Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia, said recently that his country has lost 10 percent of its forest in the past 20 years,
and he labeled the destruction a "massacre," according to Colombia Reports, citing a Spanish-language report from Caracol Radio.
"I've already said it and today I say it again without mincing my words: We cannot continue to allow this environmental massacre," Santos said. In the past five years, Santos said, Colombia had lost about 600,000 acres of forest.
Making a claim similar to the one offered by leaders in the Philippines, Santos said deforestation was killing people. Landslides, caused by erosion from deforestation, killed 185 people and affected 900,000 more during Colombia's most recent rainy season, Santos said. Recently, Santos' government invested $55 million in reforestation efforts.
