The contribution of the illicit drug trade toward tropical deforestation has in the past largely been ignored. Aerial photography shows highly visible coca growing in tropical regions. Removal of forests to make way for this crop, (which is predominantly used for cocaine paste), is followed by processing to cocaine powder for export to the United States and Europe. Drug trade routes have seriously silted or polluted bays and river systems.
Colombia's largest newspaper, El Tiempr, reports cocaine has overtaken coffee as Colombia's main export. Coffee, $1.5 billion export business in 1988, was greatly overshadowed by cocaine's $4 billion turnover in the same year. In the Peruvian Amazon, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, experts believe clandestine landing strips, camps and coca laboratories have directly or indirectly caused 1.8 million acres (728,460 ha) of deforestation.
This growing problem has few easy answers. With an enormous market demand and huge profits, many economic incentives are in direct conflict.
