Zapotec indigenous people from Unión Hidalgo protesting in Mexico City against a wind farm project in their town. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

“We can’t sow our fields, which they have rented for next to nothing. What good do we get out of it?” Guadalupe Ramírez complained about wind farms operating in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Ramírez said, “the governments play favourites with big business; our land produces more than what the companies are offering … They said they would come to help us, but that’s a lie,” this 62-year-old Zapotec Indian told IPS when she and other campesinos came to Mexico City from the municipality of Unión Hidalgo, 560 kilometres to the south, to protest the situation.

The Piedra Larga I wind farm, which has been operating in the town since October 2012, comprises 145 wind turbines producing 90 MW of power. It is the property of Desarrollos Eólicos Mexicanos (DEMEX), a subsidiary of the Spanish company Renovalia Energy and the private U.S. investment firm First Reserve.

In 2007 DEMEX approached local people and began to sign rental contracts with members of the “ejido” or communal land, treating them as if they were independent smallholders and not communal rights holders, and setting an average monthly rental of 20 dollars a hectare. The campesinos of Unión Hidalgo farm between three and four hectares each.

But in other municipalities wind energy companies are paying up to 80 dollars a hectare. Moreover, land tenure in Unión Hidalgo is collective, and all decisions pertaining to ejido land have to be made by the entire assembly of the ejido members, so the contracts signed are not actually valid – a fact that at first was not noticed by those who rented out their land.

Ejido members farming communal land in the municipality accuse DEMEX of tricking them by not explaining the clauses of contracts that were written in Spanish rather than Zapotec, of not calling the obligatory assembly of the ejido members, of polluting their land and of denying them freedom of movement on their land.

In 2014 the company will begin operating the Piedra Larga II wind farm, occupying 300 hectares in Unión Hidalgo, which has a population of 13,970, mainly native Zapotec people. A Resistance Committee against the Wind Farm Project has been created, several of whose members came to the capital to protest on Wednesday Jun. 12.

Their protest shows the increasing discontent of Mexican communities with wind energy projects because of their economic, environmental and social consequences. The future of the sector is turning cloudy, just when Global Wind Day was celebrated on Saturday Jun. 15.

The energy ministry estimated on Wednesday Jun. 12 that wind energy generates 1,304 MW in Mexico, followed by geothermal power with 812 MW, biomass and biogas with 581 MW and mini-hydropower projects with 450 MW. Without including large hydroelectric power stations, renewable energy sources contribute five percent of the total national energy supply, and the proportion is increasing.

The strong winds in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest part of Mexico which includes parts of the southern states of Oaxaca, Tabasco, Veracruz and Chiapas, have made it an epicentre for several wind farm projects. Land ownership in this area is primarily collective and communities are governed by traditional custom.

To date wind energy exploitation occupies 11,000 hectares nationwide, with investments since 2007 totalling five billion dollars, according to the Mexican Wind Energy Association (AMDEE).

The energy reform of 2008 allows individuals and businesses to generate their own electricity from renewable sources, supply it to the national grid and be rewarded with preferential feed-in tariffs.

As a result, many companies are buying cheap wind energy to become self-sufficient in energy and reduce their electricity bills. However, critics of this strategy argue that the communities where wind parks are installed have the least to gain.

“There is a pattern of human rights violations in the communities. Wind energy companies advertise themselves well, offering money and jobs, but the jobs are temporary. The companies’ actions are not transparent, nor do they meet established standards,” Alejandra Ancheita, the head of Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales (ProDESC – Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project), told IPS.

Following the wind energy boom in Oaxaca, activists fear the negative aspects of the model will be repeated in wind farm projects in other states.

“They have brought no benefits. The energy companies violate collective property rights, agrarian laws and the traditional laws of indigenous peoples,” Bettina Cruz, the founder of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Defence of Land and Territory (APIIDTT), told IPS.

DEMEX has denied the allegations against it, saying that the contracts are valid and that it has the necessary authorisations for construction and operation of the wind park.

“Conditions in the communities have not improved,” said Benjamin Cokelet, head of the Project on Organising, Development, Education and Research (PODER), an NGO for corporate accountability. In his view, the companies may be in violation of international conventions.

In the towns of San Dionisio del Mar, Álvaro Obregón and San Vicente, close to Unión Hidalgo, local people have blocked similar wind energy projects through direct protests and legal appeals.

For instance, in San Dionisio, the Spanish company Mareña Renovables is planning a 392 MW wind park with 75 million dollars of financing from the Inter-American Development Bank. But the project is at a standstill due to legal action.

On Tuesday Jun. 11 the Unión Hidalgo Resistance Committee presented a lawsuit to the agrarian court, which deals with land rights, seeking to invalidate the contracts that have been signed and suspend the working of the wind farm and its expansion, with immediate effect.

In April, they presented a complaint to PROFEPA, Mexico’s federal agency for environmental protection, against pollution caused by the wind park.

“It’s not right for the government to negotiate with the companies over our land. We have been badly off ever since they arrived. They say it’s clean energy, but that’s not true: lubricating oil from the turbines is contaminating the soil and the groundwater, the blades are killing birds, and the turbines are noisy,” Esteban López, a 55-year-old Zapotec Indian who grows maize and sorghum, told IPS.

The three private banks financing the project are signatories to the Equator Principles, a set of voluntary guidelines for assessing social and environmental risk in credits, adhered to by more than 70 international financial institutions since 2003.

Cokelet said PODER is considering lodging a grievance under the Equator Principles over irregularities in Unión Hidalgo.

“We are not smallholders, we are community farmers with collective tenure, and the company ignored that. They didn’t explain what they were going to do on our land. The contracts are unfair and one-sided,” Ramírez said.

By 2020, Mexico expects to generate some 12,000 MW from wind power.

Mexico is particularly vulnerable to increasingly frequent extreme weather events, which make climate change mitigation and adaptation measures essential to preserving its spectacular natural landscapes, like Pico de Orizaba, Mexico. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

The Climate Change Fund set up in November in Mexico faces enormous challenges such as the enforcement of anti-corruption standards, which make it unlikely that concrete actions will begin this year, according to civil society organisations.

