It was in Michoacán state in central-western Mexico where the so-called war against drugs began in December 2006 the forests were simultaneously being destroyed through the illegal expansion of avocado cultivation fueled by high avocado prices internationally the community forests of the village of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro said experts with knowledge of the community This community belonging to the Purépecha Indigenous group lives in the area around the Parícutin volcano and it has struggled in the climate of ungovernability unleashed in the region in 2006 interrupting and paralyzing the regional economy Nuevo San Juan has successfully protected its heritage and assets and maintained its supply chain and commercial routes who studied engineering in the city of Uruapan and business at IPADE the Pan-American Institute for Executive Business Management said their success can be summarized by a popular maxim: They made a virtue of necessity “This community has experienced many difficulties that have strengthened its organizational framework,” Anguiano Cuara said “The first great complication was the eruption of Parícutin in 1943 They had to move and construct a new town center homeless and with no economic opportunities for their families This led to emigration to other [Mexican] states As researchers Alejandro Torres, Gerardo Bocco and Alejandro Velázquez documented in their study “Las enseñanzas de San Juan” (Lessons from San Juan) the traditional authorities and their lawyers requested recognition and title for their communal lands from the Mexican government While achieving the security of land ownership is essential the intervening three decades permitted the community to establish a new town and slowly devise its transformation many Indigenous Purépechas were working in the timber industry in the mountains They decided that they needed further technical training in order to take control when about 20 community members created the Luis Echeverría Union of Ejidos and Indigenous Forest Communities of Tarascan Plateau the union obtained its first forest use permit Nuevo San Juan eventually separated from the union and focused on working alone on a project for its communal forests which had been degraded by private companies The community members of Nuevo San Juan first extracted the dead wood and firewood but then they began to make use of the forest Anguiano Cuara said that at the start of the forest project the community enjoyed the support of a paper company known today as BioPappel Grupo Scribe de Morelia the community established a modest sawmill which created around 15 jobs for the community “We had no resources from the government,” Anguiano Cuara said That’s how we got started — with a manual sawmill.” Anguiano Cuara eventually became Scribe’s sales and marketing coordinator The initial results of the forest project were presented at a community assembly in 1984 Anguiano Cuara said some people did not have confidence in the work which could have caused the project to collapse But the majority of the Purépechas decided this would not happen “It was a complex situation politically and socially with internal politics and leadership issues,” Anguiano Cuara said but there were others who continued supporting it until it yielded results.” He said the older members remember that the forest enterprise then needed more investment it was decided that the profits would be shared among the community members instead of being put toward needed vehicles and machinery They realized that sharing profits was unhelpful and that the enterprise needed reinvestment They also concluded that it was better to guarantee permanent jobs for the community The assembly reached an agreement on these issues carrying them through the next decade of work The community members not only stopped receiving profits “They were campesinos who knew how to work the land [not the forest] so they had to bring in many outsiders to move forward with the first projects,” Anguiano Cuara said “But they quickly gained practice and took ownership of the processes.” Committing to their children’s education was the other decision that cleared the way forward The first students to graduate as forest technicians and engineers had to walk 10 to 12 kilometers (6.2 to 7.5 miles) daily to take classes in Uruapan The enterprise’s other decision was to purchase a pulp mill and then build their first wood-drying kilns using adobe they changed their forest management method from the “mobile method” to the forestry development method The efforts of the community members led them to try to recover lands covered by volcanic debris there were approximately 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of forest evidence that the community has bucked the national trend of increasing deforestation This was the first step toward “what we know as community agriculture gardens,” Anguiano Cuara said Their commitment to the forest had already been decided the planting was on land that was reclaimed from the volcanic wasteland the peaches have mainly been replaced by more lucrative avocadoes Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro’s communal lands cover 18,138 ha (44,820 acres). According to data in a case study published by the United Nations Development Programme, as part of the Equator Initiative prize that the community won in 2004 more than 10,880 ha (26,885 acres) of these lands are designated for forestry 1,200 ha (2,965 acres) for forest planting and nurseries 1,913 ha (4,727 acres) for agricultural use and 35 ha (86 acres) for livestock pasture An additional 1,685 ha (4,163 acres) are categorized as “rocky terrain” and 