The invisible impacts of violence and crime on biodiversity and communities in Mexican natural protected areas

While Mexico has been categorized as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change (SEMARNAT 2014), the ways in which organized crime contributes to exacerbating these impacts have been poorly studied. This includes the direct impacts upon biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, as well as fragmentation of local, human communities. Moreover, the country has an enormous responsibility to preserve and conserve its ecosystems, given that it is a mega-diverse country (CONABIO 2020). According to the Sixth National Report of Mexico to the Convention on Biological Diversity, ‘[Mexico] is part of the select group of mega-diverse countries that occupy approximately 10% of the planet’s surface, and together are home to approximately 70% of the world’s biodiversity’. The report underlines that this ‘great privilege also represents a huge global responsibility to guarantee the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their services, understood as key elements of development and human well-being’ (CONABIO 2020). To preserve its biodiversity, Mexico has increased its designation of natural protected areas. The National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) currently manages 185 Federal Protected Natural Areas representing 90,958,374 hectares, and supports 382 Voluntarily Destined Areas for Conservation, with an area of 623,090.49 hectares (CONANP 2022). On the other hand, because of its geographical location, climatic conditions and the socio-economic characteristics of Mexico’s human populations, ecosystems and their biodiversity are highly vulnerable to extreme hydrometeorological events, such as cyclones (considering its coastal length of 11,122 km) and droughts. Thus, in some rural or poor areas, the recovery after a disaster caused by floods, heavy rains or droughts could last more than 20 years, increasing poverty and breaking social cohesion – an essential element for a successful climate change adaptation strategy and community resilience. The loss of biodiversity in Mexico has been formally attributed to changes in land use, mainly due to agricultural and livestock activities, invasive species, and climate change impacts. However, since 2016 the budget for the National Commission for Biodiversity and the Forest National Commission have been dramatically decreased (Aguilar and Hernandez 2021). This budget reduction came despite [in Mexico] ‘475 species in danger of extinction, 896 considered threatened and 1,185 under special protection. An emblematic case is the vaquita marina, whose population is around 22 individuals’ (Aguilar and Danae 2021). The lack of conservation and sustainable ecosystem management in natural protected areas decreases the capacity to cope with climate change impacts, making communities even more vulnerable. According to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report of 2022, changes in ecosystem structure will be from high to very high in the region of Mexico (IPCC 2022). Climatic conditions never cause conflict alone, but changes in climate can alter the conditions under which specific social interactions occur and thus have the potential to change the likelihood that conflict results (Burke, Hsiang, and Miguel 2015). Therefore, it is crucial to refrain from manipulating the information by attributing directly any disaster which results in biodiversity loss and loss of human lives to extreme weather events. Thus, apart from floods, heavy rains, droughts, landslides, heat waves and other weather events or climate change impacts, biodiversity in Mexico is threatened by a more significant predator: organized crime groups and the impact their activities have upon ecosystems and natural protected areas. In this sense, according to the Global Peace Index 2022 (IEP 2022), Mexico continues to rank amongst the countries with the highest homicide rates and the eight most violent cities in the world. From 2019 to 2022,