Maximillio Pauu is a Kekchi Indian who arrived in El Cruce last year. Like many of the new arrivals, Pauu is from the over-crowded highlands. In a country where 65 percent of the farmland is owned by 2 percent of the population, they have nowhere else to go. Many people lack jobs, and if we don't find work we will cut the trees. At the entrance to El Cruce is a check point.
Guards inspect passing vehicles, looking for smuggled wood or animals.
It's risky work. Near a road just outside the biosphere, carbonized trees are sprawled across each other and seared into the earth as white shadows of dust. Clouds of black smoke linger over the land and darken the sun. The land is exhausted after only five years of work.