2024-11-25 05:30:00
A Colombian police officer sprays glyphosate on coca fields, in Tumaco, in 2020. JUAN BARRETO / AFP
News of the week
New live. There are still places left for the first “Human Chaleur” Ideas Festival on Saturday December 14 in Paris (or by video). You will be able to hear a series of ideas for things to do to be (finally) on the right trajectory, and also to have a time that we hope is collective, joyful and full of hope – in this not-so-fun period. You can click here to find out more and take your places – in Paris or by video.
New column. How can we prepare our schools for the heatwave? Cécile Cazenave, producer of “Chaleur humaine”, returns, in this column, to the parents who lobbied for school buildings to better adapt to global warming. You can find it here.
Question of the week
“Hello Nabil, do we know the ecological impact of drugs? Both the so-called “soft” ones and the synthetic “hard” ones? Deforestation, water consumption, chemical pollution, transport… There would be a lot to say, right? » Question asked by Brian at chaud [email protected]
My response: The ecological impact of drugs is significant, but difficult to assess precisely. Illegal drug cultivation causes localized pollution and degrades biodiversity. At the global level, the impact is much less massive than other sectors, but remains significant due to deforestation, particularly in Latin America.
(Most of the information in this response comes from the very comprehensive 2022 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which you can find here.)
1. Why does drug manufacturing pollute?
Drug production and consumption first impacts agricultural production, which requires numerous pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This impact is difficult to quantify with precision: firstly, because we only have fragmentary information, but also because the diversity of impacts must be taken into account. Deforestation caused by coca cultivation in Mexico, for example, has a strong impact on biodiversity (you will find an example in this documentary on the life of Homero Gomez, defender of monarch butterflies). Another example: in the Rif region of Morocco, intensive cannabis cultivation has made this region the largest consumer of fertilizers and pesticides in the country’s entire agricultural sector – while the ecosystem of the region is already fragile, in particular because of the lack of water.
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