© Eco Caminata
In the framework of World Environment Day, the Latin American and Caribbean Water Forum was held during the COVID-19 emergency, which was held in the online event “Weaving Networks for Life: Defending Territory is Defending Life!”. During this forum, academics, activists, and environmental defenders from countries such as Puerto Rico, Paraguay, and Honduras, spoke of the challenges involved in defending the environment on the American continent during the pandemic.
Historic struggles by indigenous, Afro-American, and mestizo communities in Latin America, especially against extractive and agribusiness companies, continue despite the health emergency and the additional obstacles it represents. As in both Mexico and in other countries such as Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Bolivia and Ecuador these activities were considered ‘essential’, community resistance was limited by the confinement measures imposed by governments.
Pedro Landa, a researcher in environmental human rights, expressed the importance of joining local struggles to strengthen resistance at the global level. He did so after explaining the “artificial” separation suffered by the Mesoamerican countries but which today continue to defend the same resources and the same territory. He also emphasized the need to “denounce the responsibility of the extractive industries and complicit governments in human rights violations because they promote these types of industries, encourage and impose them, sometimes at gunpoint, of repression, of criminalization and the imprisonment of many defenders of the environment ”, as well as removing the legal shield with which these companies are protected.
Adriana Muñoz Perez, a Paraguayan activist, spoke of the resistance of women who developed an agri-food model since before the pandemic with the aim of fighting agribusiness that continues to expand and displace communities in this territory; and to reduce the economic impact on families by producing their own food. Even though today they are the protagonists of this fight, the pandemic has increased impunity, political persecution, corruption and social inequality for many sectors of the population.
As described in an Infobae article, the null action of the governments of Mexico and of other countries in Latin America against the protection of human rights to the environment, health and violation by companies has led to Citizen organizations leading the defense of these rights. However, these actions put the lives of human rights defenders at risk as there are no justice mechanisms and regulatory ambiguity, as noted by Benjamin Berlanga, head of the Coordination Unit for Social Participation and Transparency (UCPAST) of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
In this sense, Pedro Landa called for a recognition and a tribute to all the men and women who have died for the defense of the environment rather than a celebration.
For more information in Spanish:
Evento virtual: Tejiendo redes para la vida (Caminata ecológica, 5 de junio 2020)
Débiles mecanismos de justicia perpetúan agresiones a defensores ambientales (Contralínea, 1 de junio, 2020)
Suma México 499 agresiones a ecologistas en 7 años (QS Noticias, 5 de junio 2020)
La ciudadanía lidera defensa de derecho al medioambiente en América Latina (Infobae, 5 de junio 2020)
Día Mundial del Medio Ambiente, nada que celebrar (Excelsior, 4 de junio 2020)
For more information from SIPAZ:
Nacional: Da AMLO banderazo del Tren Maya entre la pandemia y la inconformidad de la sociedad civil.
Nacional: fracking sigue en la 4T, denuncian; AMLO desmiente que así sea
Chiapas: Comunicado por la defensa del agua en San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Nacional: CEMDA destaca que continua el riesgo para defensores del medio ambiente
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