National Parks Going to….Pot

Mexico’s drug cartels are growing billions of dollars’ worth of marijuana on U.S. parkland, especially in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, which offer an ideal setting: 1.2 million remote acres coursed with creeks, blessed with sunny weather, and subject to scant law enforcement. Park visitors are not endangered by the clandestine marijuana fields–most worked by unauthorized Mexican immigrants–assures Kip Knapp, a law-enforcement specialist at the park. “These guys don’t want to be found.” But their impact on the environment is alarming. “They poach birds and deer and shoot bears to protect their food cache,” says Knapp. Discarded propane tanks, miles of irrigation tubing, weed and insect spray, rat poison, plant-growth hormones–all work their way into the ecosystem. (In 2009, park restoration ecologists cleaned 14 cultivation sites and six camps at a cost of up to $12,000 an acre.) So far it’s a stalemate. Says park spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman: “They’re getting into pristine, delicate wilderness. We’d like the public to get angry at the way their parks are being treated.”

–Charles Kulander, from the April 2010 issue of Traveler

Photo: Guerrilla Cannabis plants, as documented by federal investigators, via Wikipedia