“Illegal logging for charcoal, and burning of forests during the fire season affect the environment in our lands,” says one of the affected Ejidatarios.
Inhabitants of the municipality of Champotón, located south of the capital of Campeche, demonstrated before the delegation of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to denounce cases of illegal logging, fires, and deforestation of their lands by environmental criminals, which affects some three thousand hectares.
This is the fourth complaint made by the Ejidatarios of the Cinco de Febrero locality, located in Campeche, so far this year without being able to stop the alleged environmental criminals.
The Ejido commissioner of Cinco de Febrero, José del Carmen García Góngora, explained that this is a problem that dates back several decades and that they have resorted to the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) with which they managed to get the authorities to carry out some sporadic operations, without solving the problem.
The representative of the Ejidatarios commented that in the town of Laguna Grande, bordering Cinco de Febrero, trailers loaded with charcoal leave every day and they do not know if these people have permits: “We are not against them having a permit, but that they do it in their areas. The problem is that they are affecting our land.”
Yuri Jorge Peña Ramírez, researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur, reported that in 2023, 64,600 hectares of natural forest were lost in Campeche, of which 24,600 corresponded to the primary or virgin forest, due to reasons such as deforestation, forest fires and natural causes.
The researcher added that in 2010, Campeche had 4.41 million hectares of natural forest, of which by 2023 only about 68 percent remained, around three million hectares.
Special investigation by: Jose Landa, text . Diego Sanchez, photgraphy.
Read the original article in Spanish here by El Sol de Mexico
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