Environmentalists' Struggles in Mexico and Their Human Cost
Publisher: Voices of Mexico
Author(s): Myriam Fracchia Figueiredo
Date: 2022
Topics: Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Extractive Resources, Governance, Livelihoods
Countries: Mexico
Global expansion and the negative effects of the productive system on human beings and ecosystems have deepened the social crisis in Mexico. This is expressed in inequality and greater poverty, food insecurity, and informal labor, which in turn have unleashed an environmental crisis that in the 1960s prompted the rise of environmentalism, a “movement around the conditions, changes, defense, and protection of the environment and nature.”1 All this time, activists have confronted —to the point of giving their lives— the interests of power enmeshed in the development of agribusiness; beer, mining, and windfarm companies; oil extraction; and the construction of gas pipelines, dams, and highways, among other developments. In 2019, the ngo Global Witness rated Mexico as the world’s fourth most dangerous country for being involved in social activism, including the defense of the environment.