View of crops and a forest on a hillside damaged by deforestation, pests and prolonged droughts in the La Ceiba Talquezal village in the municipality of Jocotan in eastern Guatemala, on May 5, 2017.

(Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images))

At a Glance

Drug traffickers in Central America have cleared large swaths of forests for money laundering and other drug-related activities. Up to 30 percent of annual deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala can be directly tied to drug trafficking. The practice leaves the area and its people particularly vulnerable to natural disasters like flooding.

Deep within the forest of many Central American countries, drug traffickers have cleared large swaths of trees and vegetation for drug-related activity, a practice that leaves the area and its people particularly vulnerable to natural disasters like flooding.

Up to 30 percent of annualin Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemalahappens becauseland is being cleared for money laundering and other drug-trafficking activities, according to a recentstudy.

“Most of thewe identified happened in biodiverse moist forest areas, and around 30-60 percent of the annual loss happened within established protected areas, threatening conservation efforts to maintain forest carbon sinks, ecological services, and rural and indigenous livelihoods,” saidlead authorSteven Sesnie of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

David Wrathall, co-author of the study and an Oregon State University geographer, told an audience atthe University of Costa Rica recently that forests act as aagainst extreme weather and help regulate rainfall, Reuters reports. Without the protection of the forests, communities are more vulnerable to disasters.

In addition, the land taken by traffickers cuts off local communities from other areas, making it difficult for residents to escape to a safe place during floods.

"Their land is taken by drug traffickers. They have no room to grow. All their activities, their houses, their roads and their use of the land are confined to a small space. If there is a flood event, they have no resilience," Wrathall said.

The study, published in 2017, notes that thecleared land in this region is being used to traffick cocaine rather than to cultivatedrugs.

In the early 2000s,the United States began a campaign to end drug traffickingin the Caribbean and Mexico. This effort pushed drug traffickers into more remote places that were harder to patrol such as the large, forested areas of Central America, where they use legit agricultural activities like cattle ranching and palm oil production to launder money. They also use mining, tourism ventures and industrial agriculture to funnel drug money into legitimate businesses.

"A flood ofentered these places and these drug traffickers needed a way that they could spend it," said Wrathall, a climate and disaster expert livingnear La Mosquitia, Honduras."It turns out that one of the best ways to launder illegal drug money is to fence off huge parcels of forest, cut down the trees, and build yourself a cattle ranch. It is a major, unrecognized driver of tropical deforestation in Central America."

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Over the past decade or so, drug trafficking has been the primary driver ofland use change in this region, known as the, home to up to10 percent of the world’s endemic species.

“Large and remote forest areas with low socioeconomic development are particularly vulnerable to land use changes associated with drug trafficking and money launderingbecause of their isolation from improved roads, transportation infrastructure and law enforcement, and the opportunities they give traffickers to launder their profits through illegal frontier land markets,” Sesnie said.

Narco-deforestation not only adversely affects people, it destroys ecosystems,Wrathall said.

"The indigenous people who have lived sustainably in these environments are being displaced as the stewards of the land," he said. "These are very important ecological areas with tremendous biodiversity that may be lost."

The violence surrounding the lucrative drug trafficking, Wrathall noted.is also considered a major driver of the surge in migration from the region in recent years.