Austria supports Colombia in its fight against cultivation of drugs
State Secretary Waldner meets head of the UNODC Office in Colombia, Aldo Lale Demoz
Vienna/Bogota, 30 January 2012 - On the occasion of his official tour of Latin American countries, Austrian State Secretary Wolfgang Waldner has held talks on intensifying the cooperation of the two countries in the fight against the cultivation and production of drugs in Colombia. "Colombia is clearly determined to fight drugs; the area of the country under drug cultivation has been cut by half over the past ten years", State Secretary Waldner said following a meeting with the head of the UNODC Office in Colombia, Aldo Lale Demoz.
Austria cooperates closely with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC in projects of alternative cultivation in Antioquia. In this initiative, coca crop farmers are given the possibility to change to alternative products, such as cocoa. "This is a proper option for these farmers, because in the long run they will have a far higher income from cocoa as their cash crop than from coca", Waldner said. "There can be no doubt that projects such as this one are important steps in the right direction in the fight against drugs.
An Austrian project of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna has now made it possible to identify drug cultivation areas by means of satellite images. Using high technology, this project facilitates the recording and measuring of land used for coca cultivation", the State Secretary continued.
Waldner: "As the country where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC has its headquarters, Austria considers itself to be a special ally of this important UN organisation. We give a voice to UNODC also in institutions where it would not otherwise be represented. It is, for example, important to us to include in clear terms the issue of drugs as one of the causes of human rights violations in the EU Human Rights Strategy for Colombia."
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