More than 2,600 hectares of forest were destroyed in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, leading to the closure of seven properties, the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa) reported on Monday. 

Profepa inspectors carried out operations between May 28 and June 14 on forest properties located in the states of Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, where they discovered the removal of trees and other vegetation, resulting in unauthorized use of forest lands across 2,608.9 hectares (ha).

Such activities have the effect of transforming forests into agro-industrial monocultures, Profeca wrote on the X social media site. 

The agency seized 108.5 square meters of round and square timber, three tractors and a variety of agricultural equipment.

Of the seven properties that were closed, two were in Campeche, totaling 702 ha, two in Yucatán (606.4 ha) and three in Quintana Roo (1,300.5 ha). All seven are within an area where Mennonite populations have been expanding, according to Profepa.

In the popular tourist state of Quintana Roo, inspectors visited the municipalities of José María Morelos and Othón P. Blanco. 

In the Piedras Negras ejido (communal farmland) in José María Morelos, inspectors identified a change in land use on 10.68 ha of forest, where a total of 1,057 square meters of native rainforest species had been removed without permission. 

Profepa also sent inspectors to the municipalities of Hopelchén and Calakmul in Campeche and Tekax in Yucatán. 

The inspectors found that natural vegetation had been replaced by leveled terrain in San Diego Buenavista in Tekax, where the cutting, felling, sectioning and elimination by fire of adult trees and sapling trees had taken place.

In a statement, Profepa said it plans to continue operations to halt and reverse the environmental impacts of deforestation on forest ecosystems on the Yucatán Peninsula.

With reports from El Economista and Diario 24 Horas Yucatán