Environmental activists mobilize across Mexico and Chile

Various communities and environmental organizations across Mexico and Chile are mobilizing against perceived threats to natural resources and environmental protections.

In Mexico, social collectives in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region are protesting industrial pollution and territorial displacement, citing high cancer rates in the Atoyac and Zahuapan river basins. In Yucatán, residents of Chuburná Puerto successfully obtained a legal injunction to halt the ‘Las Dunas’ tourism project due to a lack of public consultation. Meanwhile, in Michoacán, the Zirahuén Lake faces a crisis of deforestation and illegal water extraction, and in Tezontepec de Aldama, residents are resisting a regional landfill project to protect local aquifers.

In Chile, Greenpeace has launched the ‘Ni un paso atrás’ campaign. The initiative calls for citizens to defend environmental standards following the withdrawal of 43 environmental decrees by the Ministry of the Environment and the implementation of measures that activists claim weaken the state’s ability to control environmental impacts.