Ammon News - Colombian farmer Albert Montano razes a beautiful thorny shrub, fearful that its yellow flowers will fuel potent wildfires expected during the El Nino weather pattern.

Montano revved his electric cutter as he and several other men advanced toward "the plague" threatening the Cogua municipality on the outskirts of Bogota.

Farmers are rushing to eradicate "Ulex europaeus," more commonly known as Gorse, which is "invading us more and more," said Montano, sporting gloves, safety goggles, a thick fabric suit and rubber boots.

Gorse reached Colombia from Europe in the mid-20th century and spread rapidly from the capital to the rest of the country and to its paramo ecosystems, high-altitude moors which store a massive proportion of national water supplies.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) counts it as one of the 100 most aggressive invasive species in the world.

Gorse is also highly flammable, causing alarm among Montano and his peers as wildfires are set to intensify during this cycle of El Nino, predicted to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago.

"If we don't find a way to control it... in about 20 or 30 years we're going to have an area covered only in gorse instead of native vegetation, crops and livestock," the 43-year-old told AFP.

Salomon Castro, 61, used a pickaxe to hack at the plant's root with exceptional accuracy and strength, while younger farmers cut its branches with machetes.

Every day, the group collects 1,500 kilograms of gorse from an area of roughly 170 square meters, the size of a semi-Olympic swimming pool.

"The work is pretty tough," said Castro, but "it has to be done."

Eradication at all costs

The plant, which can grow up to three meters tall, was originally used to delineate land.

Those farmers "never thought about what it would cost in the future, nor about how it should be managed," said biologist and invasive plant expert Edinson Sesquile.

Although no official estimate exists, gorse covers thousands of hectares of land across Colombia.

Affected communities have spent years trying all kinds of methods to get rid of it, some spraying agrochemicals like glyphosate while others resort to burning the plant despite the risk of wildfires.

Higher temperatures "promote the dispersal of seeds," said Sesquile.

El Nino raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions.

Forest fires in the Andean mountain range near Ecuador have intensified amid drier conditions provoked by the phenomenon.

'Reclaiming your own surroundings'
"One, two, three, go!" one of the farmers cries, while the rest pull on ropes to get a heavy bundle of branches up the hill.

Permanent eradication of "Ulex europaeus" entails sending it to certified incineration or biodegradation sites.

Without a "coordinated" approach, "what we are doing is containing it," according to Sesquile.

In nearby Zipaquira, an industrial machine turns the invasive plant into products "from the root to the flower," Daniel Jimenez, production director at organic waste company Adaptica, told AFP.

The company reduces the plant, dries it and compacts it into pellets, a popular biofuel in Europe but relatively unknown in Colombia.

Alejandro Nunez, responsible for coordinating the gorse project, considers his job a "personal challenge."

Its high flammability inspired this particular environmental solution, according to the 30-year-old mechanical engineer.

For Montano, every eradicated gorse plant reflects "a duty fulfilled."

"It's the feeling of satisfaction that comes from reclaiming your own surroundings," he said.


AFP