A VIEW OF ACANDON RAINFOREST MONTES AZULES ON FIRE, 2000-06-15 (photo)

TO MATCH WITH BC-LIFE-MEXICO-MAYAS - A view of Lacandon rainforest Montes Azules, May 25, on fire as indigenous people prepare the land for cultivation. The government in 1978 declared about 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) a "protected zone", giving the land to the Lacandon indigenous group, considered to be the purest descendants of the Mayas. Its ancient residents, the Mayans, could have never imagined it, but the verdant paradise of Mexico's Lacandon forest is on the verge of extinction. The Lacandon region comprises some 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres), of which two-thirds is now pastureland or cultivated for crops. HR/RCS