“The Sierra Tarahumara is under a constant climate of violence,” Gonzalez said. Isela Gonzalez, director of the Sierra Madre Alliance environmental group, said the gangs now compete to control local alcohol sales, extortion and kidnapping. The Ciudad Juarez-based La Linea gang is battling the Sinaloa cartel, whose local branch is known as Los Salazar. In the 2000s, the cartels expanded into illegal logging on Raramuri lands, driving out or killing anyone who opposed them. WHY IS THE SIERRA TARAHUMARA SO DANGEROUS?ĭrug cartels have long used the remote mountains to plant illicit crops of marijuana and opium poppies. They have suffered famine and starvation during the worst years, even in this century.
The Raramuri are still largely impoverished after centuries in which their ancestral land was taken from them. But the mountains are a land of tragedy as well as beauty.
