COLOMBIAN COCA CULTIVATION FALLS BY 30 PER CENT

(Reissued as received.)

VIENNA, 17 March (UN Information Service) -- The national survey conducted by the Government of Colombia and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported 102,000 hectares of coca under cultivation as of 31 December 2002.  This represents a significant 30 per cent reduction compared to 2001, when the surface was 144,807 hectares.

“For the first time in over a decade, aggregate coca cultivation in the Andean region, the main producer in the world, declined to 173,000 hectares.  This is a major achievement in the international fight against illicit drugs and related crime”, Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said today in a press conference in Brussels.  “The world production of coca has been persistently above 200,000 hectares:  this decline will subtract over 100 tons of cocaine from world markets”, Mr. Costa added.

The report issued today indicates several encouraging trends:

-- A decline in cultivation for a second year, with a 30 per cent drop over 2001, and a nearly 38 per cent reduction over the year 2000;

-- A first decline since 1998 of cultivation to less than one tenth of 1 per cent of Colombia's national territory;

-- An acceleration in the pace of decline, with coca surface shrinking by 18,000 hectares in 2001, and by 43,000 hectares in 2002; and,

-- A first drop in over a decade in aggregate coca cultivation in the

entire Andean region, to approximately 172,000 hectares in 2002.

“In the future”, Mr. Costa said, “two main challenges will have to be met.  First, Colombia's crop reduction needs to be matched by alternative development programs to provide farmers with licit incomes. Second, governments worldwide should concentrate on reducing demand and promoting drug-abuse prevention.  The United Nations is fully mobilized behind such measures”.

The coca survey is produced annually by the Integrated Illicit Crop Monitoring System, a joint venture set up in 1999 by the Colombian Government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  The Office operates similar crop-monitoring systems in Bolivia and Peru (for coca), and in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Lao People's Democratic Republic(for opium poppies).

The Colombia 2002 survey produced maps and data showing the location of crops and tracking the shifts that have occurred on a year-by-year and department-by-department basis.  Very significant reduction in coca cultivation was recorded in the departments of Putumayo (-33,000 hectares), Meta (-2,000 hectares) and Caqueta (-6,000 hectares), where government-sponsored eradication took place in 2002.  Further crop reductions in Bolivar (-2,000 hectares), Cauca

(-1,000 hectares) and Vichada (-4,000 hectares) can be attributed to abandonment of fields, or to voluntary manual eradication.

The geographical information generated by the survey (forest, water, pastures, illicit crops, infrastructures) also contributes to land use planning, crucial for alternative development projects.  While the Government's coca eradication program and related law enforcement measures reduce the area under illicit cultivation and drive down the economic incentives to plant new coca fields, sustaining the reduction in coca cultivation requires that farmers have social economic alternatives.

According to Mr. Costa, “the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime actively supports alternative development initiatives in seven departments covering 26,000 hectares and involving several thousands families.  I invite the Government of Colombia and international development institutions to build upon these demonstration initiatives, expanding and replicating them”.

For more information, contact the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), Vienna, P.O. Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria, tel.:  (+43-1) 26060 4666, fax:  (+43-1) 26060 5899, e-mail:  UNIS@unvienna.org or visit our homepage:  www.unis.unvienna.org

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