Our 6th Episode in Season 2 of Native Planet is Airing this Week on APTN

Host Simon Baker travels deep inside Mexico’s Durango State, to meet indigenous communities still practicing their traditional justice systems, largely independent from the Government of Mexico. Long before the Spanish came to colonize the country centuries ago, the Mezquital, a remote part of the Sierra Madres Mountains, was home to the indigenous O’Dam, Mexicaneros and Wirrarika people. However, recent events have impoverished their agrarian communities and made them easy targets for the cartels, which coerce them into growing illegal crops. Now, the lands of these largely forgotten indigenous communities are the front lines in a battle between rival drug cartels and the Mexico’s military police. As Simon travels the high mountain roads of the O’Dam, Mexicaneros and Wirrarika communities, he comes to understand how violence is becoming an environmental issue.