Donate Now Michael Stoll, for the Pulitzer Center
La Pasadita, Guatemala
The signs were all there: tree stumps, hastily constructed barbed-wire fences and stray cattle. All that was missing was the perpetrator — or perpetrators — of this all too common environmental crime.
About 45 hectares of forestland had been burned, replaced by corn plots and tall grasses, with a few cattle scattered about. About 50 head of cattle congregated around an artificial watering hole.
Officials said they arrested the men they believed to be responsible for this unauthorized land-use change, but they were out of jail on administrative supervision. They face long prison terms if convicted.
The problem is that log-slash-burn-farm-ranch-abandon cycles are rampant in this area...