Using data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report released this week, as well as earlier reports, here is a look at the ten departments of Colombia in which the UNODC measured the most coca under cultivation in 2007.
UNODC found at least some coca in 23 of Colombia’s 32 departments last year. Nationwide, it found a huge leap in coca cultivation, from 78,000 hectares [193,000 acres] to 99,000 hectares [245,000 acres] – despite fumigation and manual eradication totaling 219,512 hectares [542,426 acres].
1. Nariño
Coca detected in 2007: 20,259 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +30%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 51,087 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 2.52 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 117,449 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 254,607 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 27,529 hectares
Nariño became a center of Colombian cultivation after Plan Colombia initiated massive fumigation in Putumayo, immediately to the east. Today, Colombia’s Pacific coast region is witnessing rapid expansion of coca-growing, despite some of the country’s most intense eradication efforts. The FARC and new, “emerging” paramilitary groups are very active in Nariño’s coastal zone.
2. Putumayo
Coca detected in 2007: 14,183 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +21%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 51,228 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 3.46 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 233,139 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 213,771 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 31,123 hectares
Seven years after Plan Colombia brought an intense focus on eradication, Putumayo has returned to the number-two spot among Colombia’s top coca-growing departments. This is despite one of the country’s highest proportions of hectares eradicated to hectares detected.
3. Meta
Coca detected in 2007: 10,386 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: -6%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 19,292 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.86 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 113,462 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 75,144 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 9,679 hectares
Meta has remained remarkably constant over the years, in the 10,000-hectare range, despite varying levels of eradication. The Macarena National Park in western Meta has seen a great deal of coca cultivation, encouraged by the FARC. Fumigation and manual eradication efforts in the park have been intense since 2006, but reductions in department-wide cultivation have been modest.
4. Antioquia
Coca detected in 2007: 9,926 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +61%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 33,185 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 3.34 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 44,330 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 92,376 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 10,950 hectares
Antioquia registered huge growth in 2007 despite a greatly increased eradication campaign. Since the FARC presence in this department has been significantly weakened, this coca cultivation is probably being encouraged by someone else, such as “emerging” paramilitary groups.
5. Guaviare
Coca detected in 2007: 9,299 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: -2%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 11,992 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.29 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 152,354 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 146,215 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 4,033 hectares
Guaviare – where the U.S.-supported fumigation program began in the mid-1990s – has seen little change in coca cultivation and eradication levels since 2004, when the “Plan Patriota” offensive greatly increased the security forces’ presence in the department.
6. Vichada
Coca detected in 2007: 7,218 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +31%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 7,783 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.08 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 48,088 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 17,035 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 708 hectares
Coca cultivation increased robustly in 2007 in remote Vichada. Cumaribo, which covers a huge land area, was the country’s top coca-growing municipality in 2007. Vichada has a significant presence of “emerging” paramilitaries, and has been a key operating area for the FARC’s 16th Front, which is probably the guerrilla unit most involved in the drug trade. (The paramilitaries and guerrillas reportedly do a brisk business with each other in this zone.) With the September 2007 killing of 16th Front commander Tomás Medina (alias “Negro Acacio”), the local coca economy is now in flux.
7. Caquetá
Coca detected in 2007: 6,318 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +27%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 5,861 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 0.93 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 103,252 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 93,093 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 2,152 hectares
Like Guaviare, Caquetá has seen little change in coca cultivation patterns since the 2003-2006 “Plan Patriota” military offensive increased the military-police presence.
8. BolÃvar
Coca detected in 2007: 5,632 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +136%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 7,564 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.34 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 38,972 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 38,941 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 2,654 hectares
Like Antioqua next door, BolÃvar has undergone a huge increase in coca cultivation that probably cannot be blamed on guerrillas.Â
9. Cauca
Coca detected in 2007: 4,168 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +98%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 5,368 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.29 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 27,812 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 17,908 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 7,368 hectares
Coca cultivation doubled in 2007 in Cauca, part of the rapidly increasing coca-growing activity in Colombia’s highly conflictive Pacific coast zone.
10. Arauca
Coca detected in 2007: 2,116 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +62%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 3,355 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 1.59 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 13,337 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 23,749 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 1,248 hectares
Arauca saw a big spike in fumigation in 2003-2005, when a contingent of U.S. Special Forces was in the zone training and equipping local military units to protect an oil pipeline. Coca cultivation increased sharply in 2007, amid a very violent confrontation between the FARC and ELN in Arauca.
11. (Special Mention) Norte de Santander
Coca detected in 2007: 1,946 hectares
Increase / decrease over 2006: +299%
Fumigation + manual eradication in 2007: 4,121 hectares
Fumigation + manual eradication as a multiple of coca detected: 2.12 times
Total coca detected 1999-2007: 49,309 hectares
Total fumigation 1999-2007: 53,855 hectares
Total manual eradication 2005-2007: 5,295 hectares
Recent UN reports had hailed Norte de Santander as a model of eradicating coca through a combination of fumigation and relatively generous alternative development programs. However, coca cultivation quadrupled in 2007 in Norte de Santander, the biggest increase that the UN registered in any department of Colombia. Nearly all of this increase occurred in the violent Catatumbo region, which passed from guerrilla to paramilitary control in 1999-2000, and now appears to be reverting back to guerrilla control.
June 21st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Colombia disputes the UN figures, saying they missed about 150,000 acres of eradicated coca.
From the article: Naranjo added that the measurement system of the UN is based on information from a French satellite that stopped detecting the scale of illegal crops years ago.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/20/content_8405974.htm
In light of the fact that Colombia hasn’t tried to kandycoat its drug figures, I recall one specific interview where President Uribe said he wasn’t going to whitewash problems on data, I believe Colombia.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Mrs. O’Grady forgets that Colombia is not Uribe. When she says “I believe in Colombia” she’s probably hinting on her blind devotion for this fella.
