In 2011 when organized crime thugs teamed up with the logging industry and different government agencies to pillage precious and sacred forests at gun-point, the indigenous Purepecha community of Cheran, Michoacan, in Mexico rose up with sticks, rocks, and bottle rockets. Since then, they have taken the authorities offices, weapons, and pick-up trucks; ousted all political parties and all local and state police; and re-established a traditional form of self-governance that includes its own council of elders, a community “police”, known as a “ronda,” and its own forest defense team, or forest keepers, known as the “Guarda Bosques.”

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