{"id":404952,"date":"2026-04-30T12:29:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/404952\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T12:29:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:29:54","slug":"logging-murder-and-money-can-mexicos-ancient-forests-be-saved-from-the-cartels-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/404952\/","title":{"rendered":"Logging, murder and money: can Mexico\u2019s ancient forests be saved from the cartels? | Deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Decades ago, the children of Roch\u00e9achi village in the Sierra Tarahumara \u2013 pine-covered mountains of north-west Mexico<\/a>\u2019s Chihuahua state \u2013 would run through the forest by night. In the rainy season, they would collect fireflies whose glimmering light would flicker through the hollows of the pine trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had peace. We used to walk and play and be together,\u201d says one mother of three, who asked to remain anonymous, about the forest she once knew. \u201cNow, children can\u2019t go out to play. We don\u2019t know what might happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the mid-2010s, criminal groups, including factions of the Sinaloa cartel, have intensified illegal deforestation, seizing control of communal land known as ejidos through intimidation, extortion and murder.<\/p>\n

The ecological toll has also been severe. According to the environmental organisation Water and Forests for Life<\/a>, 9,000 hectares (22,400 acres) of forest in the Sierra Tarahumara have been lost to illegal logging<\/a> since 2001.<\/p>\n

Sawmills linked to the cartels falsify documents to launder timber estimated by one academic to be worth up to $270m<\/a> (\u00a3200m) annually, while the US government puts the figure at $342m to $978m. Deforestation has disrupted the region\u2019s hydrological system, causing droughts, crop failures and food insecurity.<\/p>\n

Isela Gonz\u00e1lez D\u00edaz of Alianza Sierra Madre. Behind her is a poster of Juli\u00e1n Carrillo \u2013 a Rar\u00e1muri forest defender from Coloradas de la Virgen who was murdered in 2018 <\/p>\n

Roch\u00e9achi, about 20 miles from the town of Guachochi, is home to several groups of Indigenous people, including the Rar\u00e1muri and \u00d3dami. Along the Sierra Tarahumara\u2019s nearly 745-mile (1,200km) length, individuals and organisations have reported a sharp rise in illegal deforestation.<\/p>\n

Controlled largely by the cartel factions, the industry often overlaps with other criminal activities<\/a>, such as drug trafficking and money laundering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal logging in the Sierra Tarahumara spread as criminal groups began to diversify,\u201d says Isela Gonz\u00e1lez D\u00edaz, 71, director of Alianza Sierra Madre<\/a>, an organisation that works with Indigenous people in the mountain range. \u201cIn recent years, illegal logging has been most effective for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markThey told me that if I didn\u2019t keep quiet or back off, the same thing would happen to me as to my fatherIndigenous Rar\u00e1muri woman<\/p>\n

The area around Guachochi is one of the most affected. \u201cEveryone is afraid,\u201d says the woman from Roch\u00e9achi, a member of the Rar\u00e1muri Indigenous community. \u201cI\u2019m worried that illegal logging is destroying everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says criminal groups now exercise significant influence over the leadership of her ejido. When she openly opposed the extortion, she endured savage retaliation. Her father was murdered in 2016, and six years ago, frequent death threats forced her to leave Roch\u00e9achi for the town of Guachochi, about an hour away.<\/p>\n

A Rar\u00e1muri woman from Roch\u00e9achi: \u2018Everyone is afraid\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me that if I didn\u2019t keep quiet or back off, the same thing would happen to me as to my father,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Even so, she has continued to file formal complaints with government offices and has lost count of the number of threats she has received \u2013 the most recent in December.<\/p>\n

A Global Initiative report<\/a> describes how, in various ejidos in the municipality, armed groups have been able to extort the local logging industry, co-opt revenue streams entirely or forcibly log more timber than legally permitted.<\/p>\n

Despite the widespread violence and environmental crime, residents and organisations claim that illegal activity continues to go unpunished in the Sierra Tarahumara.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system for reporting, punishment and damage repair is extremely ineffective,\u201d says a legal officer at Community Technical Consultancy (Contec<\/a>), a human rights organisation that provides support to Indigenous communities in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpunity is widespread,\u201d says the Contec member, who did not want to be named.<\/p>\n

Evidence of illegal logging in the municipality of Bocoyna, where a third of Chihuahua\u2019s entire deforestation has taken place<\/p>\n

Local people condemn the lack of an effective means of reporting forest-related crimes anonymously. Some claim that the groups responsible for illegal logging in the Sierra Tarahumara have informants within Mexico\u2019s environment ministry and the office of the federal attorney for environmental protection (Profepa).<\/p>\n

The Rar\u00e1muri woman from Guachochi says that shortly after arriving at the ministry\u2019s local office to file a complaint, she received a threatening phone call warning her not to proceed.<\/p>\n

double quotation markWhen a complaint is filed, they [cartels] find out very quickly. Their surveillance has spread everywhereHuman rights group<\/p>\n

