Exclusive, Ecología Política 51. Political Ecology in Latin America by Nemer E. Narchi

For nearly four decades studies in Political Ecology has proven the well known effects that power relations have over the quality of and availability and access to natural resources. Nonetheless, the neo-Maltusian discourse [1], which highlights population growth as the single-most salient factor promoting anthropogenic impacts on the environment, is still a prevailing idea among prominent thinkers and opinion leaders.

Optimal scenarios for understanding how unbalanced exercises of political and economical power create environmental costs and benefits can be observed throughout the world due to an overarching colonial past. However, when scrutinizing the recent history of Latin America, there is no question that the region could provide a myriad of textbook-scenarios.

Abstract, The Struggle for Life: Socio-environmental Conflicts in Mexico by Víctor M. Toledo, David Garrido, and Narciso Barrera-Bassols

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Abstract, The Struggle for Life: Socio-environmental Conflicts in Mexico 

by Víctor M. Toledo, David Garrido, and Narciso Barrera-Bassols

The global expansion of the neoliberal model is most forcefully expressed in the processes of social, cultural, and environmental predation undertaken by corporations in the so-called Global South. Three pertinent processes are taking place in Mexico: (1) an increase in socio-environmental conflicts, mainly in rural areas and in predominantly indigenous territories; (2) the proliferation of citizen resistance of an essentially communal, municipal, or micro-regional nature; and (3) increased violence against these resistance movements by the government across its three levels (federal, state, and municipal) in complicity (or not) with companies and corporations that are trying to implement projects that damage natural resources, affect the quality of the environment, and destroy cultures and the social fabric.

Abstract, Environmental Violence, Water Rights, and (Un) Due Process in Northwestern Mexico by Lucero Radonic

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Abstract:   Environmental Violence, Water Rights, and (Un) Due Process in Northwestern Mexico 

by Lucero Radonic

Water-related struggles worldwide may not involve armed conflict or direct bodily harm, but they are still violent in nature. Over the past century the Yaqui Tribe has continually contested water development plans and challenged distribution schemes, seeking to regain control over its livelihoods and the production of space in its ancestral homeland. In the Mexican state of Sonora we are currently witnessing a new chapter of the violent saga around water access in the Yaqui River valley. In fighting the proposed construction of the Independencia Aqueduct, intended to transfer water from the Yaqui River to the capital city of Hermosillo, the tribe’s struggles for recognition as a rightful resource holder have intensified. Paradoxically, dispossession is justified through an international human rights discourse and the relentless interrogation of indigenous authenticity aimed at delegitimizing Yaqui traditional resource claims.