Drug traffickers wiping out the jaguar in Central America

The jaguar roams jungles and riverbanks from the Amazon to Mexico, and even into the southwestern United States. It’s a powerful and cunning hunter, and a single cat’s territory can stretch hundreds of miles. The Aztecs called their most fearsome warriors “ocelotl” — jaguar soldiers. But now the jaguar is being defeated by a ruthless, modern-day warrior of a different sort: Powerful drug cartels are carving up its Central American natural habitat. In some areas, particularly in Honduras and Guatemala, the big cats are at risk of disappearing entirely. “Drug dealing in Honduras is definitely affecting jaguar conservation,” said Jorge Guardia, a conservationist with a major international environmental NGO in Honduras (his name has been changed and his employer’s identity concealed for fears of attacks by narco-traffickers). “Habitat destruction is the No. 1 threat, and money from drugs is fueling illegal activities in protected areas — mainly cattle ranching.”  Cocaine and cows may seem like an odd combination, but ranching has proved to be an ideal way to launder drug money. It’s even happening right inside supposedly protected forests. The connection between the drug trade and habitat loss is simple. Drug traffickers prefer to operate in remote areas away from government control, which often means protected lands. They quickly move in and begin constructing clandestine roads and airstrips, according to Kendra McSweeney, associate professor of geography at Ohio State University and lead author of “Drug Policy as Conservation Policy: Narco-Deforestation,” a 2014 paper published in the journal Science...more

As we have documented here many times (see here and here for two examples) the drug and human traffickers are destroying protected lands on the U.S. side of the border.  Now we see the same happening in Mexico and other countries.  As the article states, "Drug traffickers prefer to operate in remote areas...which often means protected lands." 

Thanks to Obama-Udall-Heinrich, the traffickers now have a half-million acre National Monument right on the border which places strict limitation on border patrol access.  Not satisfied with that, Senators Udall and Heinrich want thousands of those acres to be designated Wilderness, which further limits all law enforcement, and have introduced legislation to accomplish such designations.

Protected areas draw illegal traffickers.  Do Udall and Heinrich not understand that?  Or do they just not care as they hurry along to support the environmentalists agenda?