Judge suspends Colombia’s aerial fumigation pilot

A Putumayo from the southern Putumayo province suspended the government’s announced resumption of the aerial spraying of coca, ordering information that would allow “a sufficiently informed decision on the merits.”

Earlier this week, the National Narcotics Council (CNE) ordered the National Police to restart the aerial fumigation of coca, the base ingredient for cocaine, “as a controlled, limited, temporary, and evaluable experimental phase, the implementation of a pilot plan for the eradication of illicit crops through aerial spraying using a manned aircraft and the formulated product Glufosinate Ammonium 200 SL.”

The National Police subsequently said that the 10km2 pilot area was located in Putumayo, a province inside the Amazon forest.

These announcements triggered a local foundation to sue the administration, claiming that the plans to do a pilot were in violation of the 2015 ban on aerial fumigation and threatened both locals and the environment.

The judge agreed and ordered the administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella to provide information on the environmental and health risk involved in the aerial spraying with glufosinate ammonium.

The potential implementation of the pilot plan before gathering and analyzing the studies, documents, and technical evidence cited by the administration itself as the basis for the decision could render the requested constitutional protection ineffective and jeopardize the possibility of reaching a sufficiently informed decision on the merits; Indeed, the combination of the announced imminence of the measure, the current lack of essential information needed to understand its territorial, social, and environmental scope, and the particular ecological sensitivity of the department of Putumayo necessitates preventive action aimed at preserving the effectiveness of this constitutional action.

Putumayo court

The suspension of the aerial spraying comes days after De la Espriella promised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he would resume aerial fumigation, a notoriously ineffective way to get rid of coca.

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