Landscapes in central America: Scarred by narco-deforestation

Drug trafficking in Central America is leaving deep scars on a sensitive landscape in a phenomenon U.S. researchers are calling "narco-deforestation." Erik Nielsen of the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability at Northern Arizona University and his colleagues report drug traffickers are slashing down forests, often within protected areas, to carve clandestine landing strips and roads and to establish cattle ranches through which drug money can be laundered. "Not only are societies being ripped apart, but forests are being ripped apart," Nielsen said. The researchers had focused on sustainable practices, geography and earth sciences in the region but said those individual lines of inquiry converged "serendipitously" when they began noticing the same disturbing trend at multiple sites in Guatemala and Honduras. "Around 2007, we started to see this pretty amazing uptick in deforestation in communities where I've been doing research for a long time," Nielsen said in a university release. "We started asking, 'What's going on here?' The presence of narco-traffickers was the response." The "cat-and-mouse" game of interdiction and evasion has been pushing traffickers into more remote areas, and as trafficking was squeezed out of Mexico and the Caribbean, "then we really started seeing the impact in Central America," he said. The United States and other countries in the region should "rethink drug policy with a bright light on the unintended consequences on conservation," he said.