The fund, which will allocate resources to mitigate and adapt to climate change, was created under the General Climate Change Law of June 2012, with an initial budget of only 78,000 dollars, assigned mainly for administrative expenses.

The initiative was adopted in accordance with the global strategy that emerged at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16) held in December 2010 in the southeastern Mexican city of Cancún.

“We know that recipient countries face significant corruption challenges,” and that is a concern because “the Mexican fund may be a model” for other countries that need assistance, Lisa Elges, the head of the Climate Governance Integrity Programme for Transparency International (TI), told IPS.

“A corruption risk assessment is needed, as well as people’s participation and involvement in monitoring the process,” she said.

TI, the global anti-corruption watchdog, is planning to publish in July or August a report on climate finance mapping and assessments which will analyse funds received by nine countries, including Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Panama.

The TI experts found failures of accountability, of dispute settlement mechanisms and of coordination with national funds. In addition there were conflicts of interest between actors involved, such as companies, and a lack of monitoring for projects from initial design to completion.

Mexico’s Climate Change Fund is meant to attract and channel public, private, national and international resources for actions against the effects of climate change, with a priority on adaptation.

Mexico is particularly vulnerable to increasingly frequent and extreme weather events, such as severe drought, intense rains and frosts, for which measures of mitigation and adaptation are essential.

Since 2006, this country of 118 million people has received more than seven billion dollars in loans or donations from the private sector, multilateral bodies and other countries for environmental policies, in response to the government’s call for resources to overcome the challenges, according to the Mexican Centre for Environmental Law (CEMDA).

Among the ongoing projects is the restoration of wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico, financed by the World Bank, and the design of a model for monitoring, verifying and reporting in the forestry sector, an initiative that is due to be launched in 2015, with aid from Norway.

Carlos Tornel, a public policy analyst at CEMDA, told IPS that the climate fund “must have clear rules, accountability and transparency, and should not be the only financing mechanism.”

A report on the flow of resources to Mexico’s climate fund from the public coffers, international institutions and the private sector will be published this month by CEMDA.

In the view of the government of conservative President Enrique Peña Nieto, it is preferable to have a well-defined structure and guidelines in place first, before beginning to finance projects.

“We want to design something that really works well. We have to make it transparent, make it functional, and reduce costs,” Luis Muñozcano, the assistant director general for climate change projects in the environment ministry, told IPS.

Draft guidelines for the climate change fund stipulate the definition of the responsibilities of those involved, procedures for receiving and disbursing funds, a mechanism for accessing information, and transparency in accounting for the resources, among other aspects.

By 2020 a system of financial incentives and subsidies should be in place for adaptation and mitigation measures.

The Mexican fund can also channel cash to energy efficiency, renewable energy, biomass use and clean transportation projects.

Every year Mexico emits some 748 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, according to the most recent measurements collected in 2010 and officially released last December.

The General Climate Change Law establishes a plan to reduce emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and by 50 percent by 2050, with reference to 2000 levels.

Mexico’s Fifth National Communication delivered in 2012 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change predicts that achieving the planned emissions reduction by 2020 will require 138 billion dollars of investment.

“We want a standardised approach. The issue is to see if money was efficiently used. Moreover, in practical terms, the complaints schemes are not operational at the national level,” said Elges, referring to the global Green Climate Fund created at COP 16 and originally promised starter capital of 30 billion dollars.

At the Cancún meeting it was agreed that industrialised nations should contribute 100 billion dollars a year to that fund from 2020 onwards. The Green Climate Fund is devoted to assisting poor countries to adapt to climate change impacts and to develop low-carbon economies. The World Bank is to administer the resources for the first three years according to the standards of the Convention.

The Green Fund is governed by a council of 24 delegates, with equal numbers from developed and developing nations, who are responsible for use and oversight of the resources.

After South Korea was elected as the headquarters of the Green Climate Fund last year, TI received a complaint from one of the other candidate countries accusing South Korea of buying votes with irregular payments. But the Asian country denied the allegations and the case did not proceed further.

However, Elges saw this as a warning sign of the dark shadows that can haunt these kinds of funds.

The other candidates to host the central office of the Green Climate Fund were Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland and Switzerland.

“It remains to be seen who is going to allocate the budget. So far, the finance ministry is the only body responsible,” said Tornel.

“No More Forced Disappearances; They Took Them Alive, We Want Them Back Alive!” say victims’ families who presented their cases to the Permanent People's Tribunal in Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The last time Enrique Rangel heard his brother Héctor’s voice was on the night of Nov. 10, 2009, when he called and said “they’re coming, they already stopped me and asked for money, and I already paid, but they’re coming.”

“We never heard from him again,” Enrique Rangel said, in one of the 13 testimonies heard by a jury of nine in Mexico City during a May 28-29 pre-hearing on “Forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Mexico: a permanent state policy.”

The pre-hearing was part of the work of the Mexico chapter, launched in 2011, of the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT), an international public opinion tribunal that has examined human rights violations and crimes against humanity since 1979 and hands down non-binding judgments.

The jury of each thematic pre-hearing will deliver its conclusions to a grand general hearing to be held in 2014, and a verdict will then be issued on the conduct of the Mexican state.

Héctor Rangel disappeared in the city of Monclova, in the northern state of Coahuila. “When we went there the police told us that some officers had arrested him, that he had paid a fine and that they had taken him off to be searched,” Enrique Rangel told IPS.

“But paying a fine at midnight? It seems very odd. Then they told us we’d better go away,” said Rangel, who lives in the central Mexican city of Querétaro.

Since 2007, as the military campaign against drug trafficking intensified in Mexico, the number of forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions has steadily climbed.

In this Latin American country, forced disappearances have traditionally been blamed on the public security forces and paramilitary groups.

