Three years ago, Kendra McSweeney was in a dugout canoe visiting Honduran villages when the lush river banks cleared and a huge barren landscape appeared. The Ohio State University geographer had been studying Central American cultures for two decades and had never seen anything like this makeshift airfield.

Three years ago, Kendra McSweeney was in a dugout canoe visiting Honduran villages when the lush river banks cleared and a huge barren landscape appeared.

The Ohio State University geographer had been studying Central American cultures for two decades and had never seen anything like this makeshift airfield.

�Just complete destruction, right in the middle of these biosphere reserves,� she recalled. � When I asked people what was going on they said, �It�s the narcos.� �

Deforestation is a growing problem worldwide, with about half of the world�s tropical forests already cleared for farming, development and timber, according to estimates.

And drug traffickers increasingly are doing the same to build clandestine landing strips and roadways to move drugs.

It�s called narco-deforestation and it contributes to climate change and destroys native habitat, according to McSweeney, lead author of a research paper on the subject that was published recently in the journal Science.

Since 1994, McSweeney, has visited the Mosquito Coast region of eastern Honduras, land known for scarlet macaws, roaming jaguars and tapirs. She studies how indigenous people interact with the environment.

�Resilience in the face of disaster,� is McSweeney�s account of life there without roads, electricity or much government control, which leads to drug trafficking and lawlessness.

When she first learned of the drug incursions, �I didn�t see how moving drugs through an area would in any way relate to the forests. But then I found it�s kind of like a DHL or FedEx hub.�

She and six other researchers found growing evidence of similar deforestation in remote areas of Guatemala, Nicaragua and other nearby countries.

The team found that the amount of deforestation in Honduras quadrupled between 2007 and 2011, the same period during which cocaine movement in the country spiked.

The researchers say the crackdown in Mexico forced drug traffickers to move south into Central America.

Planes loaded with cocaine land and take off from these makeshift airfields. Some planes, however are destroyed after they land. �The value of the plane and the fuel to send it home is not worth it,� McSweeney said.

Instead, the cocaine is driven to ports and shipped to the United States.

Not only are traffickers destroying the habitat, they�re forcing villagers to help. To launder drug money, traffickers convert forests into agribusinesses, she said.

�The community�s commandeered into helping,� McSweeney said.

Dual concerns of drugs and deforestation have become �sort of climate change meets Colorado drug reform,� she said.

Since the report was published in Science, McSweeney has given more than 40 interviews and been asked to speak around the world, including at the United Nations last week.

�No one was talking about the issue, yet everybody knew about it,� she said. �It�s like every European country has interviewed me. I�m just amazed at the amount of attention it�s been given."

Environmental groups have taken notice.

�The war on drugs damages the environment, not only through source eradication such as aerial fumigation in Colombia, but as new evidence shows, through interdiction efforts that are driving traffickers into pristine forests,� said Kate Horner, director of forest campaigns for the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Investigation Agency.

David Kaimowitz, with the Mexico City-based Ford Foundation, which helps promote forest-management practices, said trafficking affects land that no one manages or protects.

�It creates the perfect condition for organized crime and illegal activities to take hold,� he said.

America�s appetite for drugs also is to blame, McSweeney said.

�This is entirely driven by U.S. consumption of cocaine,� she said. �The drugs are destined for North American markets.�

Doing nothing, Kaimowitz said, is not an option.

�It opens the door for environment destruction, organized crime, smuggling; and ultimately that affects the national economies of these governments,� he said.

The research was supported in part by the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, Ohio State and Northern Arizona University.

dnarciso@dispatch.com

@DeanNarciso