Mexican Deforestation in the Sierra Madre (MEXDEFOR case)

   CASE NUMBER:      287
   CASE MNEMONIC:    MEXDEFOR
   CASE NAME:        Mexican Deforestation in the Sierra Madre






About TED Categories and Clusters



A.        IDENTIFICATION

1.        The Issue

     The forests of the Sierra Madre Occidental are being assaulted
on several fronts.  The Mexican government is legitimately taking
millions of acres of board feet from the forest to export abroad to
earn some hard cash and to help solve their terrible foreign debt
crisis.  Nearly twenty percent of the timber logged in the Sierra
Madre is sold to the U.S. as plywood, paper, or pulp.  Many other
thousands of acres are being logged illegally or burned by
narcotraficantes who then plant acres of marijuana and opium plants
in their stead.  Usually, the drug traffickers force the Tarahumara
Indians into growing the crops for them, oftentimes, under the
penalty of death if they refuse.  These drugs, once processed, are
worth hundreds of millions of dollars at their final destination -
the streets of the United States.  The forests are being destroyed
with little attempt at reforestation, and currently, both plant and
animal species are starting to disappear, erosion is becoming a
larger problem, and the Tarahumara Indian tribe is facing the
destruction of their culture.

2.        Description

     The issue is the massive deforestation of the Sierra Madre
Occidental in the Mexican state of Chihuahua to both legal and
illegal forestry practices.  Home to one of the largest
biologically diverse areas in Mexico, the old growth forests and
the many animal species living within it are quickly falling prey
to the clear-cutting methods of Mexican forestry companies, and
increasingly, to drug lords seeking to clear and use the land to
plant and grow their illicit crops.  The Tarahumara Indian tribe,
residents of this area for the past several thousand years, are
finding their traditional lifestyle and culture being destroyed as
they fall prey to brutal drug lords who coercively force them to
grow their crops and to a Mexican government that increasingly
looks the other way.  

     The Tarahumara Indians have lived relatively untouched by
Western civilization in the Sierra Madre Occidental and its
extensive network of massive canyons called barrancas for the past
6,000 years.  The Tarahumara were never conquered by the Spanish
Conquistadores or the Jesuit missionaries who brought their
smallpox with them in 1607.  In 1631, the Spaniards briefly
controlled the Tarahumara and coerced them into working for them in
their silver mines.  After a failed revolt in 1696 led to brutal
reprisals by the Spanish, the Tarahumara went farther into the
Sierra back country fleeing civilization.  Since then, the
indigenous people have largely been left to their own ways until
gradual Western encroachment began in the latter part of the
nineteenth century and the early part of this century.  Loggers
started arriving in the Sierra Madre in the late 1800s and
conscripted the Tarahumara to provide a cheap labor supply for
their operations (Shoumatoff 90, 1995).  Again, instead of actively
opposing the intervention of Westerners onto their lands, although
they did briefly rebel against the loggers in 1918, the Tarahumara
fled deeper into the labyrinthine maze of canyons to escape foreign
influence.  Sustained Mexican encroachment and Tarahumara isolation
came to a relative end in 1962 when the last section of the
Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was finally completed to traverse
the Sierra Madre (Weisman 1994, 1994).  With the railroad came more
loggers and the environmental degradation of the area began to
accelerate.  

     The Sierra Madre boasts some of the richest biodiversity
anywhere in North America and contains about two thirds of the
standing timber in Mexico.  Twenty three different species of pine
and some 200 species of oak reside within the Sierra Madre
Occidental.  So far, over cutting of the forests in this area since
the early part of this century has caused the extinction of the
imperial woodpecker (the largest woodpecker on Earth) and has lead
to several other species becoming critically endangered such as the
Mexican gray wolf, jaguar, and thick-billed parrot.  Currently, all
but 300,000 acres or about 2 percent of the old-growth forest is
gone, most without approval or permits from the Tarahumara tribe
(Shoumatoff 1995, 92).  The smaller trees left as seed stock in
place of the old growth forests have mostly died because they lack
protection from the elements provided by taller trees.  Local
logging companies - some believed to be in close association with,
and in a few cases, owned by the narcotraficantes, have been
forcing new roads into remote settlements and cutting what remains
of the last old-growth forests. This land, often under Indian
protectorship, is often logged without Tarahumara permission. 