But human rights activists say organised criminal groups are increasingly involved in the practice, sometimes acting in collusion with the police or military.

In December 2006, only days after he took office, conservative former president Felipe Calderón deployed the armed forces to combat the illegal drug trade, a strategy that has had fatal results.

During his six-year term, more than 100,000 homicides were committed, over 26,000 people disappeared and another 250,000 were displaced, according to official reports and NGOs.

The violence has continued since the arrival in office of conservative President Enrique Peña Nieto. Between December and the end of April there were 8,000 violent deaths, according to journalists’ tallies.

Common threads in all of the accounts heard by the PPT were the problem of impunity and the desire for justice.

Domingo Pérez, a Chol Indian who testified before the PPT, is tireless in his search for his sister Minerva Pérez, who was a 19-year-old student when she disappeared on Jun. 20, 1996, in the municipality of Tila in the southern state of Chiapas.

“Witnesses say she disappeared at a checkpoint. We reported her disappearance and an investigation was ordered. But the authorities have not taken up the matter. This is a violation of our rights, we want to live in peace but the government thwarts our wishes,” Pérez told IPS.

The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Centre (FRAYBA) learned from witness statements that Minerva Pérez was held for three days by the Paz y Justicia paramilitary group. During that time she was beaten and raped, and afterward all trace of her was lost in the Chiapas jungle.

At the time the armed forces were fighting the leftwing Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) that took up arms on Jan. 1, 1994 in Chiapas, one of Mexico’s poorest states.

FRAYBA documented 37 forced disappearances and 85 killings committed between 1995 and 2000, most of them by three paramilitary groups which according to reports were supported by the army and the state government.

On Mar. 20, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) admitted eight cases – six extrajudicial executions and two forced disappearances, in Chiapas – presented by civil society organisations against the Mexican state.

“The cases are well grounded. The situation is muddied by the strategy of blaming the disappearances and executions on organised crime. Now it will be harder to prove the relationship between paramilitary groups and the state,” Clemencia Correa, an academic and one of the members of the PPT jury, told IPS.

The PPT deals with matters like collective violence, impunity, lack of access to justice, migration, femicide and other gender-based violence, threats to native maize and food sovereignty, as well as environmental destruction.

Victims’ relatives continue to fight for effective investigation of their cases.

“We ask for clarification of where (our loved ones) are, and if they committed a crime, that they be tried. We want an effective inquiry to catch those responsible and put them on trial,” Nadin Reyes, the daughter of Edmundo Reyes, who disappeared together with Gabriel Cruz on May 25, 2007, told IPS. They both belonged to the leftwing insurgent Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR).

Based on an investigation by the National Human Rights Commission, their relatives believe that they were both captured in a combined state and federal police and military operation at a hotel in the southern city of Oaxaca.

Like the titles of Swedish author Mari Jungstedt’s trilogy of novels, they are: Unspoken. Unseen. Unknown.

“It’s a politically motivated case, because of his involvement in the EPR. We made the same journey all the families have had to make, to several agencies to ask for solidarity and demand a response from the authorities,” said Reyes.

On Monday May 27 the Mexican government announced the creation of a Disappeared Persons Search Unit. But victims’ families complained that only 12 agents were assigned to it.

“We have the log books of the police officers who arrested my brother, and their names. We gave them to the authorities and they still haven’t been able to arrest them,” complained Rangel, whose brother sold clothing.

In 2010, victims’ relatives formed United Forces for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, which became United Forces for Our Disappeared in Mexico (FUNDEM) because of the magnitude of the human rights tragedy. FUNDEM has documented more than 300 disappearances.

Forest in Sierra de Manantlán biosphere reserve in western Mexico.Credit: Comisión Nacional de Áreas Protegidas

Issues related to the ownership of forest carbon and to prior consultation mechanisms threaten to derail plans for the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests (REDD+) in some countries of Latin America, according to experts.

The problems are hindering the design of Mexico’s plan in the framework of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD). In Panama, they have prompted the country’s indigenous peoples to withdraw from the programme.

“The previous government let slip the opportunity of concluding the process for fear of social activism, especially on the part of indigenous people and campesino communities,” Gustavo Sánchez, head of the Mexican Network of Campesino Forestry Organisations (Red MOCAF), told IPS.

The administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, whose six-year term began in December, has not said “whether or not it will adopt the current draft” of the national plan, he said.

“When it comes to the plan, Mexico is the second most advanced country in the Mesoamerican region (southern Mexico and Central America), because Costa Rica is already engaged in consultations, after reaching an agreement between native peoples and the government,” Sánchez said.

REDD+ is a climate change mitigation action plan that currently finances national programmes in 16 countries of the developing South in a quest to combat deforestation, reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and promote access by participating countries to technical and financial support.

The initiative was launched in 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), with the goal of promoting conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

In Latin America the participating countries are Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay, while associate members that have not so far received financing are Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru. A total of 46 countries in the developing South are participating.

Mexico’s forested area covers 65 million hectares in the territories of some 2,300 communities, of which 600 manage forestry enterprises, according to the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS).

This country of nearly 117 million people emits 748 million tonnes a year of CO2, one of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Close to 16 percent arises from livestock farming, deforestation and other soil uses.

The authorities estimate that 150,000 hectares of forest are lost every year, but environmental organisations put deforestation at over 500,000 hectares a year.

In February, Panamanian indigenous groups withdrew from the pilot programme in their country, saying that the process was disrespecting their right to free, prior and informed consent and their collective right to traditional lands, as well as violating the 2007 U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“The state has marginalised us. The first thing the programme must guarantee is safeguards for indigenous people. Continuing in the programme makes no sense,” said Héctor Huertas of the National Union of Indigenous Lawyers of Panama (UNAIPA), which represents the National Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP).

Huertas told IPS that COONAPIP, a confederation of the seven native peoples in this Central American country, will be bringing a lawsuit in an administrative court against the Panamanian National Environmental Authority in a bid to halt REDD+.

