Illegal timber and drug trafficking are closely intertwined in northeastern Honduras, particularly in the town of Dulce Nombre de Culmí. The nearby forests of pine, mahogany, and cedar feed a timber trade worth around $60-80 million between 2016 and 2018. However, environmental agencies warn that 50-60% of this trade comes from illegal logging, much of it from the country's northeastern natural reserves where drug trafficking is also prevalent. Culmí is the last settlement before entering the Río Plátano Biosphere, a protected forest where drug trafficking and illegal logging have crossed paths for over a decade. The mountains and plains surrounding Culmí are dotted with clandestine airstrips, many built during the drug boom a decade ago. These airstrips, carved from the dense forests in the area, were then used to sell wood to timber traffickers and drug trafficking groups. In Olancho, Yoro, and Gracias a Dios-three departments renowned for their timber production-drug trafficking groups are known to engage in timber trafficking. Groups of farmers, often migrants from the poorest areas of southern Honduras, settle in unpopulated lands in and around the Río Plátano Biosphere. There, they harvest wood illegally, often with protection from corrupt officials and politicians, as well as support from drug trafficking groups. The wood is usually cut without securing official permission from Honduras' Institute of Forest Conservation. It is then combined with legal shipments, mostly at the sawmills, either by falsifying logging permits or bribing police responsible for monitoring timber transport. Meanwhile, illegally harvested precious woods, such as mahogany and cedar, usually head north along clandestine routes to the department of Gracias a Dios, and from there to processing hubs such as La Ceiba. These are the same routes that drug shipments travel along.