Cocaine Is Destroying Forests In Central America

[Judi Lynn]

Once-forested lands are being used in money laundering operations




This forest in Guatemala was burned to make way for agricultural development. A new study suggests that drug traffickers contribute to rainforest loss by laundering money with agriculture in forest lands. (Wikimedia Commons/CC)

By Erin Blakemore
smithsonian.com
an hour ago



Cocaine production is big business—according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a whopping 943 tons of the drug was produced in 2014 alone. And the United States is one of its biggest consumers, with 1.5 million regular users in the U.S. at any given time. But that addiction has more than economic consequences—it has environmental ones. As Oregon Live’s Kale Williams reports, Central American forests are being destroyed by the world’s cocaine habit.

In a new study in the journal Environmental Letters, researchers estimated how much narcotics trafficking affects Central American rainforests. They used statistics about both forest loss and drug trafficking to figure out how much the cocaine trade might be affecting forests—and found that it could account for between 15 and 30 percent of annual deforestation in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras over the last ten years.

Though each country has tried to protect some rainforests, those attempts appear to be struggling: The team discovered that between 30 and 60 percent of the forest loss took place in areas that have been protected by national or international law. That loss presents a major threat to local efforts to protect and restore the rainforest, which not only captures carbon but provides essential habitat for countless animals and plants.

Cocaine production has already been linked to deforestation in places like Colombia, where increases in coca farming turn areas into economic hubs with less forest. But in this case, the deforestation happens not because of farming, but because of traffickers’ need to use the cash generated by their drug sales.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cocaine-destroying-forests-central-america-180963338/#9AmzgwwVHmT18rUk.99

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