In Mexico scientists are seeking volunteers who are obese, diabetic or suffering from cancer or other diseases, in order to study their genes. The results will help fill in a genetic map of the Mexican population.

Studying the human DNA sequence. Credit: Photo Stock

Genetic science may help lead to an exact definition of which pharmaceuticals and what dosages are most effective in treating an individual or group, or the most appropriate epidemiological strategies for preventing disease, or even manipulating specific genes.

The Mexican genetic map presented on May 11 took four years and some 21.5 million dollars to prepare, and is at the core of a project aimed at improving national public health. But it also opens the door for ethical questions in an area with little or no legislation, warn experts.

In four or five more years, after comparing the genes of healthy and ill Mexicans, and putting those data in the context of the genetic map, scientists will be able to determine which genes mean a predisposition to contracting certain diseases, Gerardo Jiménez, director of the national genomic medicine institute, INMEGEN, established in 2004, told Tierramérica.

Eduardo Rodríguez, project coordinator for the Bioethics Unit of the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), based at the University of Chile, applauded Mexico for its achievement, which makes that country a “genome leader in the developing world.”

Having a map opens the way to solving many public health problems, “but it is not a panacea,” Rodríguez told Tierramérica from his offices in Santiago.

The genetic information could lead to stigmatising some populations linked to certain diseases, and could give rise to new forms of discrimination, he said.

“Also, there is a series of other ethical and practical problems that will emerge and which have not been legislated in practically any Latin American country,” Rodríguez warned.

The genome map of Mexico, which has a population of 107 million, is an analysis of samples offered voluntarily by 300 people of mixed-race heritage from six regions of the country, and from 30 Zapoteca Indians in the southern state of Oaxaca.

“The fact that our map is basically of ‘mestizos’ (people of mixed race) allows us to think that the same would apply to other Latin American populations, because we have similar origins: indigenous people, Spaniards and some Africans. In that sense, the Mexican map has a regional impact,” said Jiménez.

The differences found between these mestizos and other populations for which genome information exists – Asian, African and European – could explain why Mexicans are more likely to suffer diabetes, cancer or morbid obesity.

It could also provide data that reveal the cause of the apparently higher risk of death among Mexicans if they are infected with the new influenza type A H1N1 virus, widely known as swine flu.

But it is too soon to jump to conclusions. “The map we presented is a catalogue of frequent genetic variations in the Mexican population, but it is not associated with specific diseases. The next step is to uncover those relationships,” explained the INMEGEN director.

Sometime around 2014, the institute will offer data that could help make “collective and individual decisions” about health issues,” said Jiménez, a pediatrician with a doctorate in molecular genetics and a post-doctorate in genomic medicine from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland in the U.S.

Since the late 1990s, public and private organisations around the world have been carrying out projects to unravel the genetic maps of certain populations.

In April 2003, the Human Genome Project, led by the United States, presented the complete human DNA sequence.

In Latin America, only the wealthy can take advantage of genomic medicine, and there is no sign that this will change in the future, because “we are in a region of great social inequalities,” noted Rodríguez.

A study of the problem of genetic information management in Latin America, from the Bioethics Unit and coauthored by Rodríguez, warns that without effective regulation this new branch of medicine will have “negative social consequences.”

“The region does not have adequate legislation. Chile, Brazil and Mexico have some recent laws, but in general there is much left to do, and it is an urgent question,” he said.

In November 1997, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) enacted the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which established the non-binding principles of people’s right not to be discriminated against for their genes, and the confidentiality of that information.

But there have been few advances on these issues, according to the 2006 study “Outlook for Legislation on Human Genomes in Latin America and the Caribbean”, by the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and the UNESCO Bioethics Network of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Argentina, for example, lacks adequate integral legislation to cover the problems generated by the spectacular advance of science, says the report

The study says that in Bolivia, Cuba and Chile there is a lack of standards and jurisprudence, while in Paraguay and Uruguay no national standards or regulations mention the human genome.

Jiménez agreed that the outlook applies even to Mexico, despite the country being fully involved in genomic scientific development.

But in the May 7 edition of the U.S.-based “New England Journal of Medicine”, some scientists report that the processes of comparing genomes of healthy and ill persons, which has been proposed in Mexico, could prove disappointing.

According to the journal article, diseases like cancer or diabetes do not appear to be triggered by specific genes, but rather by a series of genetic combinations that remain difficult to identify.

Furthermore, even given the same genetic variations, the risk that a disease manifests also depends on whether the genes were inherited from the father or the mother.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

In deciphering the population’s genome, Mexico has entered new scientific territory, replete with legal and ethical challenges.

Studying the human DNA sequence. - Photo Stock

Genetic science may help lead to an exact definition of which pharmaceuticals and what dosages are most effective for treating an individual or group, or the most appropriate epidemiological strategies for best preventing disease, or even manipulating specific genes.

The Mexican genetic map presented on May 11 took four years and some 21.5 million dollars to prepare, and is the core of a project intended to improve national public health. But it also opens the door for ethical questions in an area with little or no legislation, warn experts.

The central revelation is that the Mexican genome differs from those of other populations already studied around the world.

In four or five more years, after comparing the genes of healthy and ill Mexicans, and putting those data in the context of the genetic map, scientists will be able to determine which genes mean a predisposition to contracting certain diseases, Gerardo Jiménez, director of the national genomic medicine institute, INMEGEN, created in 2004, told Tierramérica.

Eduardo Rodríguez, project coordinator for the Bioethics Unit of the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Health Organization, based at the University of Chile, applauded Mexico for its achievement, which places that country as a “genome leader in the developing world.”

Having a map opens the way for solving many public health problems, “but it is not the panacea,” Rodríguez told Tierramérica from his offices in Santiago.

The genetic information could lead to stigmatizing some populations linked to certain diseases, and could give rise to new forms of discrimination.

“Also, there is a series of other ethical and practical problems that will emerge and which have not been legislated in practically any Latin American country,” Rodríguez warned.

The genome map of Mexico, which has a population of 107 million, is an analysis of samples offered voluntarily by 300 people of mixed racial heritage from six regions of the country, and from 30 Zapoteca Indians in the southern state of Oaxaca.

“The fact that our map is basically of ‘mestizos’ (people of mixed race) allows us to think that the same would apply to other Latin American populations, because we have similar origins: indigenous people, Spaniards and some Africans. In that sense, the Mexican map has a regional impact,” said Jiménez.

The differences found between these mestizos and other populations for which genome information exists – Asian, African and European –, could explain why Mexicans are more likely to suffer diabetes, cancer or morbid obesity.

