The Jungle and Deforestation

Moonrise from a Lacandon village

Entering Zapatista territory. The Zapatista's have historically enjoyed much support in these jungle communities near the Guatemalan border. But they've been quite quiet for the past few years. At one waterfall we visited, we paid one fee to the community and then 60 meters later we paid another entry fee, purportedly to a parallel Zapatista government.

Cattle are the scourge of the jungle, requiring open pasture for sustenance. There are apparently lower density, more agroecological ranching techniques, but the farms we saw were scorched earth - fell every tree in sight and set the cattle a grazing. The air was often smoke and ashy from clearing the pastures with flames. As we left one Lacandon community, a forest burned out of control. Villagers were recruited to fight the blaze. The Lacandons are not historically ranchers; it's the more recent tzotziles that have the slash and burn reputation, leading to strained relationships between the two ethnic groups.