     In addition to being under attack by illegal logging
practices, another severe threat to the Sierra Madre Occidental
old-growth stands was a 1989 World Bank Loan to Mexico of  $45.5
million for a logging and forest-management project (Mardon and
Borowitz 1990, 98).  The plan, to log more than 4 billion board
feet of lumber from 20 million acres of forest over six and one-
half years was ostensibly put in place to help Mexico correct its
trade deficit by reducing its dependence on imported paper pulp. 
Many environmentalists were opposed to this loan for the following
reasons: indigenous peoples' lives would be even more disrupted (no
jobs were promised, just lots of erosion), any hope of a world-
class national park in the region would be dashed, and lastly, the
oak and pine-covered watersheds would be destroyed with far-
reaching effects that could eventually be felt in Texas.  (The
erosion and destruction of watersheds could eventually deplete
underground aquifers used as water sources by both Texans and
Mexicans to grow crops or for industrial purposes.)  Plus, the
World Bank had slated only three percent of the total funds for
conservation purposes.  An amount many people felt to be woefully
inadequate.  Many environmentalists also felt that logging would be
a big mistake compared to potential revenue a park encompassing
Copper Canyon (a system of tangled, immense chasms, four of which
are deeper than the Grand) and the Tarahumara tribe would generate
from tourist visitation.  Even though the area is currently a
popular eco-tourist destination, the threat and destruction posed
by drug traffickers and their activities is still very real
problem.  People flock to the Sierra Madre Occidental to experience
nature and its indigenous peoples at its unspoiled best.  But if
that beauty is marred by deforestation, erosion, and the threat of
bodily harm by narcotraficantes, individuals will stop traveling
there and the area will no longer be seen as a suitable
destination.       

     Potential erosion of the Sierra Madre Occidental due to
logging also threatens the headwaters of the Rio Conchos, the Rio
Grande's largest tributary.  In the rainy season, with no forests
to protect the exposed slopes, the area could face floods,
extensive siltation of the river followed by a drying out of the
riverbeds (Mardon and Borowitz 1990, 99).  Instead of slowly
filtering into underground aquifers, water quickly gets swept away
leaving traditional underground springs dry and depriving the
Tarahumara of a vital drinking source.  With no springs, the
Indians have turned to drinking river water that is increasingly
becoming polluted by paraquat (a herbicide I will discuss later). 
Higher disease rates are stalking the Indians because they have to
drink this contaminated water.  With the drying out of the
riverbeds, during a drought the Rio Conchos does not flow nearly as
well affecting agricultural communities on both sides of the
border.  In essence, the environmentalists claimed that by logging
the Sierra Madre Occidental the Mexican government was sacrificing
wildlife, people, and forests for short-term economic gain.
 
     Along with deforestation, drug cultivation is another threat
to one of the continent's most crucial ecosystems.  The first opium
and marijuana seeds were brought to the Sierra Madre Occidental in
the 1930s by Chinese traders who saw the potential for growing
plants in the large, unpatrollable area (Weisman 1994, 10).  Modern
drug traffickers started showing up in the Sierra Madre 25 years
ago with promises of lots of cash.  The counterculture revolution
in the States created a new market for mind-altering plants and the
Sierra Madre provided the perfect location.   Much like the 1960s,
the U.S. is still the vast consumer market where most of the drugs
from this area are headed for.  Hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of drugs originate from the Sierra's each year.  Seven
million pounds of marijuana, much of if cultivated in the Sierra
Madre, made its way into the U.S. as did 2,500 pounds of Sierra-
grown heroin in 1995, with a street value of roughly $650 million
(Weisman 1994, 150).

     In many areas of the Sierra Madre there are opium plants
surrounded by strands of barb wire in clearings of downed trees
that have either been burned or logged.  According to the latest
statistics, ten poppy bulbs yield one gram of opium and one bulb
can be milked three to ten times.  In a raid against a poppy field
one author participated in, he watched authorities destroy twelve
acres of crops.  Estimating that there were ten bulbs per square
yard, 150,000 grams of opium were destroyed that was worth at least
$450,000, estimating $80 per gram in the U.S. (Weisman 1994, 33). 
Unfortunately, these kind of raids are a rare occurrence in the
area because there is no budget for the Mexican federales to
destroy crops.  The government has no funds to hire men, purchase
sophisticated arms to fight the heavily armed narcotraficantes, or
maintain the necessary air support to carry out or support raids. 

