April 11, 2025
Source: Ojalá
A woman protests for water rights in the state of Puebla, Mexico | Image by Tamara Pearson
Every spring and summer, a team of biologists monitors forests in the State of Mexico, outside of Mexico City, looking for insects known as wood borers. These small beetles tunnel under tree bark, killing their hosts and threatening the entire ecosystem.
Borers can wipe out hectares of forest by feeding on trunks and laying their eggs there, which dries out the trees. Diseased trees—and any surrounding ones—must be felled to reduce the risk of the infestation spreading.
Two years ago, the biologists carrying out routine surveys discovered another unexpected threat to the forest: organized crime.
While doing research in the forests outside the Natural Protected Area surrounding the Nevado de Toluca volcano, they came upon armed men equipped with vehicles and tools for logging guarding the perimeter of part of the forest that was being felled. “There were about six groups of 10 loggers each, with around 12 trucks,” said one of the researchers in an interview with Ojalá. “The trucks left the forested areas without any papers to prove the wood was legally obtained.”
After witnessing the clandestine logging operation, the biologists returned home.
“We take samples in places where there aren’t supposed to be people, there’s more wildlife in those areas, but then again nature is caught up in criminal activity,” said one of the biologists, who requested anonymity given the violence and continued presence of the criminal organization in the area by the name of Familia Michoacana.
“Big corporations like Coca-Cola and Heineken, which operate in the State of Mexico, seek out areas with water,” said the biologist. “They want land, water, and food, because eventually, those things will become scarce. The narcos copy the same plundering, they do the same thing.”
Natural wealth surrounding the Capital
The forest ecosystems that surround the Xinantécatl—the original Nahuatl name for the Nevado de Toluca—are brimming with fauna. Armadillos and wild cats move across the land and a myriad species of birds and butterflies fill the skies.
Birds are the first to be displaced by logging; when they do not find refuge they move to the trees that remain in the city’s public parks and boulevards.
“We can’t do species counts in part due to lack of resources and staff, but mostly because of safety concerns,” said Daniel Medoza, who is director of the environmental consulting firm Siabirds. “You can’t monitor birds without attracting unwanted attention from criminal groups.”
Mendoza is a biologist who has studied bird migration and forest health in order to understand and monitor avian flightways. As Siabirds director he has seen how corruption damages and harms forests. “[Criminal groups] offer huge amounts of money to launder wood products, that is to say, tons of wood go into sawmills with permits. But they also process illegal wood, only reporting what comes in legally.”
“Because it is such a profitable business, [criminal groups] have joined and even displaced groups of loggers who were originally from the area,” Mendoza said.
Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA by its Spanish acronym) is in charge of carrying out inspections to prevent timber trafficking by registered sawmills. But without security, it is impossible to gain access. “To go up there without protection is to run the risk of not returning,” said Mendoza.
The State of Mexico is home to a plethora of tree species, including pine, fir, mallow and mahogany. The forests are home to more than 750 species of vertebrates and thousands more invertebrates.
Many species are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which places trade restrictions on products made from protected wood, such as furniture or instruments. Mexico has been a party to CITES since 1991, but corruption sometimes works against the agreement.
“[Criminal groups] offered us huge sums of money to provide services for timber resources,” said a different environmental consultant, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals. “They wanted us to accredit the timber from endangered trees, or that did not have proper permits, so it could be exported to China. It was illegal wood that they already had on boats but which needed its paperwork fixed; we told them we couldn’t do it.”
There is no exact data on how profitable this crime is, but according to experts it generates millions of pesos (hundreds of thousands of dollars) a year.
Neighbouring communities know to expect truck after truck loaded with logs coming off the Xinantécatl volcano after nightfall.
The natural growth rate of these forests can’t keep up with the current rate of logging. One of the most urgent consequences of deforestation is the lack of water. The forest captures humidity, transferring water to the soil and recharging aquifers. By retaining humidity, trees also generate rainfall. When this cycle is altered, the result is drought.
The forest has become both a hideout and a business for criminal groups, who have acquired vast natural wealth by besieging the volcanic slopes.
Resistance in Texcaltitlán
The Familia Michoacana and the Jalisco-New Generation Cartel are vying for territorial control in Mexico State, which is also home to a number of smaller criminal organizations.