It could also provide data that reveal the cause of the apparently higher risk of death among Mexicans if they are infected with the new influenza Type A H1N1 virus, widely known as swine flu.

But it is too soon to jump to conclusions. “The map we presented is a catalogue of frequent genetic variations in the Mexican population, but it is not associated with specific diseases. The next step is to uncover those relationships,” explained the INMEGEN director.

Sometime around 2014, the institute will offer data that could help make “collective and individual decisions” about health issues,” said Jiménez, who is a pediatrician with a doctorate in molecular genetics and a post-doctorate in genomic medicine from Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.

Since the late 1990s, public and private organizations around the world have been carrying out projects to unravel the genetic maps of certain populations.

In April 2003, the Human Genome Project, led by the United States, presented the complete human DNA sequence. In Latin America, only the wealthy can take advantage of genomic medicine, and there is no sign that this will change in the future, because “we are in a region of great social inequalities,” noted Rodríguez.

A study of the problem of genetic information management in Latin America, from the Bioethics Unit and coauthored by Rodríguez, warns that without effective regulation this new branch of medicine will have “negative social consequences.”

“The region does not have adequate legislation. Chile, Brazil and Mexico have some recent laws, but in general there is much left to do, and it is urgent,” he said.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in November 1997 enacted the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which established the non-binding principles of people’s rights not to be discriminated against for their genes and for the confidentiality of that information.

But there have been few advances on these issues, according to the 2006 study “Outlook for Legislation on Human Genomes in Latin America and the Caribbean,” by the Autonomous National University of Mexico and the UNESCO Bioethics Network of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Argentina, for example, “lacks adequate integral legislation that covers the problems created by the spectacular advance of science,” says the report.

In Bolivia, Cuba and Chile, the document says there is a lack of standards and jurisprudence, while in Paraguay and Uruguay, no national standards or regulations mention the human genome.

Jiménez agreed that the outlook applies even to Mexico, despite the country being fully involved in genomic scientific development.

But in the May 7 edition of the U.S.-based “The New England Journal of Medicine,” some scientists report that the processes of comparing genomes of healthy and ill persons, which has been proposed in Mexico, could prove disappointing.

According to the journal article, diseases like cancer or diabetes do not appear to be triggered by specific genes, but rather by a series of genetic combinations that remain difficult to identify.

Furthermore, even given the same genetic variations, the risk that a disease manifests also depends on whether the genes were inherited from the father or the mother.

Scientists around the world are trying to decipher the influenza H1N1 virus in order to develop a vaccine, while others are tracking its origins to fight its spread more effectively.

Surgical masks have become part of the Mexican police uniform. Credit: Marcos Ferro Tarasiuk/IPS

Laboratory tests show that the virus strain initially believed to be swine-based is actually a subtype of influenza virus A that contains genetic material from swine, human and avian strains. It easily mutates and recombines, which is what makes it potentially so dangerous.

The microbiology laboratory at Canada’s Public Health Agency took a step forward in announcing May 6 that it had decoded the genetic sequence of three samples of the H1N1 virus collected in that country and in Mexico.

“This virus already existed. It has been mutating and will continue to mutate. My hypothesis is that we are faced with several subtypes of A/H1N1,” pulmonologist Fernando Cano, former director of Mexico’s National Institute of Respiratory Disease (INER), told Tierramérica.

There have been several documented cases of swine flu in humans, including a non-fatal contagion in 2007 that affected 12 people at a rural fair in the midwestern U.S. state of Ohio, said Cano, who is coordinator of the bioethics and clinical medicine faculty sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation).

The people affected by that outbreak were tested and it was found that 60 percent had antibodies to fight that flu strain, added Cano, former director of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) medical school. According to Cano, the Ohio virus is likely to be an ancestor of the current strain.

In a Tierramérica interview, Eduardo Sada, INER head of microbiology research, pointed to reports from 1957 and 1977 on swine flu in humans. “Undoubtedly the original virus and the current one circulated at a low volume for several years” until “something that we haven’t discovered yet” triggered the epidemic, he said.

To assert that this H1N1 subtype originated in Mexico at this point is just speculation, agreed Cano and Sada. The virus has now been detected in more than 20 countries.

The first confirmed case of the new virus was in the small, impoverished community of La Gloria, in the southeastern Mexican state of Veracruz. From mid-March to early April, a rare outbreak of flu affected 600 people in the town, located some 10 kilometres from a pig farm.

Medical samples from the sick individuals in La Gloria were sent to laboratories in the United States and Canada. One of them, from a five-year-old boy who presented symptoms on Apr. 1, contained the new virus, said a report released on Apr. 23.

The same report, from Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, in Winnipeg, confirmed that a woman who died of pneumonia on Apr. 13 in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and who apparently had no contact with La Gloria, had also contracted the virus. But they weren’t the only early cases. In the city of San Diego, California, near the Mexican border, a boy fell ill on Mar. 30 with an “atypical” respiratory illness. A similar case occurred shortly afterwards, involving a girl in the nearby town of Imperial.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the southeastern U.S. city of Atlanta, analysed samples from both cases and confirmed the presence of the new H1N1 virus.

In 1999, young people and pigs died of a strange virus in Malaysia. It was believed to be “Japanese encephalitis”, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that feed on both humans and pigs.

After several months of research and the slaughter of hundreds of pigs, the scientists discovered that the problem originated at a farm where some of the animals had eaten fruit remnants that had been contaminated by bats, which are asymptomatic carriers of the virus. Further, it was determined that transmission to humans occurred through pig saliva.

With that information, the authorities were able to stop the spread of the virus, which was dubbed Nipah, although they were not able to eradicate it.

Teams from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and researchers from several countries are trying to track down the origins of the new influenza, popularly known as “swine flu”. But they agree it will be difficult to determine where it originated.

Cano believes the deaths caused by the H1N1 virus, nearly all of which have occurred in Mexico, are related to delays in medical attention or inappropriate treatment, but does not rule out the possibility that the severe cases may have been caused by variants of this virus strain. “In any case, the new virus is generally not very lethal, and that is fortunate,” although it should not be forgotten that it could mutate and generate a severe pandemic in the future, he warned.

On Apr. 23, Mexico decreed a health emergency after confirming the presence of the new virus. On Apr. 24, the WHO also declared a public emergency. It then elevated its epidemiological alert from phase three to four, and later to five (out of six).

On May 4, Mexican authorities announced the stabilisation of the epidemic, calling for the gradual return to normal school and business activities, which had been largely paralysed since Apr. 23.

Every year, between 250,000 and 500,000 people around the globe die from the various strains of seasonal influenza that usually present during the colder times of year, says the WHO.