152 ha (375 acres) as shrubs and bushes The Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro community’s temperate forest is typical of the central Mexican altiplano although there is also significant oak and alder diversity as well as other species The plant species density is about 100 per ha (about 40 per ac) The challenge of forest use is to not degrade this ecosystem that provides essential environmental services such as carbon capture and habitat for animals including white-tailed deer The importance of Nuevo San Juan’s forests has increased as the expansion of avocado cultivation has altered the region often with illegal changes in land use across the Purépecha Plateau the Interdisciplinary Group for Appropriate Rural Technology of the almost 200,000 ha (494,000 acres) of avocado cultivation established in the state of Michoacán in the last 30 to 35 years around half were previously temperate forest which crosses all of Michoacán from east to west.” which allowed them to process more cellulose fiber and “Our business partners are more than clients; they have supported us in strategic investments,” Anguiano Cuara said Starting from scratch forced them to do things differently Nuevo San Juan purchased four buses to transport workers and residents The community enterprise has four routes that cover the entire community they have also created a water bottling company a community store and a cable television channel Nuevo San Juan has also increased its human capital exponentially the National Institute of Statistics and Geography barely 4.9% of the population had more than a primary school education indicated that five out of six families in the community had at least one child who was either in university or had completed a university education This has generated a steady outflow of community residents for work or academics but the diversification in education and trades is a competitive advantage accountants and various types of engineers and business specialists the community serves as a learning site for the Uruapan Forest Ranger School and has connections with the agrobiology department also located in Uruapan It was in the 1990s that the Mexican government discovered the forest and the opportunities offered by forest management “There was talk of the model that San Juan had begun talk about community forestry,” Anguiano Cuara said “There was clearer interest on the part of the government they began to support it directly.” This support has been fundamental it would have taken twice as long to reach this level The community has continued to diversify its productive activities It established an environmental management unit for white-tailed deer reproduction and an ecotourism center named Patzingo near the volcano The World Bank has also provided resources for training and environmental education Nuevo San Juan obtained its first certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) This certification has been essential to maintaining its high labor standards and guaranteeing the conservation of the forest all processes are reviewed and action items identified every five years including the forest and industrial operations as well as a survey of social inclusion issues “This [FSC] certification is satisfying for us,” Anguiano Cuara said “It is the most rigorous organization globally.” Although the community only exports around 5% of the timber it produces the FSC certification logo is already opening up markets in Mexico Nuevo San Juan produces around 65,000 cubic meters (2.3 million cubic feet) of timber each year and has created various forestry enterprises for products ranging from resins to furniture It has a sizeable presence in markets in Mexico City The operations efficiently use nearly all parts of the felled timber: The primary wood is used to make boards as well as finished products like furniture smaller-diameter wood found near the top of the tree is used to make pallets branches and thinner trunks are debarked and ground to make cellulose fibers for paper only about 8-10% of it remains in the forest in the form of twigs and leaves which by law must be chipped to prevent the accumulation of combustible materials and help conserve the soil How has Nuevo San Juan dealt with the problem of cheap wood imports mainly from countries like Chile and Brazil but Anguiano Cuara said that after two years the inferior quality of the imported wood caused clients to come back Nuevo San Juan does not have to raise its prices to account for long-distance transportation which in turn provide 900 permanent and 300 temporary jobs There are enterprises for forest use; resin distillation; comprehensive development which include forest activities that range from collecting seeds to developing technical studies; community gardens tomatoes and blueberries; the farming program for strengthening the gardens through services including the management and conservation of springs and the water cycle; fertilizer distribution; a community store; cable television; the Patzingo ecotourism center; water bottling; local transportation; and an office to bring in international resources Nuevo San Juan is preparing for difficult times Substantial reductions in support from the federal government have led them to plan for a baseline They will rely on their strengths to face this: human capital and the powerful commitment of the 1,254 community members Why does Nuevo San Juan possess these strengths while other forest communities remain so vulnerable forests manager at the World Resources Institute (WRI) Mexico said he believes that older community projects were fortified by stronger government support through PROCYMAF the