Colombia’s unprecedented currency revaluation goes hand in hand with it being the champion in coca supplying for the rest of the world.
If Naranjo says that the satellite stopped detecting the scale of illegal crops, I wonder why they keep on growing. He denies Colombia being top coca crops grower, but does not explain how com it’s its main exporter. Even the cop has a brother in jail in Germany for cocaine trafficking, what should prevent him for talking about the matter.
Nothing is fortuitous, Colombia is a rogue state by today’s standards.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:40 am
I find it interesting that the total estimated yield of coca cultivation has been relatively flat over the past few years, despite solid growth in total area under cultivation over the same period. Seems like the constant escalation by the nacros and the government has finally pushed coca to limits of Colombia’s carrying capacity.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:07 am
I guess there is just no polite way of saying this so here goes:
this is such bullsh*t…I mean seriously, does anybody really think that in a country the size of California and Texas put together you are ever going to prevent people (pop. 40,000,000) from growing a crop that brings in immediate cash, in areas where there is very little if any state presence since time immemorial (and maybe when there was a state presence it was to support big landowners expelling people to steal their land with the help of the army) …. and these small farmers, all they’re doing is growing a crop, not like their mugging somebody, so there is less inhibition to break the law… not only that, but it is human nature to be opportunistic… nature made us that way
this whole thing is a tragic comedy, with these graphs and so much studious observation while Colombia is poisoned with glyphosate, and more and more Pablo Escobars are created…
you know, the people who have traditionally governed (misgoverned I should say) Colombia are just petty, cunning and malicious people but not very bright… these people over here who invent shit like the “war” on drugs are something else…it shows intelligence of population control and economics but it’s a vile and evil intelligence… what a waste and what scum (was gonna say human scum but they’re not even that)
JAIME BUSTOS
Nothing is fortuitous, Colombia is a rogue state by today’s standards
and just what are those standards ? because from where I’m sitting even the Europeans have forgotten their suffering after WWII and have themselves developed their own little appetite for right wing nationalistic policies again
JAIME BUSTOS
Colombia’s unprecedented currency revaluation goes hand in hand with it being the champion in coca supplying for the rest of the world.
really ? so why did the peso lose value for the last 20 years even though it was the “champion coca supplier” ?
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 am
so, let me get this straight… the idea is that suppressing the production of drugs will eradicate drug use ?
lol as if people wouldn’t just produce something else themselves
you know I once saw a documentary on the use of perception altering substances in the animal kingdom…. they showed how this butterfly would go to this flower and after a whiff or two fall to the ground motionless (high as a ..) and then would fly right back up and do it all over again… this was some Italian scientist doing the research…
you know, cigarettes kill more people every year, by some exponentially astronomical factor, than illegal drugs, so why don’t we send the Colombian air force to spray Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia ? I mean it was practically government policy to help Philip Morris sell tobacco overseas and the US government helps Phillip Morris to this very day. It is harboring and aiding and abetting drug traffickers…lol
and you know what ? it’s the f…ing truth….LOL
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Camilla, if you check the report and try to compare the article to it, you will realize the article is wrong. I read that article and saw that it was just sh*t. It says that UN counted 78,000 hectares eradicated. If you read the report it clearly states over 150,000 hectares fumigated and over 66,000 manually eradicated. Whoever came up with that number of 78,000 did not read the UN report and is just plain stupid.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Adam, you posted an eradication total this year of 219,512 when I think the total should be 219,939 (or 219,940). The report says 66,805 manually eradicated, and 153,134 fumigated (in the table it says 153,135 but in the text it says the latter). I don’t want to sound rude, but when I was doing the math, that is what I ended up with.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Well, some questions, because it’s not clear to me from Adam’s posting or Boz’s blog:
1. Was there any significant change in the UNODC’s data collection systems or data analysis systems for the coca industry between 2006 and 2007 that might explain the the very large jumps in areas under cultivation? For example, is satellite photography coverage, quality, and photo interpretation work lots better between the two years such that they’re spotting more of the stuff more efficiently? My impression is that the UNODC does this report once a year at roughly the same time every year. How are they handling cloud cover which can really screw things up? How about on the ground sampling transects and all that goes with this approach? Are all of these approaches consistent with prior years’ coverage, sampling, surveys and reporting?
If the responses to all of the above questions (and others that haven’t occurred to me at 4:00am) are yes, that is that there really have been the jumps recorded Department by Department, then,
2, What is happening with the GOC’s CN program?
Admittedly, in some Departments, such as N. de Santander, the huge percentage increases are over small bases. In those cases, one might argue that GOC pressure on growers has caused them to look for new growing areas not covered by the GOC before and they’ll get to them next year, and really the nunbers aren’t big.
But the 30% jump in Narino and the 21% jump in Putumayo really attract attention. These are areas where the GOC has historically expended very large amounts of time, people and money to combat coca and those expenditures appear literally to have been for naught, at least over the past year. What is happening in these southern Departments? Where, within these two southern Departments, have the increases taken place? Has the GOC cut back on fumigation in these areas under pressure from the Government of Ecuador such that cultivation is up along the border? What about FAC and CN police presence? Same, up, or down in these Departments? Again, if the UNODC figures for 2007 are consistent in development with prior years, then something is clearly, seriously awry in terms of GOC CN programs, and whatever the problems are (again, assuming data collection/analysis systems are unchanged), they’ve appeared in 2007 and dealt a serious setback to the CN program, particularly in Narino and Putumayo…..
June 24th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
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