God's will or ecological disaster? Mexico takes aim at Mennonite deforestation

A young man rolls a tractor wheel in the Mennonite community of El Sabinal, Chihuahua, Mexico, April 22, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

VALLE NUEVO, Mexico (Reuters) - The largest tropical forest in North America yields to perfect rows of corn and soy. Light-haired women with blue eyes in wide-brimmed hats bump down a dirt road in a horse and buggy, past simple brick homes and a whitewashed schoolhouse: A Mennonite community in southern Mexico.

Here, in the state of Campeche on the Yucatan Peninsula at the northern edge of the Maya Forest, the Mennonites say they live to traditional pacifist values and that expanding farms to provide a simple life for their families is the will of God.