Conservation and Sustainable Forest Management Program Another factor is that the Indigenous communities have centuries of deep-rooted tradition or communal lands for agriculture in Mexico were formed more recently and are more socially diverse “Even though in some cases the area of land is not very large forest management has provided sufficient income to make significant social investments and lend itself legitimacy “This creates a common good that strengthens the community forest enterprise and the will to continue developing it because there is a consensus insufficient for social investment or distribution but since there is strong social organization “The avocado plantations are not located in the forest and they are supplied by the community itself They have done a good job of overcoming challenges of insecurity the expansion of avocado cultivation and other [issues].” Nuevo San Juan is the fruit of organization perhaps the most difficult since the volcano erupted and changed the community’s lives forever Banner image of the Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro Indigenous community, which maintains about 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of temperate forest in Michoacán, by María Eugenia Olvera/Polea A.C. This story was first reported by Mongabay’s Latam team and published here on our Latam site on July 23 The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] The mayor of the notoriously violent municipality of Aguililla while five men were killed in a gunfight in Nuevo Parangaricutiro in the same state Mayor César Arturo Valencia Caballero was driving his pickup truck after attending a meeting with state and federal officials when his vehicle was intercepted by armed men according to a report by the newspaper El Economista The Green party mayor was shot three times Paramedics confirmed his death upon arrival at the scene of the crime The attack occurred at approximately 4:15 p.m. Thursday near a soccer field in Aguililla, a municipality in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Cárteles Unidos have been engaged in a long-running turf war. The army retook control of Aguililla and neighboring municipalities a month ago but Thursday’s attack shows that violence remains a problem Michoacán Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla condemned Valencia’s murder in a Twitter post and said he had given instructions for a thorough investigation into the crime he described Aguililla – where CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes was born – as a “very complicated” area but added that authorities had not received any reports of a threat against the mayor “We’re going to continue supporting Aguililla; the federal government and the state government are supporting a pacification plan in the area,” he said Local priest Gilberto Vergara warned of the risk of other mayors in the Tierra Caliente region being targeted in armed attacks Criminal groups are no longer seen in the area due to the presence of the army “but that doesn’t mean they’re not there,” he said Fifteen mayors in Michoacán and 93 across the country have been murdered since 2000 a gunfight between presumed members of the CJNG and the Cárteles Unidos in and around the municipal palace of Nuevo Parangaricutiro The latter group fired weapons from armored vehicles colloquially known as monstruos (monsters) The Michoacán Attorney General’s Office (FGE) reported the deaths and also said that 32 people in possession of firearms were arrested The FGE said in a statement that state police the National Guard and the army responded to the confrontation Thursday in the town of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro It said that a criminal group – it didn’t specify which – had taken control of the municipal palace before the clash occurred Security forces seized a total of 43 firearms 15 explosive devices and tactical equipment “Investigations are continuing in order to determine the circumstances in which the events occurred,” it said ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Mexican volcano inspires scientists 80 years later A church tower peeks above from where lava from the Paricutin volcano buried the church decades ago, in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. Paricutin’s lava eventually covered seven square miles (18.5 square kilometers). Its slow advance allowed residents of the surrounding communities to relocate to land donated by the government. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) Residents celebrate the birth of the Paricutin volcano, in San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Monday, Feb 20, 2023. The nine-year eruption began on Feb. 20, 1943. The center of the activity was a cornfield near the town of Paricutin. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) A view of the Paricutin volcano crater, Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. The ground is still hot atop the crater of Paricutin, the first volcano of its kind to have its full life cycle documented by modern science when it erupted 80 years ago. (AP Photo/Fernanda Pesce) Geologists, volcanologists and seismologists walk on an old lava flow towards the crater of the Paricutin volcano, in Angahuan, Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. Paricutin’s birth in Feb. 20, 1943 and nine-year eruption were a cornerstone in the study of what are known as monogenetic volcanos, said Stavros Meletlidis, a Greek researcher at Spain’s National Geographic Institute. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) Abel Aguilar, center left, and his wife attend the celebration marking the birth of the Paricutin volcano, in San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Aguilar was 5-years-old when the Paricutin erupted for the first time. He would come with other children to “see the lava walk like that, real slow.” He said. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) A girl looks at an exhibit displaying historical photos of the Paricutin volcano marking the initial day of the nine-year eruption, in San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. A team of geologists from the U.S. Department of the Interiorand Mexican scientistsvisited the site 20 times in the ensuing years and summarized the nine-year eruption in a report more than a decade later. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) Guadalupe Ruiz, 92, walks inside her home in San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. Ruiz, 92, remembers a deep sound from Feb. 20, 1943, after weeks of small tremors in the western part of Mexico’s Michoacan state. Then, it felt “like water rising underground,” and, finallyin the following days, it was “like a thunderclap or a kick from a horse” as Paricutin’s cone began to form and rocks fell all around, she said. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) People walk around the crater lip of the Paricutin volcano, in Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. The crater of the volcano is about 200 meters across and it is possible to both climb the volcano and walk around the entire perimeter. (AP Photo/Fernanda Pesce) A group belonging to an international vulcanology congress rest on the crater lip of the Paricutin volcano, in Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. The crater of the volcano is about 200 meters across and it is possible to both climb the volcano and walk around the entire perimeter. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) An altar, adorned with religious relics, stands inside the church buried decades ago by lava from the Paricutin volcano, in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. Paricutin’s lava eventually covered seven square miles (18.5 square kilometers). Its slow advance allowed residents of the surrounding communities to relocate to land donated by the government. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) SAN JUAN PARANGARICUTIRO, Mexico (AP) — The ground is still hot atop the crater of Paricutin — the first volcano of its kind to have its full life cycle documented by modern science when it erupted 80 years ago. The surrounding vista in western Mexico encompasses pine-clad peaks of older volcanoes, green avocado orchards and a church tower just peeking above where lava buried it decades ago. Volcanoes are still being born around the globe and scientists believe another will form in the volcanic field spanning across this region, they just don’t know when. That’s why about a hundred geologists, volcanologists and seismologists visited Paricutin last week to mark the anniversary, share experiences and talk about how to prevent disaster. Paricutin’s birth and nine-year eruption were a cornerstone in the study of the relatively small kind of volcano that erupts only once, said Stavros Meletlidis, a Greek researcher at Spain’s National Geographic Institute. The world’s most famous volcanos already were thousands of years old when they threw up their catastrophic eruptions: Mount Vesuvius in Italy which buried Pompeii in 79 A.D.; Mount Tambora in Indonesia which killed tens of thousands in 1815. To witness the origin of a new one is rare. It can start with a peculiar noise. A deep sound is what Meletlidis remembers hearing in September 2021 before seeing the column of gas signaling the emergence of a volcano on Spain’s La Palma island. That was the most recent new volcano to form in a populated area. He and his team had been monitoring it for four years. The eruption was the “last breath” of a process that had begun 10,000 years earlier in the center of the Earth, he said. Guadalupe Ruiz, 92, remembers hearing such a noise on Feb. 20, 1943, after weeks of small tremors in the western part of Mexico’s Michoacan state. Then, it felt “like water rising underground,” and, finally in the following days, it was “like a thunderclap or a kick from a horse” as Paricutin’s cone began to form and rocks fell all around, she said. Ruiz was then a 12-year-old girl in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, where she and her neighbors thought it was the end of the world. A farmer came running with his hat covered in ash saying that his corn field had opened up. “They told us it was hell,” said Ruiz, her long grey hair in braids. A team of geologists from the U.S. Department of the Interior and Mexican scientists visited the site 20 times between 1943 and 1945 and summarized the eruption in a report more than a decade later. On that initial day, there was a mild explosion followed by “a small eruptive column carrying dust, and some hot stones arose from this new vent,” the report said. “After about 8 hours of such activity the new volcano began to roar and to hurl out quantities of incandescent bombs with great force,” it said. Within six days, it reached a height of 167 meters (548 feet), the report said. Curious children tried to get close “to see the lava move, little by little,” said Abel Aguilar, motioning like waves with his hand. He was 5 at the time. The landscape went from a “small and beautiful volcanic monster” to a “desolate and wiped out world” of dying trees and homes filling with ash, wrote Mexican journalist José Revueltas, who visited 40 days after the eruption for the Popular newspaper. When geologists arrived, they consoled the community because they were able to explain