At first, the appearance of the H1N1 virus confused the scientific community, because the strain circulating mostly affected young adults. However, of the more than 1,000 cases confirmed in Mexico, nearly half were people 19 and younger.

Another issue to be clarified is why the people who died from the virus have nearly all been Mexican, and why some of the infected are able to recover without complications or pharmaceutical treatment, while others end up in the hospital.

For now, there are more questions than answers about the traits of the new virus, its origin and its mutation profile, after Canada confirmed that some pigs had contracted the virus from a sick farm worker.

Cano recommended that people continue to get vaccinations against seasonal flu, which even if it does not specifically target the new strain, does provide additional protection.

The H1N1 virus, which is spread in the same way as any other influenza virus, reacts well to antiviral medications if they are administered in a timely manner, though scientists fear new mutations could mean the pharmaceuticals will become less and less effective.

The first analysis by a multidisciplinary team from UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute, set up to study the virus, confirmed that it has a great capacity to mutate, said microbiologist Antonio Lazcano, who considers it highly probable that there are different varieties of H1N1 circulating in Mexico alongside other flu viruses.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Using genetic studies, scientists are seeking conclusive answers about influenza virus A/H1N1, which continues to mutate.

Surgical masks have become part of the Mexican police uniform. - Marcos Ferro Tarasiuk/IPS

Laboratory tests show that the virus strain initially believed to be swine-based is actually a subtype of influenzavirus A, which contains genetic material from swine, human and avian strains. It easily mutates and recombines, which is what makes it potentially so dangerous.

The microbiology laboratory at Canada's Public Health Agency took a step forward in announcing May 6 that it had decoded the genetic sequence of three samples of A/H1N1 collected in that country and in Mexico.

“This virus already existed. It has been mutating and will continue to mutate. My hypothesis is that we are faced with several subtypes of A/H1N1,” pulmonologist Fernando Cano, former director of Mexico's National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER), told Tierramérica.

There have been several documented cases of swine flu in humans, including a non-fatal contagion in 2007 that affected 12 people at a rural fair in the Midwestern U.S. state of Ohio, said Cano, coordinator of the bioethics and clinical medicine faculty sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The people affected by that outbreak were tested and it was found that 60 percent had antibodies to fight that flu strain, added Cano, former director of the medical school at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM). According to Cano, the virus in Ohio is likely to be an ancestor of the current strain. In a Tierramérica interview, Eduardo Sada, INER head of microbiology research, pointed out reports from 1957 and 1977 on swine flu in humans. “Surely the original virus and the current one circulated in low volume for several years,” until “something that we haven't discovered yet” activated them and created the epidemic, he said.

To assert that this A/H1N1 subtype originated in Mexico at this point is just speculation, agreed Cano and Sada. The virus has now been detected in more than 20 countries.

The first confirmed case of the new virus was in the small, impoverished community of La Gloria, in the southeastern Mexican state of Veracruz. From mid-March to early April, a rare outbreak of flu affected 600 people in the town, located some 10 kilometers from a pig farm.

Medical samples from the sick individuals in La Gloria were sent to laboratories in the United States and Canada. One of them, from a five-year-old boy who presented symptoms on Apr. 1 and who recovered with non-specialized medications, contained the new virus, said a report released on Apr. 23.

The same report, from Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, in Winnipeg, confirmed that a woman who died of pneumonia on Apr. 13 in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and who apparently had no contact with La Gloria, had also contracted the virus.

But they weren't the only cases. In the western U.S. state of California, bordering Mexico, there were others infected.

In the border city of San Diego, on Mar. 30, a boy fell ill with an “atypical” respiratory illness, but he recovered without any major problems. A similar case occurred shortly after, involving a girl in the nearby town of Imperial.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the southeastern U.S. city of Atlanta, analyzed samples from both and confirmed the presence of the new A/H1N1.

In 1999, young people and swine died in Malaysia, infected with a strange virus. It was believed to be “Japanese encephalitis”, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite humans and pigs.

After several months of research and the slaughter of hundreds of pigs, the scientists discovered that the problem originated at a farm in which some of the animals had eaten fruit remnants that had been contaminated by bats, which are asymptomatic carriers of the virus. Further, it was determined that transmission to humans occurred through pig saliva.

With that information, the authorities were able to stop the spread of the virus, which was dubbed Nipah, although they were not able to eradicate it.

Teams from the World Health Organization (WHO) and researchers from various countries are now on the trail of the new influenza, which some have named “North American” and others “Mexican” flu, but they agree it will be very complicated to determine its place of origin.

Cano, former INER director, believes the deaths caused by A/H1N1, nearly all in Mexico, are related to delays in medical attention or inappropriate treatment, but does not rule out that there could be further infections with variants of this virus strain.

“In any case, the new virus is generally not very lethal, and that is fortunate,” although it should not be forgotten that it could mutate and generate a severe pandemic in the future, he warned.

On Apr. 23, Mexico decreed a health emergency after confirming the presence of the new virus. On Apr. 24, the WHO also declared a public emergency. It then elevated its epidemiological alert from three to four, and later to five (out of six).

On May 4, Mexican authorities announced the stabilization of the epidemic, calling for the gradual reactivation of school and business activities, which had largely been paralyzed since Apr. 23.

Every year, between 250,000 and 500,000 people around the globe die from various types of influenza, known as seasonal because they usually present during the colder times of year, says the WHO.

At first, the appearance of A/H1N1 confused the scientific community, because the strain circulating mostly affected young adults. However, of the more than 1,000 cases confirmed in Mexico, nearly half were people 19 and younger.

Another issue to be clarified is why the people who died from the virus have nearly all been Mexican, and why some of the infected are able to recover without complications or pharmaceutical treatment, while others end up hospitalized.

For now, there are more questions than answers about the traits of the new virus, its origin and its mutation profile, after Canada confirmed that some pigs had contracted the virus from a sick farm worker.

Cano recommended that people continue to get vaccinations against seasonal flu, which even if it does not specifically target the new strain, it does provide additional protection.

The A/H1N1 virus, which is spread in the same way as any other influenza virus, reacts well to antivirals if they are administered in a timely manner, though scientists fear new mutations could mean the pharmaceuticals will be less and less effective.

The first analyses by a multidisciplinary team from UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute, set up to study the virus, confirmed that it has a great capacity to mutate, said microbiologist Antonio Lazcano, who considers it highly probable that there are different varieties of A/H1N1 circulating in Mexico alongside other flu viruses.

The world economic recession is threatening the progress Latin America has made in fair trade. The leaders of this alternative form of exchange are making emergency contacts in order to assess the situation and come up with strategies to confront it.

