Illegal logging thrives in Mexico City’s forest-covered boroughs, as locals strive to plant trees

It’s a strange scene: in the forest-covered mountains of Mexico City — which most people outside Mexico don’t know exist — a brigade of farmers and forest rangers plant inches-high pine saplings in a recently cut stand of trees, even as the sound of chainsaws can be heard nearby. Illegal logging has taken a huge toll in recent years on the forest-covered southern half of the city of 9 million inhabitants. “They have finished off the forest,” Alfredo Gutiérrez, 43, said with sadness.