CULTIVATING crops of illegal drugs in Colombia is threatening some of the world’s rarest birds and plants. Half the forest cleared in the country each year is being lost to the burgeoning number of coca and poppy fields, says a Colombian scientist working in the US.
And drug eradication programmes sponsored by the US are making the problem worse, says Maria Álvarez of Columbia University in New York. Rather than stamping out the drugs trade, the programmes are simply forcing growers to move into more inaccessible regions such as the Colombian highlands – which are home to some of the…
