Megaprojects not only pollute the water and affect the natural water cycle, but by deforesting they affect the life of wild animals, say peasants from Yucatan
Peto, Yucatán, México.- Peasants from southern Yucatán break the silence and demand that the megaprojects be stopped due to the multiple ways in which it affects their lives; the water is increasingly polluted, and the wild animals increasingly have no food and no place to live, they point out.
“The birds and the badgers now take refuge in our milpas and in two by three they affect our productive system, and without hope of bringing food home”
“Now it is difficult to cultivate and harvest, even the badgers are venturing into urban lots or pineapple plantations, although a few years ago, the opossums waited for them to mature, today they consume them that green”
`Now the plots are affected by squirrel plagues, which destroy the nances, mamuncillo fruits, mangoes, among other fruits,’ they highlight in their analysis of these direct effects of the application of megaprojects.
“Although we heard about the case of Homùn, or the huge puddles of feces from the mega-farms in several regions, now those farms have invaded the south of Yucatan, where we not only expect pestilences, but also serious water contamination”
“In the name of employment, megaprojects threaten everyone’s life, where not only crops are lost, but the water we consume is seriously affected forever”
The foregoing was part of the analysis carried out by the Regional Association of Foresters AC, U kanantaal Sihnaal, (Caring for the Environment), last Sunday, June 12, when holding its ordinary assembly, where its members spoke out against of the megaprojects that year after year reduce the forest mass of this entity, the above, on the eve of the beginning of the current planting season, according to the traditional agricultural calendar.
It is officially recognized that each year more than 20,000 hectares of lowland or secondary forest are lost in this entity due to urban expansion and other causes.
According to their statement, the Mayan peasants of at least 40 municipalities in the central, southern, and eastern zones of Yucatan are the ones whose harvests are increasingly reduced due to the effects of climate change, the change in land use, deforestation and as a consequence the lack of rain.
They also claim the abandonment and the lack of real public policies that promote the integral development of the regions by state and federal municipal authorities, which in the end favor the dispossession of their territories, since there are no real subsidies to continue reproducing their Milpa millenarian technology, a system that is characterized by providing healthy and sustainable food in the short term, corn, beans, pumpkins, backyard animals and as a by-product of the jungle, honey from bees.
They recalled that, as indigenous peoples and peasants, their human rights are increasingly violated, due to their vulnerability they have been ignored and marginalized by previous and current governments, with the “Mayan” train, they were not even consulted despite that are directly affected in the peninsular territory.
In the medullary part of the statement it expressly states the following:
– We demand the total suspension of the Mayan train because it has caused the arrival of actors to encamp our lands, increase violence, and in the process end our only economy, the milpa and beekeeping, and in this way aggravate and deprive us of our natural system of irrigation, the regular rainy season, and above all by eroding the spirituality of our uses and customs, the living Mayan Culture.
– Closure of the mega pig farms that operate throughout the state of Yucatan, which are contaminating the aquifers and today endanger the quality of fresh water, the heritage of new generations.
– That our fundamental right to territory and sustainable production be respected as it was before the emergence of agrochemicals.
– While the bio-inputs arrive, we demand free fertilizers like those delivered in other states of the country.
– That an emerging fair corn delivery program be implemented, due to last season’s disasters, floods and plagues.
– That incentives be granted to those who already produce organically and that the capacity of the peasant in the regeneration of their own technology and the use of ancient knowledge be considered.
– We urge the other communities and ejidos to organize themselves for the defense of life and territory.
The founding members of this non-governmental organization are primarily peasants of Mayan origin, from communities belonging to several municipalities located in southern Yucatan, and which in other times was considered the granary of the state for providing other populations with the sacred grain. .
The Regional Association of Foresters U kanantaal Sihnaal, based in Peto, Yucatán. It was founded in 2006, in a territorial area called Forest Management Unit UMAFOR 3102 and has influence in 12 municipalities in the South of the State of Yucatan.