The CJNG’s enemies are a motley assortment of local gangs that have divvied up the Tierra Caliente into small fiefdoms. Mencho’s forces invaded Michoacán in 2019, ambushing and killing 14 state police officers and leaving a note that accused the cops of serving rival cartels.

Listen to the podcast version of this story on VICE News Reports. The birthplace of CJNG founder Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, is a hamlet just half an hour up the road. The group has risen to national dominance in Mexico on a wave of bloodshed, with some of the most brutal fighting concentrated here along the western edge of Michoacán. We’re in disputed territory laying claim on one side is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG for its initials in Spanish.

He steps out of earshot to receive orders. But cleaning up the sargassum inadvertently removes sand, aggravating serious beach erosion.Left: A gunman from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) at a cemetery near El Aguaje, Michoacán. Officials in Puerto Morelos say they’ve been proactive – hiring cleanup crews, setting up barricades and sending a boat out to sea to scoop up sargassum. “You clean the beaches in the morning, and sometimes you clean them again in the afternoon or at night, and then you have to go back and clean it again.” “Fighting sargassum is a chore every day,” Cancun mayor Mara Lezama told the AP. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has downplayed the problem, while tourism secretary Miguel Torres Márquez tweeted a video of a pristine Cancún beach with the comment: “We’re looking after Cancún, ‘our blue-eyed girl’ and all the beautiful beaches of the Mexican Caribbean.”īut such optimism is harder to find on the beaches. In six months we’ve lost 30% of the reefs in the Mexican Caribbean.” “The reef is ailing because for the past 40 years we’ve been throwing nutrients into the sea – and now you’re delivering a body blow. View image in fullscreen A worker cleans a beach in Tulum, Mexico, on 15 June. The plant is also poisonous for some coral reefs, local fauna and fish. In turn, rotting sargassum increases the sea’s acidity and temperature and reduces oxygen, said García. The proliferation of sargassum has been fueled by agricultural fertilisers and untreated sewage flowing into the Caribbean and Atlantic.īarely 30% of wastewater in Mexico’s Mayan Riviera is treated, said María del Carmen García Rivas, a biologist in Puerto Morelos with Mexico’s National Protected Areas Commission. The reasons remain unclear, but scientists say human activities are aggravating factors, while rising ocean temperatures are also thought to play a role. Scientists say the seaweed normally plays an important role in the regional ecosystem: rafts of floating sargassum provide important habitat for birds and marine species in the Atlantic, while smaller amounts of sargassum are normal on beaches and considered beneficial.īut for the past decade, sargassum has been blooming excessively across the Caribbean. And now tourists are starting to notice: hotel occupancy rates have dropped and tourism chiefs are concerned that the seaweed is threatening a key industry in the Mayan Riviera, which stretches from Cancún to the Belize border.

Mexico has spent $17m in an attempt to clear 500,000 tons of sargassum seaweed from its Caribbean beaches, but the problem only seems to be getting worse. “You clear an area and four hours later or by the next day, it looks the same,” said Jorge Sandoval, one of the workers.

Mexico's beach wars