Degradation of the environment through drug cultivation and production is not limited to the Andean region alone. In the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia encompassing Burma, Thailand, and Laos, the widespread cultivation of opium poppies for heroin has led to significant damage to the region's ecology. In the decade of the 1980s, for example, the amount of land in the Golden Triangle dedicated to opium poppy cultivation more than doubled, from 80,000 to 180,000 hectares. According to statistics published by the Thai government, the shifting cultivation of both legitimate subsistence crops and opium poppies along the country's northern highland border with Burma removed forest cover at a rate of 130,000 hectares per year between 1961 and 1985.
Poppy cultivation degrades the soil in only two to three years, forcing growers to engage in slash-and-burn agriculture to cultivate new area for poppy production. The cultivation of opium poppies is also much more labor intensive than coca cultivation -- 1,000 to 2,000 man-hours are required to harvest one hectare of poppies, compared with 200 man-hours to harvest one hectare of coca. A greater population density therefore is needed to sustain production of the opium crop, resulting in an accordingly greater amount of deforestation in Southeast Asia than in the Andes tied to the drug trade.
Such deforestation has caused substantial damage to watersheds and water catchment areas in Southeast Asia. Accelerated water runoff in cleared areas has promoted downstream flooding and aggravated drought problems in the dry season. According to the Thailand Development Research Institute, the water absorption ability of soil fell by two-thirds in one such deforested area in Thailand.
Contamination of the general ecosystem and of water supplies from heroin processing is another major environmental problem in the Golden Triangle. Along the Thai-Burmese border the dumping of chemical wastes from the conversion of opium gum into heroin is poisoning the water for natural wildlife and for downstream use. The process of refining heroin requires a significant amount of water, and the resulting chemical-laden effluent flows back into the area's ecosystem.
