The Huasteca, a region with a semi-tropical climate and abundant vegetation, has become one of the most violent and conflict-ridden parts of rural Mexico. Starting in the mid-1970s, a series of land invasions involving mainly Nahuatl-speaking Indian peasants broke out in the district of Huejutla in the northeastern portion of the state of Hidalgo (also known as the Huasteca Hidalguense). Militant agrarian peasants, who cut fences, confiscated coffee orchards and ripped out cultivated grasses, justified their use of direct action both in terms of Mexico's agrarian code and Nahuatl notions of village boundaries; similarly, local landowners appealed to their rights as property owners and the legal system in general in order to persuade law enforcement agents to evict peasant intruders and have them arrested. Many poor peasants, who live in usually cohesive communities, also became bitterly divided over whether or not they should join in land invasions, and some people on both sides took the law into their own hands and meted out their own version of justice through abductions, corporal punishment and even executions. The resulting violence and political turmoil culminated in the expropriation, by the Mexican government, of 18,000 hectares of privately owned land and the implementation of a programme of social reform.