Organic coffee beans. Credit: Joseph Sorrentino/Comercio Justo México

Most of the representatives of fair trade organisations interviewed for this report believe the recession’s impact is inevitable, but there are some who see the crisis with optimism, such as networks in Argentina and Brazil who go so far as to predict improvements in this sector.

Ruben Ravera, spokesperson for the Argentine Fair Trade Network, is among those who see a gloomy outlook. It is very likely that because of economic contractions “the consumer’s commitment to fair trade will decline,” he said.

Eduardo Rojo, director of the citizen’s group Comercio Justo (Fair Trade) in Mexico, notes that “there is a sense of desperation and emergency in all parts” of the networks dedicated to this sort of exchange.

Rojo warned that although “the impact of the product prices isn’t being felt yet, the negotiations for putting the products on the market are increasingly difficult.”

Fair trade is based on alternative market channels created in the 1980s between consumers – mostly in the industrialised North – and small farmers and artisans in the nations of the developing South, eliminating the big corporations from the middle and establishing new rules for production and labour.

An estimated 1.4 million people are dedicated to producing goods and commodities for fair trade.

The buyers pay higher prices, which remunerate an activity certified through a variety of mechanisms, ensuring respect for the environment, higher wages, more equitable social organisations and the production of higher quality goods – mostly organic when it the product is food.

Global fair trade sales in 2007 reached 2.9 billion dollars, twice the total for 2005, according to data from Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International (FLO), based in Germany.

Although there are not consolidated data available for 2008, Gabriela Frers, Latin America regional director for the World Fair Trade Organisation, said that some groups that sell in Europe, Canada and the United States have reported a five-percent decline for last year.

“The financial crisis that started in the United States is generating a recession in the other countries of the North, the principal consumers of fair trade, which means it will surely have repercussions in sales,” Frers said from her offices in Paraguay. Sugar, cacao, coffee, bananas, flowers, fruit, honey and tea are some of the main products moved through fair trade.

According to Frers, 64 percent of Latin American sales are to other countries, mainly the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Italy and Britain.

As a result of the crisis, dialogue has begun among organisations that are active in the alternative markets. They have set their sights on defining strategies to deal with the new situation, said Mexican expert Rojo.

There are no precise estimates of how many Latin American producers participate in fair trade, but in Mexico alone (one of the leading countries in the sector), some 50,000 rural families are engaged in the alternative markets. Eighty to 90 percent of Mexican sales, especially organic coffee, go to markets in the wealthy countries of the industrialised North.

But not all countries’ fair trade endeavours rely on exports. In Brazil and Argentina, for example, domestic sales have sustained fair trade production.

In Brazil, “the solidarity economy, similar to fair trade, represents 3.0 billion reais (about 1.3 billion dollars), or 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, and has 22,000 entrepreneurial projects,” said Rosemary Gomes, president of Faces do Brasil, a network of groups that work in that sector.

“The solidarity economy and its commercial network in the internal market have not yet suffered from the crisis, but the exports have,” she said.

As a strategy, South-South fair trade has already been promoted, especially for food products, complying with food sovereignty principles, for example, among Latin American countries, Gomes said.

FLO is promoting diversification of trade in South America and Mexico, as well as domestic markets in competing with the major supermarkets, a strategy that the crisis should intensify.

Even producers who export feel more protected under fair trade regimes, because of the “advantages of prices and the payments established before production.” In addition, they benefit from public policies, such as supports for family farming, which is why the crisis is not pressing them to abandon the system, according to Gomes.

In past crises, of the organic coffee producers, “only those who were involved in fair trade survived, because the prices were kept stable,” she said.

Overall, the hardest hit will be “social rights” due to the precariousness of employment and the living conditions of the farmers, said Gomes.

Edson Marinho, business manager at Ética: Comercio Solidario, a Brazilian fair trade group made up of non-governmental organisations and social movements, reported that sales to Europe of dried fruits, especially mango, suffered a decline in 2008, although that can be attributed in part to excess supply.

One person who does not see problems on the horizon is Marcelo Paranhos, director of the Mango Association of Brazil, which has 80 farmer members who grow 500 hectares.

In 2008, their mango harvest reached 3,500 tonnes; 40 percent was exported, and a third of that was through fair trade arrangements.

“This year we have a good projection for results… we hope to double the fair trade exports,” said Paranhos.

The recession is an opportunity, he says, to add value, seek new markets at home and abroad, sell packaged products and lower costs. All of this “is possible is only possible because we are involved in fair trade.”

A similar approach is on the mind of María Minuet, president of the Argentina Association of Women Microentrepreneurs, which produces natural fibres and cosmetic creams based on native plants.

“We don’t see a risk. We have competitive products, contacts outside the country, and we aren’t proposing sales of large-scale production,” she said.

Sebastián Homts, of the group Art and Hope of Argentina, described fair trade in his country as something new and little known. His group does not export but has three shops in Buenos Aires where it sells products made by some 500 indigenous families from eight different ethnic groups.

Homts said that with a company that is able to disseminate the benefits of fair trade the sector will remain relatively healthy in the middle of the storm.

But those optimistic voices are not quieting the warnings.

“The consequences of the global crisis have the same negative effects on our networks. The reduction of exports from Latin America is already a fact, and that includes the fair trade products,” said Frers, whose group sold 44 million dollars’ worth of products in 2007.

To confront the economic storm clouds, Frers and Rojo are working to boost local markets and build closer ties among fair trade organisations.

With reporting by Mario Osava (Rio de Janeiro) and Marcela Valente (Buenos Aires). This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS – Inter Press Service and IFEJ – International Federation of Environmental Journalists, for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).

The uncertainty caused by the global economic recession has cast a shadow over the immediate future of fair trade efforts in Latin America.

Organic coffee beans. - Joseph Sorrentino/Comercio Justo México

Most of the representatives of fair trade organizations interviewed for this report believe the recession's impact is inevitable, but there are some who see the crisis with optimism, such as networks in Argentina and Brazil who go so far as to predict improvements in this sector.

Ruben Ravera, spokesperson for the Argentine Fair Trade Network, is among those who see a gloomy outlook. It is very likely that because of economic tightenings “the consumer's commitment to fair trade will decline,” he said.

Eduardo Rojo, director of the citizen's group Comercio Justo (Fair Trade) in Mexico, notes that “there is a sense of desperation and emergency in all parts” of the networks dedicated to this sort of exchange.

Rojo warned that although “the impact of the product prices isn't being felt yet, the negotiations for putting the products on the market are increasingly difficult.”

Fair trade is based on alternative market channels created in the 1980s between consumers — mostly in the industrialized North — and small farmers and artisans in the nations of the developing South, eliminating the big corporations from the middle and establishing new rules for production and labor.