Panama, a country of 3.5 million people, is home to some 417,000 indigenous people, according to the 2010 census, living on 16,634 square kilometres, equivalent to 29 percent of the national territory. Indigenous lands are regarded under the constitution as collectively-owned property that cannot be sold.

The crisis of the plan in Panama has fed suspicion in dozens of NGOs and academic institutes around the world that REDD+ does not represent a viable solution for environmental problems.

But it may serve as a lesson for the countries involved in designing the REDD+ programmes.

The study “Legal analysis of cross-cutting issues for REDD+ implementation: Lessons learned from Mexico, Viet Nam and Zambia”, says that “Mexico’s laws do not specify who owns carbon, but we can presume that forest owners and rights holders will be the direct beneficiaries.

“The clarification of land tenure rights is a crucial component of forest-based approaches to combating climate change and defining related carbon rights,” says the study, published May 2 by UN-REDD.

Another report, “Putting the Pieces Together for Good Governance of REDD+: An Analysis of 32 REDD+ Country Readiness Proposals”, published in March, concludes that few countries involved in the initiative “consider specific design options or challenges related to REDD+ benefit sharing, conflict resolution, or revenue management systems.”

However, the report makes the positive point that “most include plans to address these issues as readiness activities move forward.”

The publication, by Lauren Goers Williams of the U.S.-based World Resources Institute, says: “Relatively few readiness proposals identify specific next steps to address land tenure challenges or establish mechanisms to coordinate with local institutions during REDD+ planning and implementation.”

Although six REDD+ pilot projects, known as early actions, are under way in Mexico, it is unlikely that the national strategy will be completed this year.

“It is worrying to see the progress made with the early actions, because there is no national core concept, which should have come first,” Sánchez complained. ”Less importance is being given to tenure and rights, and more to measuring, reporting and verifying carbon. More progress is being made on the technical side, but there is no criterion for sustainability.”

NGOs involved in the process will ask the National Forestry Commission for clarity with respect to negotiation of the national strategy, for the settling of critical issues.

In the case of Panama, Huertas said that indigenous people “were demanding that indigenous experts be included on the programme, and that consultations be channelled through COONAPIP. Now we want a suspension of REDD+ based on the precautionary principle, because fundamental rights are being violated.”

The precautionary principle states that when potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities in question should not proceed.

The withdrawal of the native communities is being discussed at the 12th session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, being held in New York May 20-31.

UN-REDD is currently carrying out an external evaluation of the Panama national programme.

The UN-REDD study says: “To ensure the successful and equitable distribution of REDD+ benefits, legislation on REDD+ should incorporate clear and harmonised legal procedures and rules, allowing for open participation among actors at subnational and national levels.”

Toasted grasshoppers on sale in the Benito Juárez market in the capital of Oaxaca state, Mexico. Credit: Nsaum75 CC BY-SA 3.0

The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s recommendation to consider using edible insects as a food source to combat hunger may have particular repercussions in Colombia and Mexico, two Latin American countries that have a tradition of eating insects and a high degree of biodiversity.

Mexico has 300 edible insect species, according to a study published in May by the entomology department of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), titled “Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security”.

But local researchers have identified more than 500 species in the centre, south and southeast of Mexico, a mega-biodiverse country with a poverty rate of 47 percent.

“Insects are a viable, cheap source of high quality food that could be even better than the packaged foods that are consumed at present,” researcher Julieta Ramos-Elorduy, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Biology Institute, told IPS.

In her view, “This country is ready for mass consumption of insects, but people need education about techniques and ways of marketing them. Protecting them is not a concern. There are no official measures,” said the expert, who has been carrying out research since the 1970s on the benefits of insects, and has reported 549 edible species.

The issue acquires an environmental dimension, particularly on International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrated this Wednesday May 22.

Eating insects or entomophagy is an indigenous tradition in Mexico, attested to by the Florentine Codex, written by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) who described the consumption of 96 species.

Some insects provide up to three times more protein, weight for weight, than beef, and their nutrient concentrations are surpassed only by fish, according to the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO).

The Mexican insect menu is made up of blood-sucking bugs, worms, beetles, butterflies, ant and fly larvae, bees, wasps and “chapulin” grasshoppers. They can be grilled, fried or served with different kinds of sauces.

In recent decades, several of these delicacies have vaulted from kitchens in poor rural homes to tables in fancy restaurants.

In Mitla, a town close to a Zapotec archaeological site of the same name in the southern state of Oaxaca, a small business uses moth larvae (Hypopta agavis) that feed on American aloe leaves to make a hot spicy salt to accompany mescal, an alcoholic drink distilled from the same aloe plant.

“We follow a homemade recipe. Grinding is done by hand and we use a hand mixer. We also package by hand,” Diana Corona, the commercial manager of the firm Gran Mitla which produces 300 kilograms of “sal de gusano” (larva salt) a month, told IPS.

It takes 300 grams of ground larvae, 300 grams of dry chili peppers and 400 grams of salt to produce one kilo.

The larvae or worms are collected from August to October and frozen to ensure continuous production, as from November to the following May harvesting is banned throughout the country.

The FAO publication says that more than 1,900 species are part of the traditional diets of at least two billion people worldwide. The favourites are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets.

Collecting and farming insects could create jobs and income, and could have industrial-scale potential, the authors say.

“That could be achieved if the insects are farmed and marketed in large quantities. But producers need to be aware that their resources are being depleted,” said Ramos-Elorduy, who is investigating the productivity of insect species that feed on maize and pumpkin, and seeking ways of increasing it.

“Collecting techniques are the same everywhere, but there is no legislation stipulating proper techniques. People do not know what they are. Besides, wages are very low,” she said.

In their research paper “Edible insects in some locations in Central Region of Mexico State: Collection techniques, sale and preparation”, Ramos-Elorduy, Andrés Juárez and José Manuel Pino warn that “this valuable food resource is in danger of disappearing, due to a variety of environmental and socio-economic problems.”

