Dead Forest Defenders

By JOHN ROSS
from Counterpunch

Mexico City.

Mexico's 56.000.000 hectares of lush forestland covering a quarter of its national territory and comprising 1.3% of the world's forest resources, are increasingly littered with the corpses of dead forest defenders.

With the highest deforestation rate in Meso-America--272,000 hectares of tropical forest disappear a year--Mexican forests are a violent battleground between narco-gangs clearing land for illicit cultivation, guerilla groups encamped under the canopy, heavily-armed wood poachers who steal 2,000,000 board feet of timber each year, and those who seek to defend the trees.

In recent years, Mexico's forests have become a killing floor every bit as lethal as Brazil where such environmental martyrs as Chico Mendez, Sister Dorothy Stang, and young Dionicio Ribieras have been cut down by the pistoleros of ruthless landowners.

The list of the dead is horrific. In the state of Mexico, 30 forest inspectors, a third of the state force, have been murdered since 1991 according to a count kept by Hector Magallanes, Greenpeace Mexico forest action coordinator. Federal forest wardens are equally as vulnerable. With 300 inspectors to cover more than 50,000,000 hectares, each inspector oversees 180,000 hectares. Too often, they find themselves caught up in shoot-outs with organized gangs of wood poachers ("talamontes") who do their dirty work mostly in the dark with an army of gunsills standing watch.

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