     Colombians are increasingly carrying out the drug trade within
the Mexican states of Jalisco and Chihuahua.  In the case of
Chihuahua, the Sierra Madre Occidental is one of the most
productive drug-growing areas in the world because of its year-
round sunshine and thousands of acres of unpatrolled hillsides.
Chihuahua also offers the cartels easy access to the U.S. with its
480 miles of unguarded border.  The Mexican government has tried to
crack down on this infiltration of South American drug cartels but
has largely been ineffectual.  As a response to this encroachment,
the Mexican army has recently been summarily arresting the
Tarahumara drug growers (usually reluctant) while the druglords,
the caciques, seldom are caught.  Also, Mexican authorities, in an
effort to wipe the drug plants, have repeatedly sprayed the back
country with paraquat and other herbicides, wiping out rare
butterflies and contaminating local water supplies and plant life. 
This spraying presents another hazard to the Tarahumara because
they eat 200 different species of plants and use 300 more for
medicinal purposes (Shoumatoff 1995, 91).  The Fontes Cartel, one
of the larger groups operating in the Sierra Madre and lead by
Artemio Fontes, is also suspected of being involved in the illegal
logging that has defaced much of the Sierra.  Logging companies are
oftentimes used as a cover by traffickers because the roads make it
easier for them to harvest their illicit crops, timber trucks
provide a legitimate, camouflaged mode of drug transport and the
loggers often serve the traficantes by acting as their intimidation
squads.  

     The increasingly-powerful drug cartels have systematically
coerced the Indians into cultivating marijuana and opium poppies. 
If the Indians cooperate, they are sometimes paid in alcohol or
corn.  A kilogram of marijuana is worth between 100 and 200 kilos
of corn to the Tarahumara, or about $250 (Weisman 1994, 150).  In
times of drought when the corn crop fails, the cash crop
alternative is often the only choice the Indians have to live.  In
fact, a few acres of opium could bring approximately $500 to an
Indian if he could survive the threats and violence to himself and
his family (De Palma 1995, 6).  If they are not cooperative, they
are intimidated, forced off the land, have their food and livestock
stolen and oftentimes their families are subjected to harassment,
rape, torture, and murder (Shoumatoff 1995, 90).  The local Mexican
authorities are too intimidated or often too implicated in the
dealings to protect them.  The Indians, who have depended on the
forests for millennia, have been left hanging in the balance with
hardly anyone to defend their way of life. 

     One group that has formed to stop the human-rights abuses and
environmental degradation of the area is the Consejo Asevor Sierra
Madre (CASMAC).  Their basic function is to provide a safe haven
for terrorized Indians.  This group, formed several years ago and
lead by Edwin Bustillos, who is part Tarahumara, also seeks to put
a halt to the devastating drug trade, cattle rustling, and lumber
practices within the Sierra Madre.  In one instance, a drug lord
built a road into a remote Tarahumara village without their
permission and was going to charge the Indians $100,000 for its
completion (Shoumatoff 1995, 91).  If the Indians couldn't pay, the
drug lords were willing to take their payment in trees with the
intent of planting illicit crops once the trees were gone. 
Fortunately, CASMAC and the Indians won this battle in the
Chihuahua courts so that the Indians did not have to pay anything
and the forest remained intact.  Edwin Bustillos, in 1995, had
survived three attempts on his life within the past year by
narcotraficantes looking to silence his opposition to their
operations in the Sierra Madre.  Unfortunately, CASMAC has not
proven to be that effective in protecting the Indians and from 1994
to 1995 has reported an average of four Indians per week being
murdered by the narcotraficantes (Shoumatoff 1995, 57).   CASMAC's
partner in the U.S., the Arizona Rainforest Alliance, provides
funds for these projects as do groups such as the World Wildlife
Fund and the World Resources Institute.  Some of CASMAC's goals
include introducing environmentally sound farming techniques to the
Tarahumara to trying to save an endangered parrot species.  In
1994, CASMAC, along with several U.S. environmental groups, was
able to stop another $90 million World Bank road-building project
in the Sierra Madre that would have given loggers and
narcotraficantes access to 4 billion more board feet of lumber. 
CASMAC has also lobbied successfully for an amendment to the
Chihuahua state constitution guaranteeing the rights of indigenous
people, blocked several illegal logging operations, and overseen
the eradication of over 250 acres of illicit crops (Shoumatoff
1995, 60).  
 
