How to Kill a Rainforest, for $4,975 Tax Dollars an Acre

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After six years and billions of dollars, Plan Colombia—the United States’ ambitious program of aerial spraying aimed at wiping out Colombia’s illegal coca harvest—has succeeded mostly in pushing coca growing into new areas.

Worse, data from the U.N. show that Plan Colombia has failed to significantly reduce the country’s cocaine output, and on the streets of the United States, blow is cheaper than before the spraying began.

Coca sprayed since 2000

1.8 million acres (nearly the size of Yellowstone Park)

Retail price of Roundup herbicide needed to cover that area

$91 million

Amount paid to Dyncorp to oversee eradication in 2005

$174 million

Coca cultivation in 2000

337,000 to 404,000 acres

Coca cultivation in 2005

212,500 to 356,000 acres

Area of primary forest replaced by coca fields since 2000

241,000 acres

Percentage of coca detected in 2005 that was found in areas where coca had not grown previously

44%

Percentage of area sprayed in the coca-rich district of Putumayo that actually contained legal crops or forest

40%

Change in U.S. street price of cocaine from 2000 to 2005

-29%

“The fight for coca symbolizes our fight for freedom. Coca growers will continue to grow coca. There will never be zero coca.” –Bolivian president and former cocalero Evo Morales, February 2006. Bolivia is the world’s
No. 3 cocaine producer

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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