Museum Display Assignment: Coca Plantation Disturbing Peru's Primary Forests

Museum Display Assignment - Forestry
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Title: Coca plantation disturbing Peru’s primary forests
Coca cultivation is the main component in Cocaine production has caused deforestation of more than 2 million hectares in the Peruvian Amazon (Abraham, 2002). Illegal coca cultivations are increasingly being found in the parks and posing a threat to the biodiversity of the country. Peru is now the second largest producer of Cocaine after Colombia and there is concern that coca plantation is expanding into protected areas including national parks. The Peruvian government has taken measures to reduce coca cultivation and has managed to cut cultivation in 31,200 hectares in 2014 (UNODC, 2015). Coca grows primarily in tropical areas, while the Amazon area is ideal and has conductive acidity level.
In cases when there is soil degradation, the farmers simply move into new regions and clear the forests while there are little efforts to ensure the forests are regenerated. The cultivation of coca often destroys the soils, which is then left barren, making it difficult for regeneration. Coca planters mostly burn down trees to clear the forests, causing the top layer to be thinner and increasing the risk of erosion. Burning the forests has a long lasting effect on the forest coverage, as it destroys the hardwood trees that take years to mature. There are various types of trees destroyed by the forest fires mainly, cedar and mahogany. Another problem is the use of pesticides that is largely unregulated and may contaminate the water sources.
The increased demand for cocaine increases the demand for more land for coca cultivation to cater to more coca production (A changingclimate.org, 2014). Tropical forests take out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as they need to make energy. As the pristine forest cover reduces, there is reduced capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen (A changingclimate.org, 2014). The coca producers also dump chemicals and petroleum products used in cocaine production in the pristine rivers (A changingclimate.org, 2014). Consequently, Coca production causes deforestation and increases the risk of climate change.
Display section: Coca cultivation near Bahuaja Sonene National Park
The first picture shows the extent of deforestation in Bahuaja Sonene Park a protected area where there is growing threat of deforestation. People living in the Andean use Coca for traditional purposes, and increasingly for cocaine production. Human activities pose a risk of forest degradation especially around the southern sections, and there is a need to conserve the biodiversity. Newly deforested zones near the park shown in yellow are found where there were coca plantations while comparing deforestation in October 2014 and October 2015 in the left and right maps respectively.
The second satellite image shows new landing strip inside Bahuaja Sonene National Park and third image shows another satellite image on spotted areas where deforestation o...