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News > Colombia

Colombia To Resume Aerial Spraying With Carcinogenic Herbicide

  • Environmental activists march against the resumption of glyphosate spraying, Tumaco, Colombia, March. 18, 2021.

    Environmental activists march against the resumption of glyphosate spraying, Tumaco, Colombia, March. 18, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @Saturno_purple

Published 13 April 2021
Opinion

President Duque expects this policy to limit coca hectares to 105,000 and cocaine production to 450 metric tons.

Colombia's President Ivan Duque Monday approved a decree establishing the rules for the resumption of aerial spraying of illicit coca crops using glyphosate, an herbicide banned in 2015 due to its potential carcinogenic effect.

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The National Narcotics Council has to decide now whether or not to resume the Illicit Crop Eradication Program by aerial spraying despite opposition from several political, social, and environmentalist organizations.

The National Police forces will manage the program to be developed in zones with extensive crops. Areas with irregular arms groups will also be targeted. 

National and regional natural parks, moorlands, wetlands, mangroves, aquifers territories, and population centers will be excluded from aerial spraying.

The goal is to reduce by 50 percent illicit crops and cocaine production areas by 2023. President Duque expects this policy to limit coca hectares to 105,000 and cocaine production to 450 metric tons.

In 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled that glyphosate had carcinogenic effects on humans and the environment. 

Subsequently, in 2017, it suspended aerial spraying but left open the possibility of re-authorizing glyphosate if the government complied with six environmental health requirements.

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