The paper, published in December, concludes that “impacts on the environment, cultural change and changes in land use are causing the consumption of insects to decrease, especially among young people.”

Corona, of Gran Mitla, agreed that measures should be taken to protect these species. “Regulations are needed for collection and marketing. Insects are part of the Mexican diet and the resource must be protected,” she said.

For the same reason, many collectors are reluctant to talk about where they find their insects and grubs, and how they capture or harvest them.

The FAO report recommends automated infrastructure and regulatory frameworks to ensure stable, reliable and safe production. It also stresses that insect biomass could be used as the raw material for animal feed.

In Colombia, a snack available from street stalls is the crunchy “hormiga culona” (Atta laevigata), a leafcutter ant species, sold toasted and salted. The origin of this and other dishes is native culture.

But “going into the rainforest for large-scale extraction of insects is a touchy issue, because they are found in wildlife habitats,” Colombian biologist and regional planner Jaime Bernal Hadad told IPS.

Colombia has a poverty rate of 33 percent, and it is the second most mega-biodiverse country on the planet, after Brazil.

“In tropical ecosystems, although there is a great diversity of species, there are only relatively few individuals per species,” said Bernal Hadad. “Large-scale extraction could lead to the extinction of species, or create environmental imbalances.

“Beetles on fallen trees in the forest help decomposition and the balance of those forests,” he said. “Wasps and bees have an important role in pollination. And while there are native groups who eat beetles and prize them highly, they are minority groups and do not create problems.”

In Bernal Hadad’s view, farming insects “is an interesting option. But other factors come into play, such as the issue of cultural acceptability and consumption.

“Of course, in Europe it may be regarded as exotic, but if we consider marginalised populations in Latin America, the issue is very different,” he said.

The fight against hunger “cannot ignore structural issues,” he said. Moreover, “it is worth asking whether the proposal could be controlled or if it would become another method of interfering with conservation, not as a result of ranching and the timber industry, but because of insects,” he said. “Then we would continue to reproduce the destruction of natural systems, without real solutions.”

With additional reporting from Helda Martínez in Bogotá.

The people of Cunduacán and Huimanguillo, which have a combined population of 300,000, will present a class action lawsuit against Pemex in June.

Oil rigs and pumps. Credit: Bigstock

“There have been several harmful effects; we have carried out tests on soils, sediments and water and we are about to receive the results,” Marisa Jacott, the head of Fronteras Comunes (Common Borders), an environmental NGO, told IPS.

Fronteras Comunes and the Asociación Ecológica Santo Tomás (Santo Tomás Ecological Association) are providing legal advice to the local population, mainly small farmers and fisherfolk, who have incurred great losses due to oil spills and gas explosions.

Mexico’s 2011 Class Action Law allows individuals and the federal consumer protection agency to sue state and private companies. However, the law does not provide for reparations.

The oil industry has been active in Tabasco since the early 1950s, and expanded there from the 1970s onwards with the construction of petrochemical plants, pipeline networks and storage facilities, sparking an economic boom.

But the boom did not result in benefits for the local communities. Instead, the oil industry displaced traditional activities like banana farming and cattle ranching.

The oil industry is active in 13 of Tabasco’s 17 municipalities, producing 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) – of a national total of 2.5 million bpd – according to the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP).

“There is environmental pollution and crop destruction, and there are soils that have lost their fertility. This means that harvests are not as abundant as they were before,” Lorena Sánchez, head of the Tabasco Human Rights Committee (CODEHUTAB), an NGO that has received complaints from local people about these problems, told IPS.

“It has affected people’s diets and caused respiratory health problems as well as blood and skin diseases,” she said.

Since 2011, CODEHUTAB has brought four lawsuits to the federal environmental protection agency, PROFEPA, that have resulted in fines for Pemex, but not in reparations for victims in local communities.

The most recent case, this year, was related to seven gas flares burning in the municipality of Paraíso, where CODEHUTAB took blood samples from 50 children between the ages of seven and 15. Ten percent of the samples had chromosome alterations, linked by the epidemiologists to oil industry activity.

PROFEPA estimates there are an average of 20 crude spills a year in Tabasco. Between 2008 and 2012, the environment ministry recorded 102 sites contaminated by environmental emergencies in the country caused by Pemex, including three in Tabasco.

In addition to Tabasco, the eastern and southeastern states of Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Hidalgo and Puebla and the highways connecting them to Mexico City are regarded as vulnerable to oil industry activity.

The oil industry in this region produces pollution with heavy metals, ozone, sulphur dioxide, nitric oxide, volatile aromatic compounds like benzene, hydrogen sulphide, salts, ammonia, cadmium and acids, all of which are harmful to the environment and human health, the NGOs complain.

Manuel Pinkus-Rendón and Alicia Contreras, academic researchers at the Autonomous University of Yucatán, concluded in a study published last year that “the social and environmental fabric of Tabasco reflects a regional development potential considerably below that which existed over 60 years ago, as a result of environmental degradation.”

For their study “Impacto socioambiental de la industria petrolera en Tabasco: el caso de Chontalpa” (Social and environmental impact of the oil industry in Tabasco: The case of Chontalpa), the authors interviewed 200 residents of four towns in the municipality of Cárdenas, 65 percent of whom expressed negative views about oil industry activity, especially because of the pollution and destruction it causes.

“It is a case that has not been addressed. We want the judges to have the fewest possible reasons to reject it,” said Jacott, of Fronteras Comunes.

In April, the local residents presented a complaint to the National Commission on Human Rights. In 2004 they had filed a legal complaint against Pemex in the attorney general’s office, but it went nowhere.

The environmental organisations and local residents have spent two years building their case. The next step will be legal action over damage suffered in the adjacent state of Veracruz, another major oil-producing region.

“We want them to take the required preventive measures. All Pemex does is supposedly carry out remediation of the damage, but it does not invest in maintaining the pipelines and guarding the area,” CODEHUTAB’s Sánchez complained.

