Hugo Sanchez, a member of the forest squad, during a morn

Hugo Sanchez, a member of the forest squad, during a morning patrol : “They take away our life every time they cut down a tree,” he said, referring to illegal loggers. For people here, trees are a source of life but also of collective history and wisdom.
By 2011, hordes of armed illegal loggers, who residents say were supported by organized crime, seized the hills that surround the town, obliterating about 70% of the area’s woodland and scaring away locals. Residents appealed to local, state, and federal governments for help in stopping the loggers, but their pleas went largely ignored.

One morning in 2011, fed up with the deforestation, the high rate of accompanying violence, and official indifference to their plight, residents seized the police force’s weapons, expelled all politicians, and barred entry to town. They set up bonfires on the town’s intersections — about 160 of them — to keep criminals out, with all residents taking turns to keep watch around the clock.

The town now boasts two police forces, made up of 92 Cheráneans. One guards the town and one patrols the forest.
With help from the federal government and civil organizations, the town has built a tree nursery that grows 1.2 million pine trees every year and sells them to the National Forest Commission and several citizen organizations. The Communal Forest Nursery — “San Francisco,” as it is called — provides jobs to about 50 people from Cherán.” Photo by @adrianazehbrauskas for @everydayclimatechange.
Text by Karla Zabludovsky @karlazabs.

Curated by @michaelwwilson/@everydayaustralia.
#logging #deforestation #cheran #mexico