Lima (EFE) the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs of Peru (Devida).
The state organization explained that the growth rate of these illicit crops was 18% in 2022, compared to 31% registered in 2021, when 80,681 hectares were reported, thanks to containment efforts.
He stressed that the growth of coca cultivation areas in Peru has expanded into natural areas and indigenous communities that they call “special territories”, since drug trafficking is “a dynamic enemy” that works as a business model by seeking opportunities to obtain “greater profitability”.
Of particular concern is the 86.95% increase in the expansion of crops in the territories of indigenous communities. It has gone from 9,989 hectares in 2020 to 18,674 in 2022.
“We have to find a way to be able to do protection that is not putting people to watch them in tremendous vast territories and taking them out of their worldview. We have to find a topic that is eco-friendly, that respects their interculturality, maintaining their worldview and that does not imply a break with their traditional way of life,” said the president of Devida, Carlos Figueroa, in a meeting with the foreign press.
Measures against illegal coca crops in Peru
To combat “this scourge” in these areas will require coordinated and specialized work among all the state actors involved. Because the presence of drug trafficking in these territories generates greater vulnerability in indigenous peoples.
In this sense, he said in the meeting with the Association of Foreign Press in Peru (APEP) that illegal activities in native communities is an issue that goes beyond drug trafficking and is mixed with illegal mining, illegal logging and trafficking. people.
“This issue strongly calls our attention because it implies that beyond the damage that coca bush crops have always caused in national territories, now the damage is additionally more powerful because it also includes environmental crimes in permanent production forests, in areas protected natural areas, in buffer zones and in forest concessions,” said Figueroa.
In protected natural areas, 439 hectares of crops have been reported compared to 260 in 2020. And, in terms of permanent production forests, the extension has reached 24,969 compared to 11,376 in 2020.
coca growing areas
In terms of geographic areas, the Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (Vraem) continues to be the area with the largest cultivated area. Reaching 35,709 hectares in 2022, but the growth rate is 11%, less than that registered the previous year of 15%.
And he stressed that they are growing in border areas with Colombia and Brazil. What has to imply greater cooperation with these countries to prosecute the crime.
The report highlights significant variations in Madre de Dios, where hectares have grown by 274% from 2021 to 2022. Also in Ucayali, in the center of the country and whose areas have grown by 43% from 2021 to 2023. And in Loreto, in the northern part of the Peruvian Amazon, where they have grown by 34%.
Regarding the work to reduce the coca-growing area by special operations, 21,628 hectares have been eradicated. Thus recovering figures similar to those before the pandemic, a period in which these actions were interrupted.