The Human Impacts of the Aerial Eradication Program

Numerous individuals and community groups in Colombia have registered formal complaints about adverse effects of the spray campaigns. Many of these complaints were reviewed and summarized by the government. The complaints say:  aerial eradication has seriously affected weak and marginalized communities of poor farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and settlers. Hundreds of complaints from these communities were registered with local and national offices of the Colombian Human Rights Ombudsman. Aerial spraying of the herbicide has caused eye, respiratory, skin and digestive ailments; destroyed subsistence crops; sickened domestic animals; and contaminated water supplies.