“Pasta de Conchos is very important because it will set a precedent for how mining should operate, how workers should be treated, and [show] that companies should think twice before opening mines”, Cristina Auerbach.
For more than a decade, totonaca indigenous communities in the Sierra Norte de Puebla have fought for the survival of their traditions and the defense of their territory. In January of this year, they won an important legal battle against the building of a hydroelectric dam with the local municipality revoking the permits for Puebla 1 to be built, due to illegal activities in the administrative processes.
Photo credits: Reforma
During the past few months, PBI along with other national and international organisations, has called attention to the extraordinary risk people defending their territory against economic projects are living through in Mexico and across the whole region of Latin America. During the past weeks these warning have become a reality in Mexico, and unfortunately, the situation we foresaw is beginning to take place.
Crédito de la foto: Reforma
Durante los últimos meses, PBI junto con varias otras organizaciones nacionales e internacionales, hemos llamado la atención sobre el riesgo extraordinario en que viven las personas quienes defienden su territorio en contra de proyectos económicos en México y por toda la región de América Latina. Durante las últimas semanas en México estas advertencias se han convertido en realidad, y lamentablemente, la situación que prevenimos se ha empezado a llevar a cabo.
Pasta de Conchos Family Organization (OFPC) focuses its fight against coal extraction activities carried out under irregular conditions, or where relevant legislation has not been properly applied.
PBI interviewed ProDESC to learn more about consultation processes. Alejandra Ancheita is a lawyer, founder and Executive Director of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project (ProDESC), an organization that defends human rights, specifically the right to land, territory and natural resources of agrarian communities, indigenous peoples, and labor rights.
The Focal Group on Business and Human Rights in Mexico is a group of civil society organizations that seek to ensure respect, promotion and protection of human rights by the government and national and transnational corporations, through the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The shifting nature of international power relations has meant that transnational companies often exercise greater power than governments across the world.
EDUCA, Services for an Alternative Education was created in 1994 and is based in the City of Oaxaca de Juarez. Through its work in the area of territorial rights, it strives to strengthen and consolidate the leadership of social, regional and community organizations that fight for the defense of their right to territory. It also strives to make alternative proposals to current development policies.
