Shared Responsibility

Cocaine’s ecocide hits Trafalgar Square

Monday, 12 May 2008 00:00

Cocaine’s ecocide hits Trafalgar Square

Virgin rainforests, pure water sources and endemic fauna and flora, all menaced by coca crops, are only some of the topics featured in the photomuseum created by Shared Responsibility, an initiative launched by the Vice Presidency of Colombia to create awareness about the environmental effects of cocaine production. The images will be on display in Trafalgar Square on May 21 as part of the Home Office’s upcoming Tackling Drugs Week, taking place from May 19-23.

Shared Responsibility’s 42-image photomuseum also displays Colombia’s vast environmental wealth and the importance of alternative development to Colombia’s conservation efforts.

The presentation of the exhibit will be in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday May 21 from 1 to 5 pm, with a special showing of the photomuseum to be hosted by Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, Minister Vernon Coaker and musician and environmental activist, Alex James, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Mr. James recently visited Colombia and is a first-hand witness to the reality represented by the exhibit’s images.

This event represents an important association between Shared Responsibility and the Home Office in creating awareness about the devastating ecological repercussions brought to Colombia by cocaine consumption. Colombia is the world’s second most biodiverse nation.

Assistants to the exhibit will learn of these repercussions through the 42 large-scale images and explicative captions. For example, for every 2 grams of cocaine consumed, 8 square meters of Colombian jungle are cut down, and, in the last 20 years, 2.2 million hectares of tropical forest, equivalent to the territory of Slovenia, have been slashed and burnt to grow coca.

The photomuseum will return to London in July, at a venue still to be determined.