A SPECIES of hummingbird first discovered three years ago is facing extinction due to the global demand for cocaine.
The flamboyant gorgeted puffleg was first spotted by scientists in 2005 in a cloud forest in the south-west of Colombia. But its habitat is being destroyed to make way for plantations of coca, which is used to manufacture the class-A drug.
Every
year, about 100 hectares of the 1,200 hectares of forest where the bird lives is being eaten up – so it faces being wiped out in little over a decade.
It is only one aspect of the massive environmental damage that cocaine production is inflicting on one of the world's most bio-diverse countries. Animals, fish and plant life in Colombia are under growing threat as vast swathes of tropical rain forest are destroyed and millions of litres of toxic fertilisers leak into the water system every year.
It is an overlooked reality that police and education leaders believe might provide the key to dissuading Scottish teenagers from taking the drug.
Officials from the Scottish and Colombian governments are to discuss ways to deliver the powerful message to schools – believing the environmental angle might be more effective in reducing cocaine consumption among young people than warnings about health effects or the fact that it is illegal.
Ana Marie Caballero, an adviser to the vice-president of Colombia, this week delivered a presentation on the impact of cocaine in Columbia to pupils at Girvan Academy.
Children were shown video of the diverse wildlife under threat from cocaine – part of an information pack produced by the Colombian government, which it hopes will be distributed to schools worldwide.
Yesterday, Ms Caballero said the presentation was a huge success and she hoped that it would trigger "shared responsibility" between Colombia and Scotland to reduce demand for cocaine.
She said: "I hope that this can become something of a pilot project for other countries." She said that people who were otherwise ethically-aware consumers needed to realise the consequences of drug-taking.
"People who get outraged about using plastic bags are casually taking cocaine at the weekend," she said.
"It is thought that cocaine is a clean drug. But people need to realise they are taking a drug which is causing environmental damage in a country that needs to be conserved."
Willie McColl, the national drugs co-ordinator for the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "The message Ana Maria delivered at Girvan Academy was powerful. We need to explore ways this type of approach can be used with young people and schools."
The Scotsman understands that senior education officials at the Scottish Government are highly impressed by the new approach and will discuss ways to offer the packs to schools across the country.
Young scots lining upMORE than 10 per cent of Scots aged 16 to 19 have taken cocaine, recent studies suggest.
Health experts warn that a drop in the price of the drug and using it with alcohol is putting a generation of young people at risk.
The Scottish Crime and Victim Survey and the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyles and Substance Use survey show that 13.2 per cent have taken cocaine – 10.4 per cent in the past year.
More than 6 per cent said they had taken the drug in the month before the surveys were done, and 48 per cent said drugs were easy to get.
Scientists discovered drinking after using the drug enables a person to triple the amount of alcohol they can consume before becoming incapacitated and increases the risk of a heart attack by 24 times.
The full article contains 612 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
