died Feb. 21, 2003, Mexico human rights activist and
environmentalist who spent most of his life working to reduce
logging and the cultivating of illicit drug crops in Mexico's
Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range. Part Tarahumara,
Bustillos was born in the Sierra Madre Occidental in northern
Mexico. He worked as a regional program officer for the World
Bank Forestry Development Project for northwest Mexico but
resigned in 1992 in opposition to that organization's policies.
During that time he also did some work as an ethnographer for
Mexico's Institute of Indian Affairs. Bustillos then worked for
a year for a timber company in the Sierra town of Caborachi.
While there, he became more aware of the environmental
destruction and human rights abuses occurring in the region.
Near the end of 1992 he founded the Advisory Council of the
Sierra Madre (Consejo Asesor de la Sierra Madre; CASMAC), an
organization that, while addressing environmental issues,
concentrated on securing rights for the indigenous people in