How illegal logging is fueling CDMX forest fires

by Madeleine Wattenbarger and Axel Hernández.

“Because I saw they were destroying the forest, I had to come take care of it,” says Jorge Luis Morales of his decision twenty years ago to join the Teporingos forest-protection brigade.

Wildfires and illegal logging threaten the forest around Morales’s home community of San Miguel Topilejo, Tlalpan, where last week flames ripped through about six hundred hectares of woods. Burns have worsened since 2020 thanks to combustibles left behind by illegal logging operations.

Topilejo sits on the far southern edge of Mexico City, where it harbors 6,000 hectares of a community ecological reserve. Part of the capital’s recently dubbed “water forest,” the area remains governed by a communal land-holding structure. The brigade members, part of the Topilejo community, work year-round to reforest, prevent blazes and keep the trees healthy. “We take care of the forest so that Mexico City can have water,” Morales says.