In Mexico, fifteen of 32 states are experiencing water shortages where use surpasses the amount available. Much of Mexico are approaching the point when a region will lack sufficient water to meet basic needs, with Monterrey and Nuevo Leon only having two months of water reserves, and Mexico City two years. with Monterrey and Nuevo Leon only having two months of water reserves, and Mexico City two years.
Indigenous people are participating in a month-long caravan, traveling around the country and marching and meeting in multiple towns and cities a day, in order to denounce environmental destruction by transnationals. Activists with the Indigenous Caravan for Water and Life argue that it is multinational corporations, often with governmental support, that are responsible for causing climate change, environmental damage and water shortages — rather than the regular dry season.
“It’s not a drought, it’s looting” has been one of the main chants of the month-long caravan which kicked off in Puebla on March 22, and will run until April 24. The caravan, one of the biggest demonstrations in recent years of Indigenous people’s defense of the environment, will cover nine states and visit Indigenous communities across Mexico each day for 34 days. These communities are standing up for their environmental rights and autonomy. Most are confronting megaprojects, where manufacturing, mining, extractive and commercial companies — often from the U.S. or Europe – have built massive amounts of infrastructure, such as hydroelectric plants and gas pipelines, to plunder the communities of their water and energy resources.
In Puebla state alone, hundreds of corporations have licenses to build or maintain such infrastructure, which many local residents refer to as “death projects” because they threaten the existence of nearby communities. The hydroelectric plants that are built to provide mines with energy deprive nearby farmers of water. There are fracking zones and gas pipelines, and most supportive infrastructure is also privately owned, with corporate interests at heart and no community consultation. Areas with the highest concentration of such projects, such as Serdán and northern Puebla state, also have the highest levels of organized crime.
Mexico has the highest amount of carbon emissions from electricity of any country in Latin America. In Cuautlancingo, Puebla, for example, where Volkswagen and the industrial park, Finsa, is located, at least 80 percent of electricity use is industrial. Companies like Volkswagen, Ternium, Heineken and Dr. Pepper are also among the main users of water in Puebla state.
These mega projects disproportionately affect Indigenous people, said María de Jesús Patricio, widely known as Marichuy, who is a spokesperson for the National Indigenous Council (CNI) and the first female Indigenous presidential hopeful in the country.
From the way Indigenous people farm, to the deterioration of their lands, to the stealing and contamination of their water, the mega projects affect “what they eat, and therefore their health. They are modifying the environment, polluting the … rivers, and modifying farming cycles. And they cause internal divisions in the communities, by winning over some members with donations and telling them that the mega projects will bring employment,” she explains. The caravan around Mexico is showing people that “our problems are similar … communities are seeking ways to walk together and denounce all the different types of plundering,” Marichuy said.
Megaprojects also often involve displacing entire Indigenous communities, and the loss of important natural, cultural or religious sites. Across Mexico, some 4,200 dam construction projects have forced 185,000 people, mostly poor or original peoples, to leave their homes.
The caravan “is a message that (original) peoples are bringing to other peoples and communities, suburbs, organizations. As they go, they bring the message that it is important to struggle, to organize in order to defend water, and life … and that together, it’s possible to stop all this,” Marichuy said. “If communities can’t strengthen their self-determination and autonomy, they leave a space for the mega projects to continue their destruction.”
“It’s not a drought, it’s looting”
"It's Not a Drought, It's Looting": Water Rights Activists Organize in Mexico (truthout.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment