Ecobreves – MEXICO: A Highway and Its Discontents

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MEXICO CITY, Mar 10 2008 (IPS) - A project to build 62 kilometers of highway in an area neighboring the Mexican capital where there is a major forest has created tension between the government, environmentalists and residents. If the government approves the construction of the Lerma-Tres Marías highway, as planned, “all of our colleagues will fight the war until the project is stopped,” Gabriel Hernández, resident of Huitzilac, a town of some 20,000 people near the planned route, told Tierramérica.

The residents opposed, with the support of environmental groups like Greenpeace, say the highway would threaten the Gran Bosque de Agua, the forest shared by the central states of Morelos, Mexico and the national capital.

It is an area covering 120,000 hectares and is an important watershed as well as home to great biodiversity.