An estimated 1.4 million people are dedicated to producing goods and commodities for fair trade.

The buyers pay higher prices, which remunerate an activity certified through a variety of mechanisms, ensuring respect for the environment, higher wages, more equitable social organizations and the production of higher quality goods — mostly organic when it the product is food.

Global fair trade sales in 2007 reached 2.9 billion dollars, twice the total for 2005, according to data from Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), based in Germany.

Although there are not consolidated data available for 2008, Gabriela Frers, Latin America regional director for the World Fair Trade Organization, said that some groups that sell in Europe, Canada and the United States have reported a five-percent decline for last year.

“The financial crisis that started in the United States is generating a recession in the other countries of the North, the principal consumers of fair trade, which means it will surely have repercussions in sales,” Frers said from her offices in Paraguay.

Sugar, cacao, coffee, bananas, flowers, fruit, honey and tea are some of the main products moved through fair trade.

According to Frers, 64 percent of Latin American sales are to other countries, mainly the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Italy and Britain.

As a result of the crisis, dialog has begun among organizations that are active in the alternative markets. They have set sights on defining strategies to deal with the new situation, said Mexican expert Rojo.

There are no precise estimates of how many Latin American producers participate in fair trade, but in Mexico alone (one of the leading countries in the sector), some 50,000 rural families are engaged in the alternative markets. Eighty to 90 percent of Mexican sales, especially organic coffee, go to markets in the wealthy countries of the industrialized North.

But not all countries' fair trade endeavors rely on exports. In Brazil and Argentina, for example, domestic sales have sustained fair trade production.

In Brazil, “the solidarity economy, similar to fair trade, represents 3.0 billion reais (about 1.3 billion dollars), or 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, and has 22,000 entrepreneurial projects,” said Rosemary Gomes, president of Faces do Brasil, a network of groups that work in that sector.

“The solidarity economy and its commercial network in the internal market have not yet suffered from the crisis, but the exports have,” she said.

As a strategy, South-South fair trade has already been promoted, especially for food products, complying with food sovereignty principles, for example, among Latin American countries, Gomes said.

FLO is promoting diversification of trade in South America and Mexico, as well as domestic markets in competing with the major supermarkets, a strategy that the crisis should intensify.

Even producers who export feel more protected under fair trade regimes, because of the “advantages of prices and the payments established before production.” In addition, they benefit from public policies, such as supports for family farming, which is why the crisis is not pressing them to abandon the system, according to Gomes.

In past crises, of the organic coffee producers, “only those who were involved in fair trade survived, because the prices were kept stable,” she said.

Overall, the hardest hit will be “social rights” due to the precarity of employment and the living conditions of the farmers, said Gomes.

Edson Marinho, business manager at Ética: Comercio Solidario, a Brazilian fair trade group made up of non-governmental organizations and social movements, reported that sales to Europe of dried fruits, especially mango, suffered a decline in 2008, although that can be attributed in part to excess supply.

One person who does not see problems on the horizon is Marcelo Paranhos, director of the Mango Association of Brazil, which has 80 farmer members who grow 500 hectares.

In 2008, their mango harvest reached 3,500 tons; 40 percent was exported, and a third of that was through fair trade arrangements.

“This year we have a good projection for results… we hope to double the fair trade exports,” said Paranhos.

The recession is an opportunity, he says, to add value, seek new markets at home and abroad, sell packaged products and lower costs. All of this “is possible is only possible because we are involved in fair trade.”

A similar approach is on the mind of María Minuet, president of the Argentina Association of Women Microentrepreneurs, which produces natural fibers and cosmetic creams based on native plants.

“We don't see a risk. We have competitive products, contacts outside the country, and we aren't proposing sales of large-scale production,” she said.

Sebastián Homts, of the Art and Hope of Argentina organization, described fair trade in his country as something new and little known. His group does not export but has three shops in Buenos Aires where it sells products made by some 500 indigenous families from eight different ethnic groups.

Homts said that with a company that is able to disseminate the benefits of fair trade the sector will remain relatively healthy in the middle of the storm.

But those optimistic voices are not quieting the warnings.

“The consequences of the global crisis have the same negative effects on our networks. The reduction of exports from Latin America is already a fact, and that includes the fair trade products,” said Frers, whose group sold 44 million dollars' worth of products in 2007.

To confront the economic storm clouds, Frers and Rojo are working to boost local markets and build closer ties among fair trade organizations.

By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Jan 8 2009 (IPS)

Half a century of films about indigenous peoples have been removed from forgotten corners of store rooms, recorded on compact discs and launched on the Mexican market, in order to bring to light views and realities that are seldom shown on commercial television and in movies.

State bookshops and offices of the government’s National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) have been selling the DVD-format series titled “El cine indigenista” (roughly, films on indigenous people) since early December. Nearly 20 films, the earliest of which was made in 1958, are included.

The attempt to rescue from oblivion films in which indigenous people are not portrayed as backwards or deserving of mockery or pity is praiseworthy, but it is unfortunate that they have not been sufficiently publicised, Homero Santacruz, a young anthropologist who works to spread culture in art galleries and other spaces, told IPS.

The series, mainly made up of documentaries, was assembled by the CDI from its extensive film and video collection with the goal of giving the public access to films that will increase their knowledge of original peoples.

Among the selected films are “Todos somos mexicanos” (We Are All Mexicans) (1958), which shows governmental social programmes in action in the southern state of Chiapas, and “En clave de sol” (In the Key of G) (1981), about how a Mixe indigenous community preserves its traditions through music.

Other films include “Tejiendo mar y viento” (Weaving the Wind and the Sea) (1987), which documents the first film workshop for indigenous women in Mexico, and a 1983 film titled “Raramuri ra’itsaara” (The Tarahumara Speak) about deforestation in an indigenous territory.

IPS asked about the availability of the DVD series in several bookshops selling state publications, but was told that it had not yet arrived.

“The state’s DVD productions of this kind are presented as important milestones in spreading different ideas or realities, and in this case for appreciating and getting to know our indigenous peoples, but they don’t reach the general public; they are limited to very small circles,” Santacruz said.

Unless it gets publicity and is advertised in the media, the film series will go unnoticed by the market, even though it is interesting, timely and necessary, he said.

Commercial movies have generally portrayed Mexican indigenous people as savages, as well as characters evoking pity, mockery or laughter, for example in several successful Mexican comedy films in the 1970s and 1980s starring “la india María” (Indian Mary), a character played by actress María Elena Velasco.

