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Nashik, India -- On a recent afternoon, Seetabai Atthre heard a faint cry from the edge of a vineyard that her family has cultivated for more than 40 years. Through the furrows, she found her husband, Vishal, smoldering on the ground next to an empty can of kerosene. He had lit himself on fire and died three days later in a local hospital.
Three decades ago, oil was discovered under parts of the moist tropical rain forest along the border of Peru and Ecuador and by the mid-70’s, Occidental Petroleum had found its way here.
Srinagar, Indian Administered Kashmir --- Khurram Parvez recalls how the walls of his office shook from daily bombs and gun battles during the height of fighting here when separatists would rush across the Pakistani border to strike at Indian security forces.
For years, Bolivia has been considered only a transit point for cocaine — but in the last five years it has increasingly become involved in cocaine production as well. Last week, the U.N's International Narcotics Control Board annual report chided Bolivia's government for allowing an increase in coca production. But president Evo Morales has repeatedly fought efforts to eradicate coca in his country, saying that an increase in coca doesn't necessarily mean an increase in cocaine.
NASHIK, India -- On a recent afternoon, Seetabai Atthre heard a faint cry from the edge of a vineyard her family has cultivated for more than 40 years on the arid plains of northern Maharashtra state. Searching through the furrows, she found her husband, Vishal, smoldering on the ground next to an empty can of kerosene. He died in a local hospital three days later from severe burns.
The Atthre farm had not turned a profit in more than two years, and 65-year-old Vishal could no longer secure loans from local banks to pay off the interest on the $5,600 he already owed.
Following the legal market of coca from the fields in Los Yungas, to the Villa Fátima market in La Paz, and finally, in the production of coca-based products.
Photos by Bear Guerra.
The U.N.'s International Narcotics Control Board said last week that Peru and Bolivia should outlaw the chewing of coca. Those are fighting words in Bolivia, where coca leaves are widely grown and part of traditional Andean culture. Bolivia's president Evo Morales is a former coca grower who has pushed for increasing the legal uses of coca leaves — while clamping down on the illegal uses. He calls his policy "Coca Yes — Cocaine No" — that means encouraging legal coca growers — but cracking down on drug traffickers.
We left Chulumani early in the morning, looking for Hernán Justo. He's the newly-elected president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers or ADEPCOCA, an increasingly powerful organization that represents the rights of cocaleros to sell their coca in the legal market. People around town had told us that Justo was a young and charismatic farmer-turned-union leader -- just the man to talk to us about the commercialization of coca and how it's faring so far.
The Dongria Kond are an indigenous tribe native to the virgin forest of India's southwestern Orissa state. For centuries they have lived high in the Niyamgiri hills, relying on its bounty of fruits and vegetables, and the wild game they hunt with bow and arrow. The Indian government once slated the range to become a protected reserve. The Dongria, for their part, hold it to be a sacred God.
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