     One of Edwin Bustillos' more controversial ideas to stop this
drug-induced destruction of the Tarahumara culture is to legalize
drugs so that narcotraficantes would contain their activities to
certain areas and stay out the increasingly-remote lands cared for
by the Tarahumara.  These remote areas within the Sierra Madre
where the Indians still flee to escape foreign encroachment, are
marginal for producing corn, the Indians main staple.  Because of
a severe drought the past several years (the worst in 40 years) the
corn crop has failed to produce and the Tarahumara were seeing an
increasing rise in the number of deaths of children to
malnutrition-related diseases.  In fact, infant mortality rates
were so high in 1994 that Tarahumara women gave birth to ten
children hoping that half would survive (Marks 1994, 5).  Although
the Mexican government has tried to provide some relief to the
Indians, it was not nearly enough to stop the Tarahumara population
from dropping precipitously.  

     Some of these areas where the Indians have fled, deep within
the Mexican state of Chihuahua, house one of the most complex and
productive systems of native agriculture in the world.  The
Tarahumara have been able to survive in this harsh environment for
thousands of years by being able to adapt their crops to the tough
conditions.  The pockets of Tarahumara human habitation in the
Sierra Madre offer ethnobotanists an unprecedented genetic
repository including: heirloom strains of beans, squash, gourds,
chiles, and especially corn (Marks 1994, 13).  These strains, found
nowhere else in the world, offer scientists a link to human
agricultural activity in the past and possibly, knowledge of how to
grow vegetables in other drought-plagued areas of the planet.  As
of now, the Mexican government is still unconcerned about the
Indians' plight despite numerous calls and heeds to Mexican
president Ernesto Zedillo's office by Bustillos' organization and
others to protect the remaining Tarahumara.  Countless sorrow and
ecological loss is being wreaked upon Chihuahua.  Poverty,
marginalization, logging and rampant drug trafficking have
destabilized the Sierra Madre Occidental and left its fragile
ecosystem and indigenous people, the Tarahumara, on the verge of
destruction.

3.        Related Cases

COLDEFOR Case
BOLCOCA Case
COCA Case
COLCOCA Case

Key Words

           (1) : Deforestation
           (2) : Indigenous
           (3) : Opium

4.        Geoff Galster (May, 1996)

B.        LEGAL Clusters
          
5.        Discourse: Disagreement and Allegation
          
     Certainly there is consensus among many environmental groups,
the Tarahumara, and CASMAC that the Sierra Madre Occidental is
worth saving.  On the other hand, however, the narcotraficantes and
the Mexican government view the area as an exploitable resource
that does not need any attention.  The protection of the Tarahumara
and their fragile ecosystem is not a priority in the eyes of many
officials who instead feel that the Sierra timber is a vital source
of foreign capital.  Although CASMAC has successfully pursued some
legal action against the loggers and the Mexican government has
carried out some anti-drug activity in the area, narcotraficantes
rule the area with impunity. 

6.        Forum and Scope: MEXICO and UNILATeral

     Mexican legislation, and more specifically, the state of
Chihuahua, has passed legislation giving rights to the Tarahumara
Indians.  Although the growing of, transport, sale, etc. of drugs
is illegal in Mexico, so many officials at all levels have been
corrupted by narcotraficante money that drug interdiction and
capture/prosecution of drug lords is nearly impossible.  The U.S.
is currently reviewing whether the Mexican government is doing all
that it can to stop the flow of drugs into this country.  A finding
that they are not could lead to a suspension or withdrawal of U.S.
aid.

7.        Number of Parties Affected: ONE (Mexico)

     The countries of Mexico and the U.S. are both directly and
indirectly involved in the drug trafficking and deforestation of
the Sierra Madre Occidental.  While the Mexican state of Chihuahua
encompasses the part most severely affected, the U.S. is the major
export market for a good percentage of the wood pulp logged in the
area and is the major destination for much of the opium and
marijuana grown in the area.  The deforestation of the area and
watershed destruction can also lead to trouble in areas around the
Rio Conchos and Rio Grande in times of drought causing problems for
farmers on both sides of the border.  The Tarahumara Indian is also
a party that is seriously affected by what is going on in the
mountains.