The organisations are asking for an assessment of the state of ecosystems in Tabasco, and the dissemination of Pemex’s policies and guidelines for preventing leaks, addressing environmental contingencies and cleaning up polluted sites.

They are also calling for the gradual replacement of fossil fuels with alternative energy sources, as well as regular measurements of the main atmospheric pollutants in affected areas.

The plaintiffs are bringing the class action lawsuit under a 2011 reform of the Mexican constitution that allows a large number of people with a common interest in a matter to sue as a group.

The civil lawsuit encompasses “damages to people living in the area or who own residential and commercial property along the coast, and people indirectly affected” by the spill, lawyer Óscar Preciado, with the law firm Rincón Mayorga Román Illanes Soto y Compañía, told IPS.

Sea turtles are among the larger animal species whose reproduction was hurt by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

“Without a doubt, this will set an important precedent. Class action lawsuits have been brought, but in questions relating to consumer, rather than environmental, rights,” said the lawyer, whose firm is representing the plaintiffs.

On Apr. 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd and under lease to BP, exploded off the coast of Louisiana, leaving 11 workers dead and 17 injured. It sank two days later.

By Jul. 15, 2010, when the oil leak was finally sealed, nearly five million barrels of oil had been spilled – only 800,000 of which were recovered – and at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants had been injected into the Gulf of Mexico.

The spill poses a long-term threat to flora, fauna and fishing resources in the Gulf of Mexico, which bathes the coasts of the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo, and to tourist sites, although the final extent of the damage is unknown, experts say.

“The government and BP can be sued in Mexico. The government was guilty of omission in this case,” René Sánchez, the coordinator of Colectivas, told IPS. The non-governmental organisation was born in November 2012 to provide advice to organisations and individuals with respect to filing class action lawsuits.

However, the 2011 law on collective action, which allows groups of consumers and PROFECO, Mexico’s federal consumer protection agency, to sue public and private companies, does not contemplate reparations.

The Gulf of Mexico disaster gave rise to a massive class action lawsuit involving more than 130,000 plaintiffs, known as multi-district litigation 2179 (MDL-2179), overseen by federal Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans.

In January, BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts and was sentenced to pay 4.5 billion dollars in penalties and fines. However, the amount is expected to climb as the lawsuit continues to wind its way through the courts.

The following month, TransOcean was found guilty by a U.S. federal judge of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act, and was fined 1.4 billion dollars.

Barbier set a Jun. 21 deadline for the attorneys to file their conclusions about evidence presented in the first phase of the trial.

In April, the government of conservative Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto sued BP and other companies in a U.S. court, after his predecessor Felipe Calderón (2006-December 2012) failed to do so.

The government’s lawsuit will fall under MDL-2179.

In 2010, the state governments of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo, as well as several companies, had brought legal action against BP and TransOcean for damages to the marine environment, the coastline, and local estuaries.

Government agencies in Mexico spent more than 11 million dollars on studies, assessments, lab tests, training and overflights related to the disaster, the state governments argued.

BP Mexico did not respond to IPS’ queries about the government or class action lawsuits.

The dearth of studies on the magnitude of the damages in the Gulf of Mexico has been the Achilles’ heel of the environmental organisations and lawyers involved in preparing the class action lawsuit in Mexico.

“That is the question that has limited us the most,” Preciado said. “The Mexican state has not been very participative.

“The damages will appear over the course of years, and this won’t be easily resolved. But we are not frightened of taking on BP – on the contrary, we are very motivated,” added the lawyer, who is working on another class action lawsuit against Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) involving oil spills in the southeast state of Tabasco.

The class action suit will pose a challenge to the Mexican judges, who are not accustomed to environmental litigation, when it is presented to a federal court in the capital on a date that has not yet been established.

Colectivas’ Sánchez said “we have to see how the judges prepare, and the state of the judiciary’s bureaucracy. One of the first steps is for the plaintiffs to be recognised as a class,” as occurs under the U.S. justice system.

Sánchez is also preparing a collective lawsuit against the eventual approval of commercial planting of genetically modified maize in Mexico.

Despite the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster and a September 2008 blow-out on a BP rig in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan – which was covered up – Pemex signed a technological agreement with the British company in 2012 for deep-sea operations in this country’s Gulf of Mexico waters.

“It is an aberration,” Preciado remarked.

“Pending issues include economics, education, violence and sexual and reproductive health,” María Oviedo, the Argentine training manager for the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights (CLADEM), told IPS. “Enforcement of the laws is the weakest link. Governments lack a comprehensive policy to address these issues.”

Oviedo, together with dozens of women’s rights defenders from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa, attended the May 7-10 seminar “Incidencia en red: el desafío que los estados cumplan con los derechos humanos de las mujeres” (Networking: Challenging States to Respect Women’s Human Rights).

CLADEM, founded in 1987, launched a campaign in 2011 with the slogan “For a state that fulfils its duties towards women’s human rights. The time has arrived!” Financed by the European Union and the Dutch organisation Oxfam Novib, the campaign will conclude in 2015.

In Latin America, indicators on primary school education, employment and incomes have improved over the past decade, but there are still significant gaps between the status of women and men in this region with a highly patriarchal culture.

There are some 163 million economically active men and 113 million women in the region. By 2020 these figures are forecast to rise to 188 million and 141 million respectively, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

There is an upward trend for women’s employment, and ECLAC estimates that by 2020, 56 percent of women will be working outside the home, compared to 52 percent in 2010.

“Inequality and injustice underlie day-to-day violence,” Gabriela Delgado, of the human rights programme at the state National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS. “The bottleneck for women’s struggles is the justice system. This means that structural changes are needed.”

Among the states’ pending debts in this area are legislative reforms to establish formal equality under the law, and the enforcement of policies to achieve the goals of access to economic resources, violence-free lives, sexual and reproductive rights and non-sexist education to combat discrimination.

Activists have identified laws that tolerate marital rape and other kinds of rape, endorse different minimum ages at which men and women can marry, or grant greater rights to men on marriage, in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama.