Mexico is the Latin American country with the largest indigenous population, which is variously estimated to make up between 12 and 30 percent of the country’s 104 million people (the smaller, official, estimate is based on the number of people who actually speak an indigenous language).

The overwhelming majority of the Mexican population is of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry.

The CDI said parts of the series indicate the nature of state policies towards indigenous peoples over the past 50 years. These have changed from paternalism and the concept of assimilation to the present-day approach, which extols diversity and respect for indigenous cultures and their autonomy.

Museums, schoolbooks and the official discourse all exalt the country’s indigenous cultures. But studies show that indigenous people have lower incomes than the rest of the population and suffer from social rejection and discrimination.

According to nearly every development indicator, indigenous Mexicans are underprivileged in relation to the rest of the population.

The illiteracy rate among indigenous people is 31.1 percent, compared to the national figure of 9.2 percent. As many as 53.5 percent of indigenous people live in houses with dirt floors, and 13 percent lack drinking water, sanitation and electricity.

Mexican schools teach children to take pride in the country’s indigenous roots and in the peoples who built great cities and developed advanced knowledge before the arrival of the Spaniards, but many present-day indigenous people can be seen begging for coins on the streets.

According to official statistics, 86.1 percent of the indigenous population lack guaranteed access to health care, and nearly 30 percent have not completed primary school.

Infant mortality among indigenous people is 48.3 per 1,000 live births, compared to 28.2 per 1,000 for the country as a whole.

Juan Urrusti, who has directed films about indigenous issues, praised the CDI’s efforts to reach wider audiences through film, in an interview with the local newspaper Reforma. He said such initiatives were necessary to raise indigenous people’s self-esteem, as they hardly ever see themselves reflected in the media.

Santacruz concurred, but repeated that it was a pity that “El cine indigenista” should be launched on the market without adequate promotion. He added that the product was unlikely to be seen by indigenous people in Mexico.

Excerpt:

The Mexican government announced a 54 billion dollar economic recovery plan Wednesday aimed at helping the local economy weather the global financial crisis, with measures like freezing gasoline prices and boosting spending on public works.

Gasoline prices will be frozen for 2009, the price of natural gas will be reduced 10 percent, and electricity rates for industry will be slashed by up to 20 percent.

The government will set aside financing to help poor families replace old appliances with more energy-efficient ones, and will increase spending on the construction of low-income housing and development of the countryside.

In addition, at least 20 percent of government purchases will be from small and medium companies, and workers will be allowed to draw more easily on their retirement funds in private banks.

The measures form part of a “national agreement in favour of the family economy and employment”, which was signed Wednesday after lengthy speeches by conservative President Felipe Calderón, the members of his cabinet, parliamentary representatives, state governors, and business and labour leaders.

Although it was presented as a government agreement with business, most of the measures, several of which are a reiteration of initiatives presented by Calderón in March and October, will be financed by the state.

The plan will be funded by an unprecedented proportion of oil revenues and taxes, and will generate a fiscal deficit for the first time since the mid-1990s, of nearly two percent.

The aim is to ward off a recession, to which Mexico is particularly at risk because of its close economic ties with the United States, where the current crisis originated.

The total cost of the one-year plan, described by economists as “countercyclical,” is 54 billion dollars, most of which will go into infrastructure, including the construction of an oil refinery.

This year’s budget, of 300 billion dollars, was already unprecedented.

“The U.S. economy has fallen into a deep recession, in large part due to the crisis in its financial system. This phenomenon of unprecedented magnitude has spread rapidly to all regions…Mexico is no exception, especially because its economy is closely linked to the economy of the United States,” said Calderón.

“In the last few months of 2008 and throughout this year, we have been and are experiencing a period of great difficulties in terms of economic growth, investment and employment in our country,” said the president.

But “with the signing of this agreement, we are demonstrating the ability to come together to confront the complex international economic situation, above particular interests and political and ideological differences, and to close ranks even in an intense electoral context like this year’s,” he added, referring to the July parliamentary elections.

“The government plan sounds logical and is in line with the strategy being followed by most of the countries of Latin America, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed, so we have to keep our seatbelts on, because the flight we’re on will be full of turbulence,” Alejandro Córdova, a political scientist at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.

The analyst said it is “discouraging” that the anti-crisis plan does not include cuts in the public sector’s costly red tape and the bulky expenses of governors, legislators and government officials.

In December, the Calderón administration, lawmakers and mayors held a big year-end bash financed with public funds, and granted themselves salary hikes for 2009 in a number of cases.

Despite the current economic troubles, which include projections of a rise in poverty and unemployment, none of these sectors announced cuts in their own salaries or expenses.

Nor are such cutbacks included in the “national agreement in favour of the family economy and employment”.

At the ceremony in which the pact was signed, Joaquín Gamboa, secretary general of the Confederación de Trabajadores de México, one of the country’s largest unions, said his organisation fully supports the government’s anti-crisis plan, and promised not to hold strikes or protests against the current economic problems.

“At this moment, the country is going through a difficult time, but as Mexicans we will contribute to a solution,” said Gamboa, who has ties to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico from 1929-2000.

Mexico’s economic growth is estimated at two percent for 2008, and is projected at a mere one percent or even a negative rate for 2009.

Calderón said Mexico is in a better position to weather the storm than during previous periods of crisis, given its “sound macroeconomic and financial fundamentals.”

“Time will tell whether the government’s plans, promises and rhetoric will have an effect in the face of the crisis. For now, we will remain in the turbulence zone, and problems and victims will undoubtedly continue to pile up,” said UNAM’s Córdova.

Thousands of fishermen in Mexico have gone on strike over the last few days to protest the rise in the cost of diesel fuel which, they say, has reduced their profit margin to zero. But the industry’s problems, which have been simmering for decades, go beyond the question of fuel prices.

The strike, named “Zero Fishing 2009”, was declared in the northern state of Sinaloa by fishermen operating around 100 small and large boats. In less than a week, the number of vessels involved in the strike had climbed to over 2,500, and dozens more are joining every day around Mexico, which has nearly 10,000 kilometres of Pacific and Atlantic coastline.

“The protest was barely planned. Everything happened fairly spontaneously and naturally, and that’s how it will continue, because the problem is that the numbers just don’t work out anymore, there is no more profit margin,” Rafael Ruiz, president of the National Chamber of the Fishing and Aquaculture Industries, told IPS in a telephone interview.

From 2006 to 2008, the price of a litre of diesel fuel used by boats went up from 3.50 to 7.38 pesos (from 26 to 56 cents of a dollar).

Diesel fuel represents 60 percent of a fishing vessel’s total costs, said Ruiz from his office in Tamaulipas, a northern state on the Gulf of Mexico.

