Super Bowl Guac Is Super Destructive. Some People Want to Fix That.
For many Americans, chips and guacamole are as much a part of Super Bowl Sunday as the game itself. More avocados are sold for the big game than at any other time of year. This wasn’t always the case. Americans eat almost 10 times as much guacamole during the Super Bowl as we did 25 years ago. But America’s increasing guac obsession has come with huge hidden costs: deforestation, water theft, violence, and a threat to the survival of one of North America’s most iconic species. Now it’s up to new initiatives to mitigate some of the damage before it’s too late for these irreplaceable ecosystems, communities, and wildlife.Most of the avocados consumed in the United States come from Mexico, specifically Michoacán, a culturally rich region known for its natural wonders. Among those wonders are the mountain forests where millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter clustered in the oyamel fir trees. Monarchs from the United States and Canada journey as far as 3,000 miles to reach these forests in one of the most incredible migrations on the planet, making them a symbol of resilience, community, and immigrant rights.But avocado expansion is destroying the overwintering forests that monarchs need to survive. Last year’s population count in Mexico found monarchs in just 4.42 acres of forests. They need to be in a minimum of 15 acres to stay out of the danger zone of migratory collapse. This year’s count is expected to be similarly grim.By 2018, nearly 2,400 acres of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve had been cleared for avocados. With additional logging in surrounding forests and water hoarding by avocado plantations—it takes about 18.5 gallons to grow one avocado—the remaining butterfly habitat has become even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A 2023 report by Climate Rights International, titled “Unholy Guacamole,” documented widespread deforestation beyond the borders of the reserve. More than 10 football fields a day have been cleared for the past 10 years to make room for more avocados.This rampant deforestation isn’t just devastating for monarch butterflies. Local communities are losing their forestland. A guide from a small village in the area told me the butterflies and their forests are part of their heritage and their future—butterfly tourism helps keep their community afloat. The local guides are afraid of what the loss of monarchs will mean for them and their families. But they’re also afraid to speak out. The U.S. market turned avocados into “green gold,” attracting organized crime, corruption, and violence to the region. Forest defenders have been abducted and beaten. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has repeatedly suspended avocado imports because of threats and violence against its inspectors.Yet avocados are only growing more popular in the United States. This is already a record-breaking year, with around 290 million pounds of avocados imported in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. It’s estimated that the amount of land used for avocados in the region will grow 70 percent by 2050. Since so much agricultural land has already been converted to avocado plantations, that could put even more forests at risk.But there’s hope that avocados’ path of destruction can be stopped. Last year, the government of Michoacán worked with a committee of environmental and agricultural experts to launch a certification program aimed at preventing producers who destroy forests from accessing lucrative U.S. markets. The Guardián Forestal program certifies packinghouses that only source from orchards that don’t have any land deforested since 2018 or affected by forest fire since 2012. Because the certification is based on satellite data, it has a level of accountability and transparency that may be missing from similar programs, which too often rely on self-reported data or understaffed inspection teams. In less than a year, more than 40 packinghouses across five Mexican states have signed on to the certification program. The two states authorized to export to the United States—Michoacán and Jalisco—account for more than 90 percent of companies exporting to the United States and about 70 percent of the avocados consumed here. The packinghouses have worked with the program to screen their suppliers, resulting in 2,900 orchards being blocked from selling to them. Although it’s early to fully assess the outcomes, at least 16 municipalities have shown reduced forest loss since the program started.The momentum is impressive, especially for a voluntary program in an industry rife with challenges. Much of the success so far comes from packinghouses realizing that they could face liabilities on both sides of the border. In Michoacán, the environmental threats are taking a very real toll. The region suffers from extreme drought, and the loss of forests makes the problem much worse.In the U.S., people are becoming more aware of the damage caused by the avocado industry. Companies that have made sustainability claims or tout deforestation-free policies for other products recognize this could become a problem with their customers and investors. (Already, some of these companies have been sued.) They’re starting to ask questions, signaling that they’d like to buy from certified orchards. But having most packinghouses exporting avocados in the certification program isn’t the same as having all of them. Even a relatively small percentage of orchards can result in devastating deforestation in a region that can’t afford to lose any more of its forests. The entire industry needs to be on board to stop the destruction in Michoacán and ensure that similar bad practices don’t reach other regions where avocado production is expanding.The U.S. government could bolster the certification program by banning imports of avocados linked to recent deforestation. In 2024, more than 25 organizations urged the State Department to work with USDA to do just that. Based on existing mechanisms that regulate imports for pests and the readily available satellite data on forest cover, there was a clear path forward for the United States to help transform the industry and support its own deforestation and climate goals. That path no longer seems likely under an administration that prefers deregulation and has jettisoned the country’s environmental commitments.In December 2024, monarch butterflies were proposed for Endangered Species Act protection. These protections would include a recovery plan and funding to restore their habitat in the United States, which would ease pressure on the butterflies on this side of the border, creating more resilient populations to survive the winters in Mexico. But Trump officials have indicated that they don’t plan to do anything about the proposal this year, which is hardly a surprise since they didn’t list any species under the Endangered Species Act last year, instead working to weaken the act and cut staff working to help wildlife.Even with the federal government on the sidelines, the U.S. market may be the strongest hope of getting efforts to end avocado deforestation across the goal line. If U.S. retailers adopt policies to only buy imported avocados from certified suppliers, the remaining packinghouses will have to sign on or risk losing their biggest market. Costco introduced commitments in its 2025 sustainability report to reduce deforestation in its avocado supply chain by moving away from sourcing in regions with the highest deforestation risk, increasing its purchases of Fair Trade and other certified avocados, and engaging with suppliers around the Guardián Forestal program. Shareholder resolutions on avocado deforestation have been introduced at several other companies, including Walmart and Kroger.“We’ve made real progress and have a solution in place, but the risk to our forests isn’t gone yet,” said Heriberto Padilla, director general of Guardián Forestal. “American supermarkets can help us finish the job by using our certification program to clean up their supply chains.”