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3- Mexican Scientists and Communities Forge Eco-Alliances

Two worlds join forces in Mexico -- academia and common folk -- to confront environmental problems.

MEXICO CITY, México (Tierramérica).- Graciela González answers phone calls, organizes meetings and gives interviews as part of her work to save a river from ecological disaster. Thousands of kilometers away, farmer Gonzalo Rodríguez helps take air samples in a region polluted by petrochemicals.

Neither of them had planned to become a defender of the environment. González left her job as a teacher to work for her cause in the western state of Jalisco. Rodríguez raises livestock in Veracruz, in southern Mexico.

Like them, more and more citizens have begun to alternate their jobs with work to stop the destruction of the environment in their communities.

Last year, around a hundred citizen groups formed the Assembly of the Environmentally Affected (AAA for its Spanish name), which is active in 12 of the 32 states in this country of more than 107 million people.

So far they have met four times to share experiences and plan joint strategies to call attention to their efforts.

In 2006, academics and researchers from across Mexico, dissatisfied with the national scientific policies of the last 30 years, founded the Union of Scientists Committed to Society (UCCS), and today has some 400 active members from fields like biology, physics, mathematics, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science and law.

Now, those two worlds have joined forces.

UCCS, based in the national capital, created the Socio-Environmental Observatory with the goal of "documenting the most serious cases of environmental deterioration in Mexico," explained one of its members, economist Rolando Espinoza.

Its main source of information for drawing that map of socio-environmental problems is the AAA. Already it has registered 150 cases, most of them related to "mining and petroleum activities, hydroelectric projects, development of road infrastructure, construction of sanitary landfills, and waste disposal," said Espinoza.

The most common have to do with water. For example, the Santiago River, situated in the municipality of El Salto, Jalisco, where González lives. "First we noticed that each time we had to go farther away to fish and to gather fruit," she says.

"Then we realized there was disease and death. We couldn't find the origin of the cases of cancer, kidney failure, dermatitis, damaged lungs and spontaneous abortion," recalls the founder of the community association "Un Salto de Vida" (A Leap of Life).

In the 1970s, metal manufacturers, pharmaceutical, food, construction, petrochemical and solvent companies set up shop there, with nearly 200 firms discharging contaminants into an environment its inhabitants used to refer to as "paradise."

Today its notable characteristic is the odor of rotten egg.

In the last couple years, activists have sought clean-up of six kilometers of the river network, the contamination of which threatens the health of the 150,000 people who live in El Salto.

When they began to file complaints, the state authorities reacted by downplaying the activists' arguments.

"They told us: 'Show me how what you are saying has any relation to contamination, that you have cancer from the runoff'," recalls González.

According to economist Espinoza, that is a typical response from government officials.

In the southern state of Puebla, he says, it reached the absurd point of the government asking the residents to provide a study of the wind directions and speeds in an area affected by a company that recycled x-ray films and emitted toxic fumes.

"Citizens need information, they need someone from a public, educational, or scientific institution, an informed local person who will support and advise them in organizing the information and making it meaningful," Espinoza said.

That is why "we invited the network of UCCS researchers to generate or share studies to provide scientific support to the arguments in defense of the environment and health," he added.

The collaboration of UCCS and the AAA is perhaps the most prolific, but there are many partnerships between scientists and citizens in Mexico.

The defenders of the Santiago River are already working with researchers from the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Studies, in Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco. They plan to publicize the case in the international media and to carry out environmental monitoring of the area.

Meanwhile, students at the University of Guadalajara "are analyzing the water and biopsies from the animals we are eating and samples from the pastures that feed the cattle," said González.

In Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, the U.S.-based non-governmental group Global Community Monitor has been advising the Association of Tatexco Ecological Producers (APETAC). The group taught farmers to take air samples that are then sent for analysis by a U.S. laboratory.

According to farmer Rodríguez, in the Coatzacoalcos area there are 500 oil wells, four petrochemical complexes, 30 companies from other industries and a refinery. The result? Periodically, a toxic cloud forms, polluting the air breathed by the surrounding communities.

The initial findings of the air samples show high concentrations of benzene and toluene, both carcinogenic substances.

"They also analyzed the eggs from yard chickens and they found a harmful substance called dioxin," a highly toxic byproduct of certain industrial processes, Rodríguez said.

APETAC, in operation for 13 years, has produced results. "In 1997 we were the first in the country to win a lawsuit for environmental damage against (the government-run) Petróleos Mexicanos," for its constant oil spills and leaks.

"Before, they were very common and nothing was done. They covered it with dirt and quicklime and that was it," he said.

These cases can be a threat to powerful private sector interests. According to UCCS, that is why there are efforts to sweep them under the rug.

That is what happened to the residents of the impoverished settlement of El Tigre II, in the municipality of Zapopan, Jalisco. El Nixticuil forest, 1,800 hectares of oak and pine, was threatened by a luxury real estate project.

One early morning in May 2005, municipal authorities sent machinery and workers into the forest, where they cut down 400 trees. When women from the settlement forced a halt to the logging, problems began.

"We had police dressed in civilian clothes hounding us outside our houses, and there are still signs saying that anyone who opposes the project will be written up," says Sofía Herrera, a psychology student.

Herrera is part of El Tigre II Save the Forest Committee, made up of 10 families. Its greatest achievement so far has been getting 1,500 hectares declared a natural protected area. But pressure on the forest has not ceased.

The committee, a member of AAA, also works to care for the forest. "We have a brigade that collects and plants acorns, digs furrows (around the trees to maintain soil moisture), applies fungicides and fights fires," said Herrera.

For some of these activities, the committee gets technical support from people at the University of Guadalajara.

If everything goes as UCCS plans, in a few years there will be a scientific tribunal in place, "of an ethical nature, that will judge the authorities for each one of the cases, based on the technical and scientific information gathered. Something like the Latin American Water Tribunal," according to Espinoza.

Meanwhile, the AAA strategy is to maintain unity among its groups in calling public attention to the environmental problems they face. The focus now is to publicize the next Assembly meeting.

The date has not been set, but the location has already been decided: Valle del Perote, in Veracruz. The area is very polluted and rose to fame in recent weeks as home to the pig farms that may be the origin of the swine flu virus H1N1.

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