalists could see small
plots of coca perched on nearly vertical hillsides inside the park's boundary.

The mountains spill down into the Caribbean, making for a short
journey to the port from which the drugs are shipped to the United
States and Europe. And they provide much of the region's drinking
water, which often becomes contaminated by runoff from the
drug-processing centers.

"Clearly there has to be a balance between preserving the
environment, encouraging alternative development and not letting the
drug traffickers get the upper hand," said David Murray, a policy
analyst at the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy.
"It's a delicate balance."

Others are more blunt in their assessment, saying the problem lies
with the coca and poppy growers and processors.

Traffickers Blamed

"The drug traffickers are destroying the parks," Gamboa said.
"They're deforesting. They're creating erosion with slash-and-burn
techniques. They're contaminating the parks with chemicals."

Colombian police and U.S. government officials are using these
arguments to try to pressure President Alvaro Uribe's strongly pro-
fumigation government to allow the aerial spraying of herbicides in the parks.

They insist that several studies have shown the herbicide glyphosate,
sold in the United States as Roundup, is safe.

Others continue to claim that spread over a wide area and mixed with
other chemicals so that it sticks to the leaves, as it is used in
Colombia, it causes incalculable damages.

National Park Service officials, for instance, are opposed to spraying.

They say there are only 9,000 acres of coca on parklands, not the
27,000 acres the police claim. And many believe it would be better to
attack the social problems underlying the drug problem, such as the
poverty that drives farmers to plant coca and poppies instead of the
less profitable food and other crops.

"We think that the huge part of the problem is prevention, rather
than attacking the situation after the problem starts," said National
Park Service Director Julia Miranda.

"[But] our job is not to define the anti-narcotics law.

"We're not part of the decision-making process of fumigation," she
added diplomatically.

In August, the Colombian government shifted the guidelines ever so
slightly to permit spraying in the parks, but only under very strict
guidelines and after a thorough review of each case. No parks have
been sprayed yet.

Uribe's government also has declared that it will give priority to
efforts to eradicate manually the coca in parks -- a policy that
would erase the need for herbicides but increase the danger.

This year, armed groups have killed three policemen and injured eight
others and an army soldier who were protecting farmers as they
uprooted their coca.

Both guerrilla and paramilitary units earn large parts of their
income by extorting payments from coca and poppy growers and
processors, and often traffic the drugs themselves.

Replacing Coca

For his part, Arturo Avi says he is replacing his coca with
raspberries and got a government grant to start a fish farm. Others
have been offered government grants to switch to legal products or
work to protect the parks.

But even Avi acknowledges that the government often has failed to pay
out the grants and other types of aid tendered in past eradication campaigns.

'It's very difficult to say 'Don't plant coca,' " Avi said, "Because
the government never comes through on their promises."