Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America

January 2014

"Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130141217.htm

     An article in the journal Science describes seven researchers who worked in Central America on growing evidence that drug trafficking threatens forests in remote areas of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and nearby countries. These traffickers are slashing down forests, usually within protected areas, in order to make way for secret landing strips and roads to move drugs. Additionally, they are converting forests into agribusinesses to launder their drug profits. Kendra McSweeney, the lead author of the Science article and an associate professor of geography at The Ohio State University, says that this trafficking is a response to U.S.-led anti-trafficking efforts, especially in Mexico.

     The researchers found that the amount of new deforestation per year more than quadrupled in Honduras between 2007 and 2011, the same period when cocaine movements in the country also spiked. In the Science article, McSweeney and her co-authors write that deforestation starts with the covert roads and landing strips that traffickers create in the remote forests. The mixing of drug cash into these areas helps encourage resident ranchers, land speculators and timber traffickers to move forward with their efforts, even at the expense of the indigenous people who are often important forest protectors.

     The drug traffickers also convert the forest areas to agriculture as a way to launder their money. Although this land conversion occurs within protected areas and is therefore illegal, drug traffickers use their profits to sway government leaders to their side.

"McSweeney said more research is needed to examine the links between drug trafficking and conservation issues. But there is already enough evidence to show that U.S. drug policy has a much wider effect than is often realized."