what happened and — importantly — provide work, Ruiz said. “My dad took the Americans on horseback to see where the fire was coming out and where the little mountain was forming,” she said. Paricutin’s lava eventually covered seven square miles (18.5 square kilometers). Its slow advance allowed residents of the surrounding communities to relocate to land donated by the government. Unlike earthquakes, volcanoes sometimes give people time to react. In the years leading up to the 2021 eruption on La Palma, clusters of tremors had increased in frequency a week before the eruption. Also, deformities on the surface suggested magma was pushing up. Two days before the eruption there was a strong smell of sulfur in springs monitored by scientists. The Paricutin volcano is within a volcanic belt that crosses Mexico. Tremors in recent years including a burst late last year have raised fears that another volcano could appear, said Luis Fernando Lucatero, the local civil defense coordinator. Scientists later confirmed last year’s quakes were superficial with no magma rising toward the surface. The National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Geophysics Institute has installed seismographs in key locations to monitor the volcanic field, and trained local leaders to detect other signals. Denis Legrand, one of the volcanologists on the project, said more equipment and personnel are needed because with the current number of stations some tremors could go unnoticed until it is too late to react. A year and a half after the Paricutin eruption began, residents of the largest area town of San Juan left in a procession behind the image of their patron saint and rebuilt their town and church elsewhere. The old town was later buried in 50 feet (15 meters) of lava. While the volcano today draws visitors who bring an important source of income, the buried church is a reminder of what the earth unleashed. “A volcano give life. It sometimes destroys too,” Meletlidis said. The storm, which developed in the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall on Saturday in Louisiana after briefly attaining hurricane status, is moving slowly across the interior of the state at between 5-10 miles per hour (8-17 km per hour), the Weather Channel reported. Since Saturday, there has been flooding along parts of the Louisiana coastline with the water level rising between two and three feet (61-92 cm) above normal in the coastal parishes of Vermilion, Iberia and Saint Mary. Despite the weakening of the storm, the flooding alert remains in effect in parts of Louisiana, as well as in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee. Lake Pontchartrain was one of the areas most at risk for flooding, although so far the situation has not gotten too bad and the lake has not overflowed. The mayor of the city of Mandeville, Donald J. Villere, told EFE by telephone that as of 5 am on Sunday his lakeside town only had one street near the shore flooded. Villere said that the street quickly went from just 1 inch of floodwater to two feet, adding that “Thank God” it wasn’t any more than that. He also said that the storm’s strong winds did not cause any damage either, and - although here and there a house’s cellar was flooded - there was little else in the way of damage, adding that nobody had to be evacuated from their home and the electricity did not go off. Although there had been little damage in Mandeville, Villere was being cautious and advising local residents to remain in their homes. “I think we need a couple of days to clean the streets. Here, we’re used to this kind of situation and the households are prepared for them,” he said. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Twitter repeated his recent call to the public to exercise caution, noting that state residents still have several hours of rain ahead, with the possibility of tornadoes and other severe weather conditions. Currently, there are some 126,560 local residents without electric power in Louisiana, according to the latest figures provided by the Poweroutage.us Web page. One of the power companies operating in the state, Entergy Louisiana, reported on its Twitter account that 65,000 of its customers were without electricity and that total had risen to nearly 85,000 at Barry’s worst moments. The National Hurricane Center says that the main threat of the storm at this point is intense rain and possible flooding in Louisiana and up into the Mississippi River valley. Authorities so far have not reported any deaths or injuries from the storm, although the material damage has been put at billions of dollars. AccuWeather estimates that damage and economic losses from Barry ultimately will total between $8 billion and $10 billion. Before making landfall near Intercoastal City, Louisiana, Barry briefly became a Category 1 hurricane, the first of the Atlantic hurricane season, only to weaken to a tropical storm. The storm is presently packing maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 kph), is moving north at 9 mph and is expected to reach Arkansas by Monday. The Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1, but on May 20 a subtropical storm dubbed Andrea developed south-southeast of Bermuda, quickly weakening and causing no damage. The current forecast by Colorado State University, released last week, is that this Atlantic hurricane season will see an “average” number - 14 - tropical storms, six of which will become hurricanes. In 2005, Louisiana was walloped by Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people, mostly in New Orleans. EEUU Internacional México Entretenimiento Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map