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In 2024, deforestation was identified as one of the major environmental challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean. At the beginning of the year, between January and February, Argentina, Chile and Colombia were a warning sign among countries in the region for fires that destroyed forests near urban areas.
Weeks later, on March 5, the United Nations (UN) again expressed concern about the nexus between organized crime linked to drug trafficking, environmental crimes and “convergent crimes” such as bribery, extortion and murders of indigenous leaders and territorial defenders.
In addition to the UN’s observations, on June 10, Ojo Público ‘s Cross-Border Investigative Network reported that in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia there is an increased expansion of illegal crops in protected areas and that on the borders of Chile and Panama illegal logging is linked to new methods for exporting cocaine to Europe. Meanwhile, in Mexico, journalists investigate how deforestation in the Chichinautzin, Zempoala, Ajusco and Las Cruces mountain ranges is becoming a relevant factor in the country’s water crisis.
Latin America is experiencing a phenomenon called narco-deforestation.
The term ‘narco-deforestation’ is relatively new; its use became popular between 2016 and 2017. However, specialists from the University of Oregon emphasize that deforestation caused by criminal groups (essentially cartels) was denounced as a problem since the early 2000s and caused greater concern starting in 2006.
According to a study by geographer Kendra McSweeney, at the beginning of the millennium and until 2014 the red hotspots of narco-deforestation were Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. According to the center and media outlet Insight Crime, the change in security and anti-drug policies of the Felipe Calderón administration (2006) and the reconfiguration of the Sinaloa, Gulf, Juárez and Familia Michoacana cartels in Mexico led to the territories of Central America and the Caribbean becoming new drug trafficking routes.
With the declaration of the war on drugs and the support it received from the government in Washington, criminal groups moved into the Northern Triangle of Central America causing significant increases in the levels of insecurity in El Salvador, a greater presence of the Los Zetas Cartel in Guatemala and the installation of logistics centers and clandestine airstrips in Honduras to extend the dominance of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Mexico: narco-deforestation and avocado industry
“But the relationship between organised crime and deforestation is not consistent across the region,” Insight Crime notes. In Mexico, for example, illegal logging, one of the fastest growing economic activities, is linked to avocado cultivation. The country of the Aztecs is the world’s leading producer and exporter of the fruit. In 2021, trade relations with the United States, which imports 81% of avocados, will generate $2.8 billion, and in March 2024, the value of international sales will increase by 46%.
The importance of the so-called “green gold” and corruption have led criminal groups in western Mexico to take an interest in avocado-related activities. As shown in the documentary El guardián de las monarcas, in states such as Michoacán, deforestation and slash-and-burn farming is linked to the establishment of illegal orchards, where avocados are grown alongside limes, serrano chillies and tomatoes. According to researcher Itzel De Haro Lopez (University of Wisconsin), the cartels also make money from the avocado industry by robbing and extorting growers, packers and transporters.
Coca cultivation and deforestation: a 30 year old agenda
In Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the common denominator of narco-deforestation is coca, considered “an indicator of environmental deterioration. In addition to cultivation, the processing of one kilo of cocaine requires more than 300 liters of gasoline, in addition to substances such as sulfuric acid and kerosene, which have an impact on water contamination, soil degradation and health effects on at least 189 species (including the red-breasted honeycreeper, the broad-nosed bat, the harlequin frog and crabs).
Although in 2011 studies such as the one by ecologist Liliana M. Dávalos reported a decline in U.S. demand for cocaine, Colombia has not curbed this problem, which was accentuated in the 1990s and became more dynamic in the new millennium, especially in Putumayo, Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Caquetá and Guaviare.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), deforestation due to coca cultivation has increased significantly over the past decade. Between 2005 and 2014, only 6% of forest loss was due to this factor. By 2018, it was 46%.
In addition, Colombia’s Integrated Illicit Crop Monitoring System has shown that at least 47% of coca cultivation takes place in so-called Special Management Zones. These are: National Natural Parks (PNN), Forest Reserves, Indigenous Reserves, and lands of Black Community Councils.
The UN agency also identifies low levels of urban development, proximity to water networks and inequality in land distribution as relevant factors in the spread and growth of the coca production system. Between 1998 and 2023, Colombia will have “irreversibly lost 7 million hectares of natural forest, at a rate of almost 310,000 hectares per year”, according to the organisation Elementa DDHH. In this country, the phenomenon of deforestation caused by illicit coca cultivation also has a historical component: the armed conflict.
Meanwhile, in Peru, specialists have expressed great concern about the situation in Callería. According to data from Ojo Público ‘s Cross-Border Investigative Network , in this district of Ucayali coca cultivation increased sevenfold in a four-year period; it went from 1,047 in 2018 to 7,846 hectares in 2022. For its part, in Bolivia coca planting has been registered in 6 of the 23 protected areas. The most serious case is Carrasco National Park in Cochabamba, which accounts for 51% of coca cultivation in protected areas.
When deforestation of nature reserves is also related to cattle ranching and illegal mining
In 2023, environmentalist Liliana Dávalos asked to broaden the analysis of deforestation in countries such as Colombia, as this phenomenon should no longer only take into account coca cultivation. “The great part of deforestation is due to land grabbing, the conversion of forests into pastures for cattle. Not coca,” he said in an interview with El País.
A little more than 10 years ago, cases such as that of Petén, a Guatemalan department hit by the violence of Los Zetas, began to show that drug deforestation was also linked to the construction of airstrips and, above all, to cattle ranches.
As Insight Crime documented in 2022, the involvement of organized crime in cattle ranching poses a threat to nature reserves and indigenous territories in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. The illicit cattle industry takes advantage of the global beef trade and, in turn, criminal groups see a field of opportunity for territorial control and money laundering.
The incursion into this primary economic activity also allows drug traffickers to establish relationships with meat businessmen, large cattle ranchers and officials who “facilitate the laundering of cattle by introducing them into the legal supply chain,” according to Insight Crime. Research also shows that around 70 percent of the 1.3 million hectares of deforested land in Central America is used for cattle.
Over the past 35 years, this area of the continent (particularly Guatemala) has also become a strategic point for cattle smuggling to states such as Tabasco and Campeche in Mexico. Although less profitable than drug or timber trafficking, Mexican cartels have found illegal cattle ranching to be a secondary source of income. Nicaragua’s Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) has also indicated that money laundering is the main objective of drug trafficking.
Among the environmental crimes attributed to narco-deforestation, the UN includes illegal mining, which, in addition to being an avenue for money laundering, has become a profitable activity due to the transnational extraction and trafficking of gold and the commercial relations established with the United States. Along with Mexico, Venezuela and Peru, Ecuador is one of the Latin American countries most affected by drug trafficking, due to the links between Ecuadorian and Mexican cartels (especially between Los Choneros – Sinaloa Cartel and Los Lobos – Jalisco Cartel – New Generation).
Of course, the increase, intensification and expansion of environmental crime caused by organised crime has also been made possible by the corruption, impunity and lack of environmental perspective of Latin American governments.
