Data from: Deforestation and coca cultivation rooted in twentieth-century development projects

Most of the world's coca—the source of cocaine—is grown in the Amazonian forests of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. As cultivation continues despite eradication, a shift to giving farmers more incentives to abandon coca is currently proposed. Assuming coca cultivation is an important cause of migration and deforestation, new alternative development projects also aim to conserve forests. We show coca cultivation strongly increases near never-completed 1960s–1970s state-sponsored projects to settle the Amazon. Improved roads and colonization projects opened the western Amazon frontier to migration, generating deforestation and, once support dwindled, setting the stage for coca cultivation. New studies also show coca cultivation generates negligible direct or indirect forest loss and fails to explain migration, whereas expanding legal agriculture, roads, displacement, and eradication increase deforestation. These findings highlight the urgent need to both commit development investment for the long term and set explicit conservation goals in western Amazonia.全球范围内绝大多数用于提取可卡因的古柯（coca）均种植于哥伦比亚、秘鲁及玻利维亚的亚马孙森林区域。尽管实施了古柯铲除行动，种植规模仍未得到有效遏制，当前学界提出应转向为农户提供更多激励措施，以促使其放弃古柯种植。既往研究假设古柯种植是引发移民与森林砍伐的重要动因，因此新型替代发展项目（alternative development projects）同样以森林保护为目标。本研究表明，古柯种植规模在1960至70年代未竟的国家资助亚马孙定居项目周边显著扩张。升级后的道路与殖民定居项目将西部亚马孙边境地区向移民开放，引发了森林砍伐；而当资助逐步缩减后，这些项目也为古柯种植的兴起埋下了伏笔。后续新研究则表明，古柯种植造成的直接与间接森林损失微乎其微，且无法解释移民现象；反观扩张中的合法农业、道路建设、人口流离失所以及铲除行动，反而加剧了森林砍伐。上述研究结果凸显出双重紧迫需求：一是长期投入发展资金，二是在西部亚马孙地区制定明确的森林保护目标。