Colombia’s state council on Wednesday condmned the government’s “indiscriminate” spraying of herbicides in southern Colombia and ordered the Ministry of Defense and the National Police to reforest multiple properties.
In 1999, the National Police’s anti-narcotics unit sprayed two rural properties in the southern Caqueta department with poisonous glyphosate in the name of coca eradication. The owners of the properties said the toxins irreparably damaged to their rubber and cassava plantations as well as the surrounding forest. The state council evidently agreed and ordered a reforestation project be undertaken claiming the state is not allowed to carry out aerial fumigation missions without previously identifying the area as having illegal crops.
“Although we accept that the law and order situation was a major obstacle preventing visitation to the site, the fact is that the law requires [that authorities] indentify the boundaries of an area growing illegal crops,” the state council declared.
The Ministry of Defense and the National Police have one year to carry out the reforestation project.
