A non-governmental organisation is urging the Mexican government to promote sustainable forest management as a means of preventing serious forest fires. “Forest fires happen because when forests aren’t managed properly there is an accumulation of biomass, which is the raw material for fires,” Iván Zúñiga of the Mexican Civic Council for Sustainable Silviculture told Tierramérica.

Since March, numerous forest fires have broken out in different regions of Mexico. The most serious, in the northern state of Coahuila, destroyed at least 249,000 hectares of forest, according to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

This was the worst forest fire in Mexico’s history, followed by a fire in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo that destroyed 220,000 hectares in 1956 and a fire in the southern state of Oaxaca that wiped out 200,000 hectares in 1998.