Between 17 and 53 percent of women in the region are victims of violence, and this scenario is exacerbated because 92 percent of reported crimes go unpunished.

And abortion largely remains illegal in Latin America.

In the view of Rosa Cobo, an academic at Spain’s public University of A Coruña, a mixture of age-old forms of violence are reemerging, together with new phenomena linked to the illegal economy and organised crime.

“We are living in a world characterised by geopolitical, economic, political and patriarchal disorder, which produces excessive violence that always affects the most disadvantaged and the weakest sectors,” Cobo told IPS.

She cited as examples the femicides (gender-based murders of women) in Guatemala and Ciudad Juárez, on the border between Mexico and the United States; gender violence in armed conflicts; the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation; and the sale of women into marriage in Asia.

The activists called for guarantees from states for equality between men and women and girls and boys, through the elimination of discriminatory rules and practices, and the promotion of equality and shared responsibilities for domestic chores, in order to eradicate poverty and usher in a life free from violence for women and girls.

They also called for sexual and reproductive autonomy for women, access to reproductive health resources and services, and secular, intercultural, non-sexist and anti-discriminatory education.

“There is a worrying debt to women that is going to take years to overcome,” Oviedo said.

CLADEM, which is based in Lima, launched a campaign in 2009 for non-sexist and anti-discriminatory education to promote education based on respect, equality and cooperation between the sexes.

“Isn’t it likely that there is a relationship between this extreme violence against women and the progress made in winning women’s rights in recent years?” Cobo asked.

This kind of violence “shows a compulsion to control, in response to the social reality that criticises the status of women. Violence has been displaced from known spaces to the unknown, so that men are now killing women whom they do not know,” she said.

Native varieties of maize, like these drying in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the southern state of Chiapas, are key to preserving crop diversity. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

In the 2011 action-thriller “Unknown”, scientists are persecuted by the biotech industry because they plan the open release of a drought- and pest-resistant strain of maize that could help eradicate world hunger.

There are certain parallels with the situation today in Mexico, the birthplace of maize, which is at the centre of the global fight to protect the crop’s diversity from the onslaught of genetically modified varieties.

“It’s the first time in history that one of the most important harvests in the world is threatened in its centre of diversity,” Pat Mooney, the head of the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), an international NGO, told IPS.

“If we let the companies win, there will be no chance to defend them in other parts. What is happening here is of key importance for the rest of the world.”

Civil society organisations are raising their guard against the possibility that the government of conservative President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) may approve commercial cultivation of transgenic maize, a move widely condemned by environmentalists and other activists, academics, and small and medium producers due to the risks it poses.

In September, the U.S. corporations Monsanto, Pioneer and Dow Agrosciences presented six applications for commercial plantations of transgenic maize on more than two million hectares in the northwestern state of Sinaloa and the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.

Moreover, in January these companies and Syngenta presented 11 applications for pilot and experimental plots to grow transgenic corn on 622 hectares in the northern states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sinaloa and Baja California. And Monsanto has applied for an additional plantation in an unspecified area in the north of the country.

Since 2009, the Mexican government has issued 177 permits for experimental plots of transgenic maize covering an area of 2,664 hectares, according to the latest figures provided by the authorities.

But large-scale commercial release of GM maize has not yet been authorised.

“They are going to serve up transgenic maize on every table in spite of the fact that food sovereignty depends on growing native corn,” said Evangelina Robles, a member of Red en Defensa del Maíz (Maize Defence Network) which campaigns against GM corn. “As a result, we have to demand its prohibition by the state,” she told IPS.

Mexico produces 22 million tonnes of maize a year, and imports 10 million tonnes, according to the agriculture ministry. The country purchased about two million tonnes of GM maize from South Africa over the last two years, and is set to import another 150,000 tonnes.

Three million maize farmers cultivate about eight million hectares in Mexico, two million of which are devoted to family farming. White maize is the main crop for human consumption, while yellow maize, for animal feed, is largely imported.

The National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy (CONEVAL) estimates the country’s annual consumption of maize at 123 kg per person, compared to a world average of 16.8 kg.

The historical link with pre-Columbian indigenous cultures gives maize a strong symbolic and cultural significance throughout Mesoamerica, the area comprising southern Mexico and Central America, where it was domesticated, producing 59 landraces or native strains and 209 varieties.

In the state of Mexico, adjacent to the capital city’s Federal District, small farmers have found their native maize to be contaminated with GM maize, according to tests carried out by students at the state Autonomous Metropolitan University.

“We swapped seeds and decided to do some tests. Now we are more careful when exchanging, and over who participates in the fair, although we still have to carry out confirmation tests,” activist Sara López, of the Red Origen Volcanes (Volcanoes Origins Network), an association of small farmers that has been organising producers’ fairs since 2010, told IPS.

Environmental, scientific and small farmers’ organisations have discovered GM contamination of native maize in Chihuahua, Hidalgo, Puebla and Oaxaca.

Contamination is “a carefully and perversely planned strategy,” according to Camila Montecinos, from the Chile office of GRAIN, an international NGO that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.

Transnational food companies “chose maize, soy and canola because of their enormous potential for contamination (by wind-pollination),” said Montecinos, one of the experts participating in the preliminary hearing on transgenic contamination of native maize at the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, an international opinion tribunal which opened its Mexican chapter in 2012 and will conclude with a non-binding ruling in 2014.

“When contamination spreads, the companies claim that the presence of transgenic crops must be recognised and legalised,” in order to pave the way for marketing the GM seeds, to which they own the patents, she said.

Mexico’s environment minister, Juan Guerra, has said that all available scientific information will be examined before a decision is made.

But that will not be easy. The National Confederation of Campesinos (Small Farmers), one of the main internal movements in the ruling PRI, has had an agreement with Monsanto since 2007 under which the company is to “conserve” native varieties.

Meanwhile, the Peña Nieto government still has not approved regulations for the format and contents of reports on the results of releasing GM organisms, and the possible threats to the environment, biodiversity, and the health of animals, plants and fish.