The Familia Michoacana has diversified its income to include timber trafficking, in addition to extortion, forced recruitment, kidnapping, human trafficking and drug trafficking, following the criminal path set by Los Zetas in the early 2000s. According to the Search Commission of the State of Mexico, the Familia Michoacana is responsible for an increase in disappearances state-wide.
Eleven people from Texcapilla, a municipality located in Texcaltitlán, in the foothills of the Nevado de Toluca, were disappeared by La Familia Michoacana in December 2023, after the community confronted the criminal group’s systematic extortions. Farmers with machetes and sticks faced off with organized crime. Noé Olivares Alpizar, Jorge Rojas Calixto, Emigdio Esquivel Escobar and Rodolfo Rojas Calixto were killed defending their community. Ten members of the Familia Michoacana were killed in the exchange.
Following the killings in Texcapilla, the government began to build a barracks for 120 National Guard soldiers in the area. They also set up a Control, Command, Communication, Computing and Quality Center (C5) and a monitoring center for the State of Mexico’s Secretary of Security.
Subsequently, a police operation “Swarm” was carried out in the State of Mexico, which revealed links between public officials and organized crime in several municipalities, including Texcaltitlán Head of Public Security, Isidro Cortés. Cortés shot himself before being served with an arrest warrant, according to official records.
Local resistance and the influx of state and federal authorities in the area pushed the criminal group into neighboring municipalities, where it still exerts control.
Five timber seizures carried out by authorities in Texcaltitlán and Coatepec Harinas found abandoned trucks hauling rare wood. No one was arrested.
On a number of occasions, communities in Texcaltitlán have stood up to defend their forests. Citizens have filed complaints about the illegal logging, and following government inaction, have taken matters into their own hands. In 2023, a wood mill presumably operated by the Familia Michoacana was burned down in the community of El Agostadero.
Over the last 10 years, only one person has been sentenced for environmental crimes in Texcaltitlán, according to a freedom of information request filed by Ojalá.
Complaints and threats
Yadira Ivonne Oriel is an activist who works to defend the forests in the State of Mexico. She has reported illegal logging to authorities and taken direct action against deforestation. For her efforts, she has received death threats and been physically assaulted.
“I’ve always received death threats, but this was the first time they almost followed through,” said Oriel about the attack she survived in February. “They severely assaulted and almost killed me because of logging.”
In a protest against illegal logging in the north of the state, Oriel and a family member stopped a log-filled trailer by standing in its way. They blocked its path for two hours, while members of nearby communities looked on. “They stared at us as if we were crazy. No one supported us,” Oriel recounted in an interview. “I yelled at them to defend their forest.”
Following that protest, a death threat was made by phone call, left with Oriel’s daughter.
“If something happens to me, it’s because I raised my voice for the forest,” said the defender in an interview with Ojalá.
Violence against environmental defenders increased in 2021—the most lethal year for activists, according to the Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders compiled by the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA in its Spanish initials). The same document revealed the government is the main killer, accounting for half of the deaths. The second biggest culprit is organized crime, followed by private companies.
In Mexico, violence against environmental activists shows no sign of letting up. In fact, it’s getting worse. In 2023, 282 attacks were reported against defenders, 19 suffered disappearance and 20 were murdered.
This year, two environmental defenders were murdered in the State of Mexico. Álvaro Arvizu Aguiñiga was gunned down by unidentified persons in Tlalmanalco. Cuauhtémoc Márquez Fernández was killed in his home in Amecameca.
Snow roses, an endangered species protected by law, grow near the crater of Xinantécatl. Blue-toned blooms capture the eye, turning brown as they age, framed with thorny leaves, similar to those of agave.
These flowers thrive in a hostile, high-altitude environment where few can survive. The snow rose is food and shelter for the living creatures of the crater. For some, this rose represents courage and love, a symbol of survival in adverse conditions. Its stubborn presence could also represent the tireless land defenders fighting for Mexico’s forests.
This is the second in a series of articles made possible by support from the Resilience Fund.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate
Laura Jiménez
Laura Jiménez is a freelance journalist who specializes in human rights and has experience investigating gender violence, disappearances and human trafficking. She previously worked at the Investigative Journalism and Data Unit of El Universal.