“We didn’t want to stop working because this leaves us without an income,” said the president of the national chamber, which is leading the protest. “We are not part of the public sector, and no one will reimburse us for our losses, but there was no alternative.”

The head of the governmental National Commission on Aquaculture and Fisheries, Ramón Corral, accused the organisers of the strike of being politically motivated and called on them to negotiate.

But Ruiz said that no government official has contacted him or any other business leader in the industry.

“By demanding a review of the cost of diesel fuel, what we are asking for is merely a ‘bandaid’, because the problems in our industry are structural and date back many years,” he said.

Overfishing, disorder in the concessions for fishing associations and cooperatives, and competition from informal sector fisherpersons are some of the problems faced by the industry, which according to official figures represents 0.8 percent of Mexico’s GDP.

Fishing industry output has remained basically stable since 1987, when it stood at 1.4 million tons. In 2008, production was 1.3 million tons.

The National Chamber of the Fishing and Aquaculture Industries reports that around 250,000 people directly depend on fishing in Mexico, although official statistics put the total at closer to 270,000.

According to figures from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), more than 90 percent of the nearly 106,500 fishing vessels in Mexico are small boats (up to 36 feet in length).

“The official figures are chaotic, and that is another of the problems caused by the lack of a national development strategy for the fishing industry,” said Ruiz.

But conservative President Felipe Calderón says the industry is doing well thanks to the government’s measures and support. Officials point to shrimp farming, where production rose from 18,000 to 120,000 tons between 1997 and 2008.

Public spending in the sector amounted to 292 million dollars last year, 68 million of which went towards subsidising the price of fuel for fishing vessels.

But the government gradually increased the price of diesel fuel for boats to the current level, which fishermen say is simply impossible for them to afford.

The strike has reduced supplies of seafood products in urban markets in Mexico, and has driven up prices.

“Zero Fishing 2009” will continue until fuel prices are reduced, “but that would be just a start, because what we need is a complete overhaul of the sector,” said Ruiz.

Decades of manganese mining in the Mexican state of Hidalgo have left an indelible mark on children, according to health studies.

Autlán mining operations in the mountains of Hidalgo. - Courtesy of INSP

“The company has a skeptical position (about studies that show the effects of manganese poisoning); it does not believe that it is causing the problems or that it is to blame,” but the evidence is irrefutable, Horacio Riojas, from the Population Health Research Center of the government's National Public Health Institute (INSP), told Tierramérica.

INSP studies in areas near the Autlán deposits, distributed among the towns of Molango, Lolotla, Xochicoatlán and Tlanchinol, which together cover some 1,000 square kilometers and just over 60,000 inhabitants, show that the manganese that has been mined there for decades has caused severe harm to human health.

The region is one of the world's main storehouses of this mineral, used in the steel industry, as well as in some chemical production, glass, batteries, fertilizers and medications.

With Riojas at the head of an interdisciplinary group that included the government's National Institute of Neurology, the INSP over the past decade measured the presence of manganese in the air, water supplies, soils, homes and roads near the mines, which are both open-air and underground operations.

In 2002 and 2003, blood and hair samples were taken from 300 adults and underwent a variety of medical tests. In 2007, the same studies were carried out for 300 children ages 7 to 11. One part of the samples came from residents of areas near the mines, and the rest from residents of places similar in social and economic development, but not near manganese mines.

Riojas said the findings are alarming. Sixty percent of the adults who live near the mines present neurological problems and trembling similar to the effects of Parkinson's disease. In the case of the children near the mines, it was found that their intellectual and learning abilities are 20 percent lower than the comparable group that does not live near any mines. There is no doubt that the exposure to manganese is the cause of the problems, he said.

Autlán began manganese exploration and exploitation in the area in 1960.

“We've had reports about problems, but my understanding was that the mining company had already assumed some commitments with the residents and that everything is fine now,” Alejandro Dionisio, municipal secretary of Molango, one of the affected towns, told Tierramérica.

In a telephone interview, the official said the mining company provides employment and supports the local population with infrastructure for housing.

Tierramérica was insistent in its efforts to contact spokespersons from the company for interviews about the situation and the company's relationships with the communities, but had not obtained a response by the time this story was published.

According to Riojas, some residents of the company's area of direct influence — a rural zone of 50 square kilometers shared by Molango, Lolotla, Xochicoatlán and Tlanchinol — have staged regular protests about health problems and low farm yields, which they blame on the manganese.

But the demands dissipated when the company built sports fields and school infrastructure and distributed materials for roofing, said Riojas.

Furthermore, exposure to manganese has taken a back seat to other problems arising from the poverty of the local population, he added.

According to official studies, the level of social marginalization is relatively high in the municipalities where Autlán operates.

Most of the INSP research results were released in early December at an international meeting about environment and health, held in Mérida, in southeastern Mexico, an initiative of the International Development Research Center (IDRC).

The authorities from Hidalgo and the federal government of conservative President Felipe Calderón, and the company itself are aware of the studies and their results.

Riojas acknowledged that that authorities know about the research and that there is a negotiation panel to define what measures to adopt, but he says they are not acting with the urgency required.

Between January and September, Autlán reported income of 315 million dollars. On its web site there are no references to the manganese-related health problems.

A text on the site states that unnamed international institutions have declared that they know of no cases in which manganese has caused environmental damage or that the metal poses a threat to the environment, and, on the contrary, there are publications about the beneficial impact of manganese for the soils.

Manganese is an element that is found in dried fruits, cereals and legumes. Ingestion of small amounts is essential to maintain strong bones, functioning of the nervous system and metabolism of carbohydrates.

But excessive exposure causes an illness known as manganism. The symptoms include: slower movement and lack of coordination, trembling similar to Parkinson's, muscular weakness and even schizophrenia, according to the World Health Organization.

The INSP has not studied the health of the mine workers, because “it has not been part of the project and we know it would be unlikely that the company would allow it,” said Riojas.

The analyses began in 1999 in the mining zone, at the request of authorities who had received the complaints from the residents.

The company has taken some steps in the past 10 years, some recommended by the INSP, such as not using the mine waste as fill for roads, and modifying some of the machinery to reduce emissions of manganese.

Even so, the studies indicate that the local population remains affected by the mining. The INSP is proposing norms that establish obligatory limits of manganese emissions — no such standards exist today in Mexico — and ongoing monitoring to ensure compliance.

“At no time do we propose that the mine shut down operations, nor do the neighbors, but we want production to be clean and safe,” said Riojas.