“For 18 years, corporations have been unsuccessful in convincing the people that their products are good. Maize is being used as a means of political and economic control. People need maize to be alive,” the ETC Group’s Mooney said.

The transgenic seeds on the market are herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready and Bt (for the Bacillus thuringiensis gene they carry for pest resistance) versions of cotton, maize, soy and canola. While they are legally grown in Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Spain, they are banned for example in China, Russia and the majority of the EU countries.

Recent studies published in the United States show that transgenic crops do not significantly increase yield per hectare, do not reduce herbicide use, and do not increase resistance to pests, in contrast to biotech industry claims.

“We are analysing what legal action to take against the new applications (to plant GM maize),” said Robles, of the Maize Defence Network.

A woman prepares corn tortillas on a fuel-efficient wood stove. Credit: Courtesy of Ecoders

Environmental organisations in Mexico are hoping to finance the promotion of fuel-efficient wood-fired cookstoves, which reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, through the sale of carbon credits on the voluntary market.

Two non-governmental organisations are working in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, in the southern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, to develop and promote these improved cookstoves, which would also reduce wood consumption as well as the incidence of respiratory problems caused by the smoke from traditional stoves.

“The majority of rural families in the region cook with firewood. We began with a series of workshops to find out what kind of stoves there are in the country,” said Dulce Magaña, the ecotourism and ecotechnology coordinator at U’yo’olché (“tree shoot” in the local Mayan language), which is leading up the initiative in conjunction with the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (FMCN).

U’yo’olché, founded in 1999, works in the areas of community forest management, ecotourism and biodiversity monitoring in Quintana Roo and the neighbouring states of Yucatán and Campeche.

The cookstove initiative started off in 2006 with the distribution of Patsari stoves, one of the most commonly used models of efficient cookstoves in Mexico. They are made of clay and manufactured with federal and state subsidies.

But clay is scarce in the region, which led the organisation to adapt these stoves and develop a new model called Túumben K’óoben (“new stove”), made with local materials such as white earth, nopal (prickly pear) cactus juice, lime and corn husks.

In terms of design, the stove is basically a brick and cement structure with a combustion chamber where the firewood is placed, two or three metal burners, and a pipe through which the smoke is released.

More than 2,000 improved cookstoves have now been distributed, half of them based on this new model. A solar power cooker is included with each one.

Thirteen percent of Mexico’s 117 million inhabitants cook with firewood, which is used at an estimated rate of 2.5 kilograms daily per person.

And every year, over 4,000 deaths occur due to smoke exposure from traditional cookstoves or open fires, according to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, an association of governments, universities, the private sector and non-government organisations.

“The distribution of solar cookers and energy-saving cookstoves and training in their use has made it possible to reduce the consumption of firewood in the country’s rural communities,” Lorenzo de Rosenzweig, the general director of the FMCN, told Tierramérica*.

In addition to reduced wood consumption and the elimination of hazardous household smoke, the improved stoves decrease the risk of accidents, cut down on household expenses, and give women more free time for other activities, such as education or work outside the home, thus strengthening women’s rights while improving quality of life.

In addition, a traditional wood-burning stove releases 7.14 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while the use of a solar cooker and improved stove can reduce those emissions by up to four tons, according to the FMCN.

“Cookstove projects can be successful. Some have achieved stable development. The crucial component is the model of the stove, which must be adapted to the needs of the users, the quality of the materials, and follow-up of the adoption of the technology,” said Iván Hernández, the regional manager for the Americas of The Gold Standard.

This Geneva-based organisation certifies renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste management and forest carbon offset projects. In Latin America it has certified 63 initiatives so far. Nine percent of these have issued credits equivalent to between 150,000 and 200,000 tons of CO2, Hernández told Tierramérica. Only four of those projects are in Mexico.

Carbon credits are issued for activities that demonstrate a concrete and measurable reduction in CO2 emissions, and are traded on carbon markets. The buyers, while financing the clean energy project that generated the credits, can use them to demonstrate that they have contributed to the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Utsil Naj (“clean house for everyone”), a programme that helps clean technology initiatives in Latin America to enter the carbon market, accepts projects aimed at the promotion of energy-efficient stoves, solar cookers and water heaters, photovoltaic panels and greenhouses, and operates in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Peru, as well as Mexico.

For Mexican initiatives, the voluntary carbon markets in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Australia or Japan could be better alternatives than the mandatory carbon markets established under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol.

In force since 2005 and extended until 2020, the Kyoto Protocol allows industrialised nations that are obliged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to invest in emission-reduction projects in developing countries, as a way of “offsetting” the emissions they have not managed to cut within their own borders.

As of this year, Mexico can only sell carbon credits in Europe from projects registered under the CDM up until 2012, which makes voluntary carbon reduction schemes an attractive option.

“Through the carbon credits we could earn income for maintenance or for activities with women, such as providing access to other technologies, as well as follow-up and monitoring of the cookstoves,” Magaña told Tierramérica.

U’yo’olché is preparing to conduct an assessment of the adoption of the improved cookstoves among their users. Each stove costs roughly 162 dollars. Through an interest-free microcredit loan, purchasers can pay for them in weekly instalments of eight dollars. They can also opt to pay part of the cost of the stove, with the remainder financed by an organisation, said Magaña.

The project would be the world’s second improved cookstove initiative certified by The Gold Standard to sell carbon credits on the international market. The first is the Peruvian initiative Qori Q’oncha, which also entered the market with the assistance of Utsil Naj and generates around 100,000 tons of carbon credits.

“The resources will be reinvested to expand the coverage of the project and to train community leaders. One it is underway and producing results, the initiative will be replicated with partners in other regions of Mexico,” said de Rosenzweig.

Hernández noted that “many regions and countries have undertaken individual or bilateral initiatives for the potential trade of emissions reductions. Their combination with voluntary markets will be key for the development of these new mechanisms.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.