A WILDERNESS OVERGROWN WITH DOPE AND DANGER

US forest rangers take on Mexican cartels scarring national park with
secret marijuana plantations

In the early morning light, a park ranger applies broad green and
brown stripes to his face. Dressed in camouflage fatigues, with a
small rucksack on his back, a large knife at his belt and an M-16
rifle on the ground next to him, he is preparing for the day's
mission: a helicopter drop into a remote marijuana plantation.

This isn't Colombia or Mexico. This is the Sequoia and Kings Canyon
national park, 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares) of pristine
wilderness 200 miles north of Los Angeles. In recent years the park
and the public lands around it have been colonised by Mexican drug
cartels. Up to last week, California officials had found and
destroyed 1m marijuana plants in the state this year, with a street
value of $4bn (UKP2.3bn), probably 50% of the total grown, according
to the authorities. By any measure, it is big business. Last year,
the total found in the state was 622,000. With a March to mid-October
growing season, officials expect this year's total to more than double.

"I can't have my name or face showing up in any press," says a park
ranger as he pulls a balaclava over his camouflaged face. "I have
people gunning for me, and I'm going after their plants. One thousand
plants is a million bucks." The nine rangers on the team take off in
two groups to be dropped on the side of a mountain. From there they
will trek two-and-a-half miles downhill through dense foliage, a
journey that will take them more than two hours. Awaiting them is a
"garden" that has been under surveillance for six months.

Neither side wants confrontation. The use of helicopters to drop the
agents on to the hillside should warn the "mopes" - the term agents
use for low-ranking workers employed by the cartels - that a raid is
imminent. "Usually when we get there these folks have run away or are
trying to," says the ranger.

A few miles away, at another clearing on the edge of the national
park, a group of sheriff's deputies, park rangers, national guardsmen
and officials from Camp (the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting)
prepare to raid another garden."We have a lot of dope coming out of
this mountain today," says Lieutenant Marsh Carter from the Tulare
county sheriff's department. "Right now it's a race against time.
Who's going to get the dope off the mountain first, us or them?"

Acknowledging that he is engaged in a somewhat futile battle against
cartels feeding a booming market, Lt Carter insists he has to do what
he can, even if it only means shuffling the problem. "It's like a
tube of glue - when you squeeze it, it pops out somewhere else."

The agencies fighting the marijuana growers have agendas beyond the
war on drugs. "We're not just doing this to eradicate the drugs,"
says David Fireman, one of the park rangers on the raid. "We're
protecting a natural resource."

Pesticides

Athena Demetry, a restoration ecologist with the national park
service, lists the damage done by the marijuana growers, who terrace
the hillsides, install sophisticated irrigation systems, use
fertilisers and pesticides, and leave rubbish at the end of the
season. "They're altering the land and turning the wilderness into an
agricultural space," she says. "Our biggest concern is the
fertilisers and pesticides they use. We don't know what effect it's having."

As officials wait at the improvised landing strip for news of the
raids, a radio crackles. The teams have stumbled upon other gardens.
One team has found three gardens in all, one with 1,000 plants, a
rubbish pit, a toilet area, an AM/FM radio post in a tree house and a
buried drip line to each plant. The work involved in setting up the
gardens is impressive. "It always amazes us where these people have
plantations because they're so remote," says Greg Moss, the acting
chief ranger for Sequoia. But the inconvenience is outweighed by the
appeal of cultivating marijuana in the national parks.

"It's perfect for growing these crops," says Laura Whitehouse, from
the National Parks Conservation Association. "You're right next to
one of the largest agricultural areas in the world [California's
Central Valley], so it doesn't look suspicious when you drive into
town in a pick-up and buy a large amount of fertiliser and tubing."

The valley also hosts unknown numbers of undocumented workers, vital
to the economic viability of California. They are also potential
labour for the marijuana gardens. Although most of the drug consumed
in the US comes from Mexico and Canada, the situation is changing.
The cultivation of marijuana in Sequoia, once the pastime of hippies
and amateurs, became big business for the Mexican cartels after the
September 11 attacks. "It's increased since the borders were
tightened," says Ms Whitehouse. "It's easier to grow it here than
grow it south of the border and bring it across."

Middlemen

From here, the harvested buds are processed before moving on to Los
Angeles and then Phoenix and into the US market. "It's like a
business," says Kevin Rooney of the US attorney's office. "You've got
the headquarters in Mexico, an overall manager, a branch manager,
middlemen to take supplies, and then the all important people to
collect the money. Our goal is to get the people above the people at
the gardens."

And who are they? "God only knows," he admits. "We don't keep a
national register of marijuana cartels."

Above the treetops, helicopter pilot Paul Dexter spots some marijuana
plants through the oak tree canopy. "There's another one," he cries,
as he tilts his Bell Jet Ranger towards the hillside. "We could buzz
around here all day and find these." He swoops away again before
setting down on a tiny patch of ground, 1,200 metres (4,000ft) up the mountain.

Nearby is the detritus of an abandoned garden: rusty tin cans,
plastic bags, a red hurricane lamp, even a metal shelf bracket are
strewn around. At the top, a flat area has been hacked out of the
steep incline. Old weed-killer bottles and empty ammunition cases lie about.

At the bottom of the mountain the first seized plants are being
brought in. Once they locate the garden, the agents secure the area,
making sure nobody is there and that there are no booby traps, and
proceed to chop down the plants, which can grow up to 5.5 metres
high. Mr Dexter's helicopter emerges. On a rope hanging from the
helicopter is a red net with bundles of marijuana plants.

The plants are unloaded into a flatbed truck, but the seizure is
smaller than expected. Bad weather meant two hours of flying time
were lost, and many of the 5,300 plants found during the day remain
on the mountain. "I've got to go tomorrow and see if I can get more
money and then maybe come back the day after tomorrow," says Mr Moss.
The day's operation cost $10,000 in additional costs and Mr Moss has
already spent his money for the year. "That probably means the
cartels will be able to harvest it tomorrow."

Lt Carter looks at bundles of marijuana. "Within two hours," he says,
"this will be up in smoke."