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In a new research, scientists have pointed to a growing evidence that drug trafficking is threatening forests in remote areas of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and nearby countries. 

To make way for clandestine landing strips and roads to move drugs, traffickers are slashing down forests that are in protected areas, said researchers. 

"In response to the crackdown in Mexico, drug traffickers began moving south into Central America around 2007 to find new routes through remote areas to move their drugs from South America and get them to the United States," said Kendra McSweeney, lead author of the Science article and an associate professor of geography at The Ohio State University, in the press release. "When drug traffickers moved in, they brought ecological devastation with them."

Researchers found that the new deforestation per year more than quadrupled in Honduras between 2007 and 2011. It is the same duration in which cocaine movements in the country also spiked. 

"Starting about 2007, we started seeing rates of deforestation there that we had never seen before. When we asked the local people the reason, they would tell us: "los narcos" (drug traffickers)."

"I would get approached by people who wanted to change $20 bills in places where cash is very scarce and dollars are not the normal currency. When that starts happening, you know narcos are there," she said.

Other researchers in the Central America also had the same findings. 

"The emerging impacts of narco-trafficking were being mentioned among people who worked in Central America, but usually just as a side conversation. We heard the same kinds of things from agricultural specialists, geographers, conservationists. Several of us decided we needed to bring more attention to this issue," she added. 

McSweeney also suggested that more research was needed to establish the links between drug trafficking and conservation issues. 

The research has been published in the journal Science.