A quiet morning in Quito starts with a Bushman walk through police patrols. Orla Guerin, an environmental correspondent, follows officers who are trying to seal the cycle that turns espresso and coca leaves into a toxin that astronomically raises crime, terror and environmental damage.
The police shadow gang groups that rely on drug corridors skirting the Sierra Nevada to the Amazon. The gangs’ links to Mexican cartels and Albanian mafias fuel the daily influx of cocaine from Colombian and Peruvian fields to the heart of the country. Every time a shipment ends, criminal networks are hard‑wired; every time a shipment ends, forests are cleared to grow coca.
Over 9,200 murders were recorded last year. For each of those killings the environment lost a piece of its integrity. Chuqui’s balsam rose, forest fires increased, rivers were clogged with pesticide, and parts of the Andes became unsustainable to habitant. In many places the trail of coca leaves begins at the same spots where logging agencies work overtime, turning fronts of corduebas to falsification.
Ecuador’s interior ministry claims the police measures are stronger. Patrols focus on lucrative routes that cross municipal borders, and new community bylaws stipulate that young people can access their land slowly if they adapt from coca to coffee or fruit crop. The new policy is a first step to reduce drug traffic but it is built on local communities’ environmental stewardship.
What will happen next? The outcome will hinge on whether enforcement can keep pace with environmental degradation. Small forest fragments might remain, but larger national parks face a risk of losing protection if the war continues unchecked.