A woman protests for water rights in the state of Puebla, Mexico | Image by Tamara Pearson
Every spring and summer, a team of biologists monitors forests in the State of Mexico, outside of Mexico City, looking for insects known as wood borers. These small beetles tunnel under tree bark, killing their hosts and threatening the entire ecosystem.
Borers can wipe out hectares of forest by feeding on trunks and laying their eggs there, which dries out the trees. Diseased trees—and any surrounding ones—must be felled to reduce the risk of the infestation spreading.
Two years ago, the biologists carrying out routine surveys discovered another unexpected threat to the forest: organized crime.
While doing research in the forests outside the Natural Protected Area surrounding the Nevado de Toluca volcano, they came upon armed men equipped with vehicles and tools for logging guarding the perimeter of part of the forest that was being felled. “There were about six groups of 10 loggers each, with around 12 trucks,” said one of the researchers in an interview with Ojalá. “The trucks left the forested areas without any papers to prove the wood was legally obtained.”
After witnessing the clandestine logging operation, the biologists returned home.
“We take samples in places where there aren’t supposed to be people, there’s more wildlife in those areas, but then again nature is caught up in criminal activity,” said one of the biologists, who requested anonymity given the violence and continued presence of the criminal organization in the area by the name of Familia Michoacana.
“Big corporations like Coca-Cola and Heineken, which operate in the State of Mexico, seek out areas with water,” said the biologist. “They want land, water, and food, because eventually, those things will become scarce. The narcos copy the same plundering, they do the same thing.”
Natural wealth surrounding the Capital
The forest ecosystems that surround the Xinantécatl—the original Nahuatl name for the Nevado de Toluca—are brimming with fauna. Armadillos and wild cats move across the land and a myriad species of birds and butterflies fill the skies.
Birds are the first to be displaced by logging; when they do not find refuge they move to the trees that remain in the city’s public parks and boulevards.
“We can’t do species counts in part due to lack of resources and staff, but mostly because of safety concerns,” said Daniel Medoza, who is director of the environmental consulting firm Siabirds. “You can’t monitor birds without attracting unwanted attention from criminal groups.”
Mendoza is a biologist who has studied bird migration and forest health in order to understand and monitor avian flightways. As Siabirds director he has seen how corruption damages and harms forests. “[Criminal groups] offer huge amounts of money to launder wood products, that is to say, tons of wood go into sawmills with permits. But they also process illegal wood, only reporting what comes in legally.”
“Because it is such a profitable business, [criminal groups] have joined and even displaced groups of loggers who were originally from the area,” Mendoza said.
Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA by its Spanish acronym) is in charge of carrying out inspections to prevent timber trafficking by registered sawmills. But without security, it is impossible to gain access. “To go up there without protection is to run the risk of not returning,” said Mendoza.
The State of Mexico is home to a plethora of tree species, including pine, fir, mallow and mahogany. The forests are home to more than 750 species of vertebrates and thousands more invertebrates.
Many species are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which places trade restrictions on products made from protected wood, such as furniture or instruments. Mexico has been a party to CITES since 1991, but corruption sometimes works against the agreement.
“[Criminal groups] offered us huge sums of money to provide services for timber resources,” said a different environmental consultant, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals. “They wanted us to accredit the timber from endangered trees, or that did not have proper permits, so it could be exported to China. It was illegal wood that they already had on boats but which needed its paperwork fixed; we told them we couldn’t do it.”
There is no exact data on how profitable this crime is, but according to experts it generates millions of pesos (hundreds of thousands of dollars) a year.
Neighbouring communities know to expect truck after truck loaded with logs coming off the Xinantécatl volcano after nightfall.
The natural growth rate of these forests can’t keep up with the current rate of logging. One of the most urgent consequences of deforestation is the lack of water. The forest captures humidity, transferring water to the soil and recharging aquifers. By retaining humidity, trees also generate rainfall. When this cycle is altered, the result is drought.
The forest has become both a hideout and a business for criminal groups, who have acquired vast natural wealth by besieging the volcanic slopes.
Resistance in Texcaltitlán
The Familia Michoacana and the Jalisco-New Generation Cartel are vying for territorial control in Mexico State, which is also home to a number of smaller criminal organizations.
