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More than 248 hectares of La Macarena National Natural Park, located in the department of Meta and threatened by deforestation and illegal crops, were recovered at the end of the sixth phase of the Artemisa Campaign. Colombia recovers 248 hectares of natural park threatened by deforestation.
The operation was carried out by the Armed Forces, the Police, the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the Attorney General’s Office, National Natural Parks and the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) in that protected area in the center of the country.
“Eight people were captured, seven of them in flagrante delicto and one by court order who must answer for their alleged responsibility in the crimes of invasion of areas of special ecological importance, damage to natural resources and manufacture or carrying firearms”, Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said when visiting the Nueva Colombia hamlet.
With the Artemisa Campaign, a government offensive against deforestation, 6,165 hectares of forest have been protected since April 2019 in departments such as Meta, Guaviare, Caquetá and Putumayo.
“In these places, criminals have tried to destroy areas of our national parks by deforesting, causing fires and building access roads illegally on many occasions with the aim of planting coca,” Trujillo explained.
According to the head of the Defense portfolio, criminal gangs deforest to carry out illegal activities of extensive cattle ranching in areas of natural protection.
“The protection of natural national parks is essential for the well-being of Colombians and that is why the public force carries out operations to control the trafficking of fauna and flora, the illegal timber trafficking, control of forest fires and eradication of illicit crops” added the minister.
Colombia recovers 248 hectares of natural park threatened by deforestation
CRIMES AGAINST BIODIVERSITY
Trujillo assured that “each hectare destroyed, whatever the reason for doing it,” is life that is “dying out,” and pointed out that nothing deforests more in Colombia than drug trafficking and other illegal activities.
According to the minister, between January 1 and August 27 of this year 300 tons of cocaine hydrochloride have been seized.
“That is, 300,000 kilos of this drug, which requires the use of 832 kilograms of coca leaf for the production of a single kilogram and the dumping of 700 liters of chemicals in rivers and forests,” Trujillo explained, clarifying that to produce a kilo and a half of cocaine is needed for the leaf planted in one hectare of forest.
“The evil they do to the country (the drug traffickers), the harm they do to this region and the world is incalculable because of the wealth that this means not only for our nation. The country must be clear that the priority must be to finish with illicit crops, “he said.
At least 158,894 hectares of forests were deforested in 2019 in Colombia, a country that has a critical situation in the Amazon, where 98,256 hectares were destroyed last year, according to IDEAM figures from July.
The main causes of deforestation in Colombia are pasture, which is the conversion of tracts of tropical rainforest to new pasture areas dedicated to livestock, illicit crops, and illegal mineral extraction.
EFE
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