8.        Standing: SUBLAW

     As stated above, with the Mexican federal government taking a
hands off approach to the area, Chihuahua law seems to be the only
place of refuge for CASMAC and the Tarahumara.

C.        GEOGRAPHIC Clusters

9.        Geography

a.        Continental Domain: North America   [NAMER]
b.        Geographic Site: SNAMER

c.        Impact:  MEXICO

10.       SUB-STATE: NO

11.       Habitat Type: TEMPERATE

D.        TRADE Clusters

12.       Type of Measure: Regulatory Standard

13.       Impact Direct or Indirect: INDirect

14.       Relation of Measure to Impact

a.   Directly Related to Product:     YES   PHARMaceutical
b.   Indirectly Related to Product:   YES   WOOD
c.   Not Related to Product:          NO
d.   Related to Process:              YES   Deforestation   [DEFOR]

15.       Product Type: WOOD

     Boards, wood pulp, paper, along with processed opium (heroin)
and marijuana flow into the U.S. from the Sierra Madre.

16.       Economic Data

17.       Degree of Competitive Impact: MEDium

     The wood and drug trade has a severe impact on the environment
and people within the Sierra Madre Occidental.  We are witnessing
the destruction of the one of the most diverse and spectacular
settings in all of North America without much being done to stop it
on either side of the border.  A certain number of environmental
groups here in the U.S. have provided funding for CASMAC, but
little has been done to support their work either from
international agencies (World Bank) or from the governments of
Mexico or the U.S.  Until the U.S. ceases to be a huge illicit drug
market, or the Mexican government cracks down on the drug-sponsored
corruption of their society, (both monumental tasks) little can be
done to stop the environmental and cultural degradation that is
occurring incessantly.

18.       Industry Sector: WOOD

19.       Exporter and Importer:   MEXICO and USA
     
E.        ENVIRONMENT Clusters

20.       Environmental Problem Type:  Deforestation   [DEFOR]

21.       Name, Type, and Diversity of Species

     Name:           Mexican Gray Wolf, Jaguar, Thick-billed Parrot

     Type:           Mammal-canine/Mammal-feline/Bird

     Diversity:      Only a few hundred thought to be surviving

     IUCN Status:    ENDANGERED

22.       Impact and Effect:   HIGH and SCALE

23.       Urgency and Lifetime:   HIGH and Hundreds of Years      

24.       Substitutes: Conservation of the remaining habitat

F.        OTHER Factors

25.       Culture:    YES

     The American consumption of wood and illicit drug products is
driving the Mexican forest companies and the drug cartels to
monopolize the Sierra Madre Occidental.

26.       Human Rights:    YES

     As I have noted previously in my descriptive part of the case
study, the Tarahumara's ancient culture is being destroyed by the
ruthless loggers and drug traffickers.  Powerless to stop the
onslaught of machines and men, the Indian culture stands
dangerously on the brink of destruction.

27.       Trans-Boundary Issues:    YES 

     Mexico and the United States.

28.       Works Cited

De Palma, Anthony. "Dying Babies are Witness to Proud People's
Crisis." The New York Times, 31 October 1994, sec. 1A, p. 4.

De Palma, Anthony. "Mexico's Indians Face New Conquistador: Drugs."
The New York Times, 2 June 1995, sec. 1A, p. 6.

Mardon, Mark and Susan Borowitz. "Banking on Mexico's Forests."
Sierra 75 (November/December): 98-100.

Marks, Scott. "Starvation, Isolation Killing Children of Mexico
Indians." The Los Angeles Times, 25 November 1994, sec. 1A, p. 5.

Shoumatoff, Alex. "Trouble in the Land of Muy Verde." Outside 15
(March 1995): 56-63.

Shoumatoff, Alex. "Hero of the Sierra Madre." Utne Reader 70
(July/August 1995): 90-99.

Weisman, Alan. "The Drug Lords Versus The Tarahumara." The Los
Angeles Times Magazine, 9 January 1994, 10.