The Familia Michoacana has diversified its income to include timber trafficking, in addition to extortion, forced recruitment, kidnapping, human trafficking and drug trafficking, following the criminal path set by Los Zetas in the early 2000s. According to the Search Commission of the State of Mexico, the Familia Michoacana is responsible for an increase in disappearances state-wide.
Eleven people from Texcapilla, a municipality located in Texcaltitlán, in the foothills of the Nevado de Toluca, were disappeared by La Familia Michoacana in December 2023, after the community confronted the criminal group’s systematic extortions. Farmers with machetes and sticks faced off with organized crime. Noé Olivares Alpizar, Jorge Rojas Calixto, Emigdio Esquivel Escobar and Rodolfo Rojas Calixto were killed defending their community. Ten members of the Familia Michoacana were killed in the exchange.
Following the killings in Texcapilla, the government began to build a barracks for 120 National Guard soldiers in the area. They also set up a Control, Command, Communication, Computing and Quality Center (C5) and a monitoring center for the State of Mexico’s Secretary of Security.
Subsequently, a police operation “Swarm” was carried out in the State of Mexico, which revealed links between public officials and organized crime in several municipalities, including Texcaltitlán Head of Public Security, Isidro Cortés. Cortés shot himself before being served with an arrest warrant, according to official records.
Local resistance and the influx of state and federal authorities in the area pushed the criminal group into neighboring municipalities, where it still exerts control.
Five timber seizures carried out by authorities in Texcaltitlán and Coatepec Harinas found abandoned trucks hauling rare wood. No one was arrested.
On a number of occasions, communities in Texcaltitlán have stood up to defend their forests. Citizens have filed complaints about the illegal logging, and following government inaction, have taken matters into their own hands. In 2023, a wood mill presumably operated by the Familia Michoacana was burned down in the community of El Agostadero.
Over the last 10 years, only one person has been sentenced for environmental crimes in Texcaltitlán, according to a freedom of information request filed by Ojalá.
Complaints and threats
Yadira Ivonne Oriel is an activist who works to defend the forests in the State of Mexico. She has reported illegal logging to authorities and taken direct action against deforestation. For her efforts, she has received death threats and been physically assaulted.
“I’ve always received death threats, but this was the first time they almost followed through,” said Oriel about the attack she survived in February. “They severely assaulted and almost killed me because of logging.”
In a protest against illegal logging in the north of the state, Oriel and a family member stopped a log-filled trailer by standing in its way. They blocked its path for two hours, while members of nearby communities looked on. “They stared at us as if we were crazy. No one supported us,” Oriel recounted in an interview. “I yelled at them to defend their forest.”
Following that protest, a death threat was made by phone call, left with Oriel’s daughter.
“If something happens to me, it’s because I raised my voice for the forest,” said the defender in an interview with Ojalá.
Violence against environmental defenders increased in 2021—the most lethal year for activists, according to the Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders compiled by the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA in its Spanish initials). The same document revealed the government is the main killer, accounting for half of the deaths. The second biggest culprit is organized crime, followed by private companies.
In Mexico, violence against environmental activists shows no sign of letting up. In fact, it’s getting worse. In 2023, 282 attacks were reported against defenders, 19 suffered disappearance and 20 were murdered.
This year, two environmental defenders were murdered in the State of Mexico. Álvaro Arvizu Aguiñiga was gunned down by unidentified persons in Tlalmanalco. Cuauhtémoc Márquez Fernández was killed in his home in Amecameca.
Snow roses, an endangered species protected by law, grow near the crater of Xinantécatl. Blue-toned blooms capture the eye, turning brown as they age, framed with thorny leaves, similar to those of agave.
These flowers thrive in a hostile, high-altitude environment where few can survive. The snow rose is food and shelter for the living creatures of the crater. For some, this rose represents courage and love, a symbol of survival in adverse conditions. Its stubborn presence could also represent the tireless land defenders fighting for Mexico’s forests.
This is the second in a series of articles made possible by support from the Resilience Fund.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.Donate
Laura Jiménez
Laura Jiménez is a freelance journalist who specializes in human rights and has experience investigating gender violence, disappearances and human trafficking. She previously worked at the Investigative Journalism and Data Unit of El Universal.
No comments:
Post a Comment