Alejandro Melgoza and Alex Papadovassilakis present an important and fascinating report, on InSight Crime, into how a shadowy timber mafia, with ties to Asia, is illegally extracting precious wood on the Guatemala-Mexico border. They document how illegal loggers have ravaged some of the region’s most biodiverse forests and chronicle the unlikely story of a small group of park rangers fighting back.
Deep in the jungles of Petén, a department in the extreme north of Guatemala, a group of elite park rangers and military officials were waiting in silence, chest-down on an anthill.
They were hiding in order to ambush a group of illegal loggers seeking a much sought-after but protected type of wood known as granadillo. Its robustness and elegance make it a popular choice for furniture, yachts, and musical instruments, despite a ban on exporting the endangered species.
Hours passed. Red and black ants began gnawing at the rangers all over their bodies but the adrenaline pumping through their bodies prevented them from feeling the stings. There they remained, tired, hungry, and plastered in mud but committed to protecting the forests along the Guatemala-Mexico border.
It was the morning of May 3, 2020. Days earlier, the park rangers had spotted the loggers camping out near the border. They saw two vehicles, customized to carry wood, as well as a campfire and scraps of food. In the distance, they could hear the sound of chainsaws slicing through trees far older than them.
The plan was to catch the loggers red-handed. That’s why the rangers were with soldiers, whose authority they need to make arrests. Around 11:00 am, they saw two loggers approaching, chainsaws in hand. When they got close enough, the rangers and soldiers quickly surrounded them, covering their eyes and mouths, and moving them 100 meters away so they couldn’t alert their companions.
A few hours later, the rangers heard an odd-sounding bird noise: “coo, coo.” It was a covert message the loggers use to give the all clear. One of the soldiers responded: “coo, coo.” And minutes later, another five loggers appeared.
Two of them bolted upon seeing the authorities but were immediately caught. Others soon followed. Six hours in, the operation had rounded up seven loggers – most of them Mexican, from the state of Campeche bordering Guatemala.
These were not the first such arrests. Since 2018, the rangers had been fending off a shadowy network of illegal loggers that came to Guatemala in search of granadillo when reserves in southern Mexico began to wane.
Over a year after the operation, in November 2021, InSight Crime joined the convoy of park rangers on both sides of the border, spending two weeks deep inside the Mayan jungle to document the incursions of criminal groups.
You can read the full piece, including links, photos and a short video, here, The Jungle Patrol: Fighting Illegal Loggers on the Guatemala-Mexico Border.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Environment, Guatemala, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Military, Report, Resource Extraction, Solidarity in Action, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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