On 7 and 8 October in Malinaltepec, a municipality in the Montaña Region of Guerrero, there was a National Encounter against the Extractive Mining Model. The forum was organized by the Regional Council of Agrarian Authorities in the Montaña-Costa Chica Region, Guerrero in Defense of Territory against Mining and the Biosphere Reserve, (CRAADT) and accompanied by the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center. Authorities and community leaders of indigenous people from throughout Mexico and from Cajamarca, Peru, attended the event.

Topics discussed included the role of women in Defense of Territory, the strategies for Defense of Communities and Agrarian Nuclei, and the concerns about the supposed imposition of extractive projects by businesses and authorities. At the end of the event, members of CRAADT, as well as representatives of the people of Acacoyagua and other communities in resistance in Chiapas, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, and Mexico City, as well as Peru and delegates from civil society organizations wrote a declaration in which they stated their commitment to continue to implement the full exercise of their rights based on self-determination. They also repeated their strategy to continue promoting their consulting process for free, prior, informed and culturally appropriate consent.

In their statement they rejected the stigmatization, persecution, harassment, threats, defamation and killings of people including land and territory defenders in Mexico and Latin America. This same message has been highlighted by Amnesty Internationalin their Brave campaign, which in the last 2 years has registered 437 deaths of human rights activists, a large part of whom are environmental defenders. In Mexico, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law highlighted in a report that in 2016, people who defend water, air, the earth, the flora and fauna suffered 63 attacks.

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