COPÉN, Honduras — Nine men were harvesting mahogany deep in the woods here when Alonso Pineda and his son appeared, carrying shotguns. An arrest warrant hangs over the two for clearing the forest illegally, but on that day they posed as its protectors.

“This is private property, and that tree is contraband,” Mr. Pineda shouted, witnesses recalled.

Mr. Pineda’s claims were not true, presumably part of a ruse to seize the wood for himself. In fact, the men cutting the timber that day belong to a legal cooperative that has been managing the forest for almost 15 years under government agreements that include permits to collect valuable mahogany while leaving the rest of the woods virtually untouched.

“You’ll have to take me out of here dead,” replied one man. Someone else buzzed a chain saw, recalled another member of the group, Luis Ruiz, and the outlaw pair vanished among the trees.

It was just a fleeting glance of Mr. Pineda, who has led settlers into the woods to cut down trees and replace them with corn plots and pastureland, which can eventually be sold, forestry experts and residents say. The communities conserving the forest, which is owned by the state, say they are losing their livelihood because of such incursions.