Contec\u2019s legal officer agrees that criminal groups appear to be aware of every complaint filed (including who reports it, where and when), making it dangerous for people to turn to the authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Profepa, when a complaint is filed, they find out very quickly,\u201d she says. \u201cTheir surveillance has spread everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Profepa acknowledges that illegal logging represents a threat to rural communities but says this dealing with this exceeds its administrative powers. The agency also categorically denies any improper disclosure of information or collusion with gangs, and states that it is taking measures to improve the confidentiality and integrity of its procedures to guarantee anonymity.<\/p>\n

A healthy area of pine forest in the municipality of Bocoyna<\/p>\n

It says it plans to expand forest protection in the Sierra Tarahumara, promising a 130m-peso (\u00a35.6m) investment in the region.<\/p>\n

But institutional weakness is compounded in Mexico\u2019s community forests \u2013 those within ejidos or agrarian communities \u2013 where more than half of the country\u2019s illegal logging reportedly occurs.<\/p>\n

Beyond the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico\u2019s environmental protection is facing increasing scrutiny on a national level. Despite widespread calls to strengthen environmental institutions<\/a> and increase spending, the ministry and Profepa have had their budgets cut in 2026<\/a> \u2013 by 4% and 3.3% respectively.<\/p>\n

Campaigners fear that continued cuts will further stretch protection for the forests, increasing Mexico\u2019s vulnerability to corruption.<\/p>\n

Extensive illegal logging has also been documented in other Mexican states, including Michoacan<\/a>. A report by the National Autonomous University of Mexico<\/a> estimates that at least 70% of the timber in the domestic market may have been illegally sourced.<\/p>\n

A truck laden with timber arrives at a sawmill in San Juanito. About half of the town\u2019s many sawmills are said to be run by a faction of the Ju\u00e1rez cartel known as La Linea<\/p>\n

The Sierra Tarahumara contains Mexico\u2019s largest area of temperate, cold-climate forest<\/a> in the country. It spans altitudes from 500 to 1,400 metres and supports significant plant and animal diversity.<\/p>\n

But throughout the Sierra, the indiscriminate erasure of the region\u2019s pine forests has left lasting scars on the landscape.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThere\u2019s truck after truck hauling timber everywhere, like ants across the sierra. There\u2019s no control at allPriest in Baborigame<\/p>\n

On the outskirts of San Juanito, in Bocoyna municipality, rows of sawmills hum beneath a thick mist. Trucks lurch past their rusting gates, sinking low under the weight of felled timber and carving tracks into the frosted ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn San Juanito, there are various illegal sawmills that are not properly registered,\u201d says Contec\u2019s legal officer. Local people claim that many are owned and operated by a faction of the Ju\u00e1rez cartel known as La Linea, which dominates the town.<\/p>\n

Burned shrubbery in an illegally deforested area of Bocoyna. Many believe that as illegal logging has increased, rainfall has declined<\/p>\n

After being processed in these sawmills, illegally harvested wood is supplied with falsified forestry documents<\/a> before being sold on the open market.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge areas have been devastated, and in some cases deliberately burned,\u201d says the legal officer. She says that burning logged areas can be classified as fire damage rather than illegal logging, in effect erasing evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Forced out of Coloradas de la Virgen, this woman and her husband then had to leave Baborigame for Chihuahua city<\/p>\n

From San Juanito, the main road snakes past flame-blackened hillsides. This area forms part of the Papigochi flora and fauna protected area<\/a>, an important refuge for black bears, golden eagles and cahuite \u2013 a rare species of conifer.<\/p>\n

Between 2022 and 2023, Bocoyna district reportedly experienced almost a third of Chihuahua state\u2019s tree cover loss<\/a>, according to a report on organised crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are being left without a future,\u201d says a priest who has lived for nine years in Baborigame, a community in Guadalupe y Calvo, an area controlled by a faction of the Sinaloa cartel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s truck after truck hauling timber everywhere, like ants across the sierra,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no control at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

People believe that as illegal logging has increased, rainfall has declined sharply. With a primarily agricultural region facing prolonged drought and food insecurity, the combined factors of violence, economic failure and environmental decline have displaced swathes of local people from their homes across the Sierra Tarahumara.<\/p>\n

Embroidery by people who fled Coloradas de la Virgen, showing burning houses and a gunman<\/p>\n

According to Contec, the exact number of displaced people is impossible to quantify; it claims that 400 people have been displaced from ranches surrounding just Baborigame. Global Initiative<\/a> reports that 300 have been displaced from Coloradas de la Virgen, also in Guadalupe y Calvo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gangs are displacing people so that they can keep the homes that are left behind,\u201d says one woman, who asked to remain anonymous. Along with her husband, she has been displaced twice: first from Coloradas de la Virgen in 1992, and again from Baborigame in 2018. They now live in the city of Chihuahua.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere, they \u2018disappear\u2019 many people,\u201d says the woman. \u201cThey kill them and dump them somewhere no one will find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple, who say they have lost seven family members to the violence, report that children as young as 10 have been forcibly recruited to fight for criminal groups in the area.<\/p>\n

Amid the risk, the couple refuse to stay silent. \u201cWe\u2019re here fighting, so let\u2019s see what happens,\u201d he says, as his wife adds: \u201cAs long as God grants us life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decades ago, the children of Roch\u00e9achi village in the Sierra Tarahumara \u2013 pine-covered mountains of north-west Mexico\u2019s Chihuahua…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-404952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}