E/CN.4/2005/88/Add.2 page 15 51. The Awa community in Nariño has informed the Special Rapporteur of various kinds of damage caused over the last three years to large tracts of rainforest in several areas of the municipalities of Tumaco and Barbacoas, as a result of spraying with glyphosate. The greatest damage was done, they say, to sources of fresh water, killing native fish and affecting human health, causing aching bones, vomiting, dizziness, fever and other ailments, particularly among children. 52. The Motilon-Bari community of Norte de Santander reports, among other violations, indiscriminate bombings by the security forces in 2003 - an operation known, significantly, as Operation Holocaust - and damage from aerial spraying with glyphosate in the course of the same year. The Organization of Indigenous Communities of Puerto Asís, Putumayo, has also reported the damaging effects of spraying. The Latin American Institute for Alternative Legal Services (ILSA) considers that the Programme for Aerial Eradication of Illicit Coca violates the rights to food security, health and a clean environment. In the Amazon region, the Government has signed an agreement with the indigenous organizations for the eradication of illicit coca crops. C. The environment, land and human rights 53. Apart from the environmental and cultural impact of illicit crops, spraying and the armed conflict, one of the most sensitive subjects in the area of indigenous people’s human rights is the threat hanging over the biodiversity of the Amazon tropical forest, a region which, despite being sparsely populated, has a high degree of indigenous cultural diversity and is now at serious risk. 54. Indigenous people’s natural environment is currently under great pressure as a result of intensive economic activities such as logging, oil drilling, a range of mining operations (including mining for gold, coal, minerals and saltpetre) and the construction of hydroelectric megaprojects such as the Urrá dam, or of highways connecting the countries and regions of the Amazon. 55. The need for prior, informed consultation with indigenous communities, in accordance with ILO Convention No. 169, has become one of the major issues in the human rights arena. The communities maintain that the mechanism does not operate in the same way in all parts of the country. In the indigenous territories of Antioquia, the Special Rapporteur was told that mining and other projects were launched without prior consultation or the consent of the indigenous communities. On the other hand, the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada, the Wayuu people in Guajira and the Awa in Nariño report that they have made some headway with consultation processes. 56. In Putumayo, the Special Rapporteur was told of the large, uncontrolled waves of migrants prompted by the oil boom, which have pushed ethnic groups back into minimal territorial holdings where their very survival as communities is at risk. The U’wa indigenous people, who live in the departments of Casanare, Arauca, Boyacá, Santander and Norte de Santander, told the Special Rapporteur that they are heading for sociocultural extinction as a result of the policies of colonization, deterritorialization and intimidation applied in State operations to exploit natural resources on their lands, particularly in oil prospecting and drilling.