After the Amazon, the Mayan Biosphere Reserve is the largest intact tropical rain forest in the Americas. At 6 million acres, the Mayan Biosphere Reserve covers nearly 20% of Guatemala and is bigger than New Hampshire.
And it's going up in smoke. And up the nose.
Narcoranchers who slash and burn the forest and enforce their illegal land grabs with automatic rifles and intimidation are enforcing the rule of lawlessness on the forest, particularly its Western portion near the Mexican border, according to Roan McNab, the country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society's Guatemala Program. He spoke Tuesday at the launch party for the group's second State of the Wild book.
In the case of Guatemala, the state of the wild is defined by the state of our drug habits.
Forests are burned to create pasture for illegal cattle ranching, and the illicit ranchers get a toe-hold in the protected forest by "capitalizing on the lawlessness and intimidation created by the drug trafficking route in the western part of the reserve," according to Anton Seimon, the assistant director of the WCS Latin America and Caribbean Program. The activity is also "financed in part by the laundering of money obtained through the drug trade." Some 30 air strips have been carved into the forest in just the last couple years. ...
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