Mezcal’s popularity is booming in the US. That comes with a growing environmental cost in Mexico

Thirty years ago in rural Oaxaca, Gladys Sánchez Garnica’s family mezcal distillery operated by the light of a single bulb. As the smoky agave spirit dripped from clay ovens, her parents passed down generations of knowledge about sustainable harvesting practices while neighbors arrived on horseback for a taste of their craft.

“We were taught when to harvest agave, how to care for the soil, and how much we could ask of the forest,” said Garnica, 33, from the women-owned distillery in San Pedro Totolapam, a small town of 3,000 residents in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys where mezcal forms the backbone of the local economy.

Today, this modest tradition exists alongside an unprecedented global boom that has transformed mezcal from a locally cherished spirit into a major international industry. The rapid expansion has brought both economic opportunities and mounting environmental challenges to Mexico’s mezcal heartland.

Along roads leading to communities like San Luis del Rio, where celebrity brands such as Dos Hombres—created by “Breaking Bad” actors Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul—source their product, vast agave plantations now blanket hillsides that were once covered in forest.

The numbers tell a dramatic story of growth. Mexican mezcal production has surged from approximately 1 million liters in 2010 to more than 11 million liters in 2024, according to COMERCAM, Mexico’s regulatory body for the spirit. Nearly all production occurs in Oaxaca, with roughly 75% of exports destined for the United States market.

This expansion has left an indelible mark on the landscape. A study led by Rufino Sandoval-García, professor at the Technological University of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, found that in just two major mezcal-producing regions, over 34,953 hectares of tropical dry and pine oak forests—an area roughly the size of Detroit—have been cleared for agave cultivation over the past 27 years.

The research revealed that agave plantations in these regions have expanded by more than 400% over three decades. Increasingly, these monoculture plantations are replacing both forests and traditional farmland with espadin agave, the variety used in most commercial mezcal production.

“It will take a long time for the ecosystem to recover the resilience it once had,” Sandoval-García warned, noting that this transformation is accelerating soil erosion, reducing carbon capture by approximately 4 million tons annually, limiting groundwater recharge, and creating localized heat islands in heavily planted areas.

The environmental footprint of mezcal production has always been significant. Producing a single liter requires at least 10 liters of water for fermentation and distillation, and generates waste products like bagazo (fibrous residue) and vinazas (wastewater) that are often dumped untreated into local rivers. The process also demands substantial quantities of firewood to roast agave and fuel distillation, much of which comes from illegal logging operations.

Félix Monterrosa, a third-generation producer from Santiago Matatlan who owns the Oaxacan brand CUISH, laments how industrial-scale production has displaced the traditional milpa system he learned from his ancestors, where corn, beans and pumpkin were grown alongside agave in a balanced ecosystem.

“Now everything is monoculture, and that is the real problem,” Monterrosa said. In his hometown, decades of dumping mezcal waste into the local river have left it so polluted that residents nicknamed it the “Nilo,” short for “ni lo huelas”—”don’t even smell it.”

Water scarcity compounds these challenges. Oaxaca experienced its worst drought in more than a decade in 2024, according to Mexico’s National Water Commission. In response, some producers like Armando Martínez Ruiz from Soledad Salinas have installed systems to cool and reuse water during distillation. “We never had enough water here, so I try not to waste it,” he explained.

Despite growing environmental concerns, the economic benefits of the mezcal boom are undeniable in a region with some of Mexico’s highest poverty rates. Luis Cruz Velasco, a producer from San Luis del Rio who works with Mexican brands like Bruxo, noted that the industry now employs nearly every family in his town of 300 residents. Where previous generations lived in thatched houses, mezcal income has enabled his siblings to attend university.

“There are many people who criticize us and ask what we do to reforest,” Velasco said. “But we have to look for a livelihood and food.”

Major companies are beginning to address sustainability issues. Del Maguey, one of the world’s top-selling mezcal brands, reports reusing more than 5,000 tons of bagazo and 2 million liters of vinaza over five years to build flood prevention infrastructure at one of their distilleries.

In Oaxaca, where much land is communally owned, converting forest to agave plantations legally requires federal approval from Mexico’s Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources. However, the permitting process is so cumbersome that some communities bypass it entirely, according to Helena Iturribarria from Tierra de Agaves, a conservation initiative promoting sustainable agave production.

Amid these challenges, local producers are finding ways to preserve both tradition and environment. In 2018, Garnica founded “Guardians of Mezcal,” a women’s collective promoting sustainable production methods, including using only fallen trees for firewood and planting agave alongside other crops to maintain biodiversity.

“Mezcal is a way of life, like a form of work that our parents taught us,” Garnica said. “If there is a funeral, a wedding, a party, mezcal is a drink you are going to share with others, and above all many families depend on it.”