If no major decisions are made about the Hidalgo manganese contamination in the first months of 2009, the case will be presented to the National Health Council, which comprises the health secretaries of the country's 32 states and the federal health minister. Autlán, which employs 1,400 people, states on its web site that it has been “decisive and constant” in its environmental efforts and that evidence of this was “the ISO 14.000 certification of all of the company's units and plants since 1998.”

ISO (International Standardization Organization) 14.000 establishes parameters for environmental management that companies can adopt in order to be certified.

Margarita Mbyvângi faces the challenge of becoming the first woman and first indigenous person to head Paraguay's indigenous policy.

Margarita Mbyvângi - Instituto Paraguayo del Indígena

Mbyvângi, 47 and a member of the Aché indigenous community, in August became president of the Paraguayan Indigenous Institute, entrusted by President Fernando Lugo's administration to fight the poverty and exclusion of more than 100,000 indigenous people in her country.

Her dream is that her “community of brothers and sisters” obtains the property rights to their lands, receives orientation about their rights, and becomes familiar with the international laws that affect them.

In a phone interview with Tierramérica from Asunción, Mbyvângi said she can count on the complete support of the president and is confident she will be able to resolve the protests of indigenous groups.

Since mid-November, some indigenous groups have mobilized in the Paraguayan capital to demand her resignation, because they claim that Mbyvângi has not responded to their claims.

“I want us to be truly free,” said the official, who is also working to complete her studies. At age five she was taken from her land and sold as a domestic worker. At 20, she decided to return to the jungle and to her town. Years later she became the chief of her people, and in the last elections was a candidate for senator.

TIERRAMÉRICA: There are more and more indigenous groups that accuse you of being ineffective. How do you respond to the opposition?

MARGARITA MBYVÂNGI: I am the first indigenous woman minister in Paraguay and the first women in this post. I will continue as long as I have the backing of President Fernando (Lugo). I was never involved in party politics, in the politics of dirty games, and now I ask for patience from those who protest so that I can meet the goals we have.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What are those goals? What do you imagine the situation of Paraguay's indigenous peoples to be when you finish your term?

MM: I hope to reach my people, that we can obtain all the land documentation that my people don't have, and obtain orientation and training on indigenous policy issues, to have knowledge about international laws that we didn't know about.

I want to fight until the end for our rights. In other governments we never had participation, the right to enter a university, the right to health or the right to organize ourselves.

I will also fight for the environment, which is the main problem confronting the native peoples. When the environment is devastated, we are the ones most harmed. I want to help my people organize, to defend their rights and to know about international conventions so that they are not manipulated by non-governmental organizations. We want to be truly free.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Do you feel you are part of that current of indigenous people in the forefront, such as the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, the native Colombians with their recent mobilizations and the political force of the Ecuadorian Indians?

MM: I feel part of that Latin American struggle that we are winning, because it is the moment to stand up and say that we, too, are capable of governing and of demonstrating our intelligence.

The indigenous peoples of Latin America are honest and we are always going to carry that banner. Now that we are in the institutions of government we have to show that we are different.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Do you think the protagonist role that indigenous peoples have had in recent years has changed the general situation of exclusion?

MM: No, I believe that in this era we continue to be the worst off. I know that our ancestors did not feel hunger or cold, they didn't have diseases, the didn't have need for anything. Now we are sleeping in the street: we don't have homes or land. We have been dispossessed of our natural environment.

They are contaminating the water and air, and my brothers and sisters are dying from this. If we don't fight now for our lives, for the water and the environment, everything is going to get worse.

TIERRAMÉRICA: You yourself lived in a situation of exclusion. What was your experience like?

MM: In the year 1960 and 70, my Aché people were persecuted. The killed many because we lived in isolation. The children grew up in the forest, forgotten. They were grabbed and sold to other people. Among those girls who were sold was me. I was five when the sold me.

It went on until I was 20, without communication with my family, without knowing anything about my Aché people, but after that I decided to look for them and I returned to my community. Now I am the leader of one of my communities and that is how I began the fight of my people. My life was difficult. I was like a slave.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What importance do you place on the approval of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the existence, for nearly two decades of the Convention 169 (concerning indigenous and tribal peoples) of the International Labor Organization?

MM: We don't know much about those conventions. We were never able to give our opinions about them. With those agreements we see that the government never took action. For example, here we never had land rights. Nor do we know who made those agreements. We weren't asked for our opinions. I never saw the conventions beforehand. But now we will evaluate them and we will see.

On pure pedal power, activists, academics and authorities are working to design policies that will make healthy bicycling a viable mode of transportation in Mexico's polluted capital.

Cycling needs urban infrastructure. - Public domain

Since September, and every two weeks, representatives of the non-governmental organization Bicitekas share a discussion table for defining plans alongside delegates from the municipal government, the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), a U.S.-based international group. The goal is to create bigger and better spaces for bicycling in a city with 10,200 kilometers of roads and 3.5 million vehicles, with at least 300,000 more cars being added each year.

According to the draft of the plans, by 2018 there should be 600 kilometers of bikeways (compared to 80 km now), boosting the use of bicycles, which today is very dangerous and limited to just 0.7 percent of all trips inside the city. An average of 30 cyclists are killed each year in accidents in Mexico City.

The bike paths, whose routes rarely coincide with the mains streets and avenues, are part of a plan for 2030 to achieve a city with bicycle lanes in the streets, zones where one would need to pay to circulate in a car, and sites for renting and storing non-motorized vehicles.

“Finally the municipal government has taken us into account. They are listening to us after 10 years of activism and of considering us extremists,” Agustín Martínez, one of the 1998 founders of Bicitekas, told Tierramérica.

Martínez celebrated the Sunday municipal program known as “Muévete en Bici” (Ride Your Bike), replication of a 30-year-old initiative in Bogotá, on Oct. 29 won the “Active Cities, Healthy Cities” award sponsored by the Pan-American Health Organization.

The program “is a motivation for the citizens,” but the important thing is to change society so that the bicycle becomes a central element in the new plans for city transportation, clean, fast and enjoyable, said the activist.

Xavier Treviño, assistant director in Mexico of the ITDP, also applauded the city for the award, and agreed with Martínez that “Muévete” is one of the elements of a strategy under construction that “began late and is progressing slowly.”

The award-winning program involves closing 10 kilometers of the city's central roadways from automobiles on Sundays, freeing them up for cyclists, skaters and walkers. Once a month the street closing is expanded to 30 km.

Mexico City is planning to go beyond this in the long term in a process involving officials and civil society. “Only in this way will there be guarantees for the future,” Treviño told Tierramérica.

“It could be said that the programs are delayed, and it's true, but it is a result of the dialogue we've begun. It's better to advance slowly but surely,” he added.

In December 2007, the authorities announced that they would begin to set aside 60 km of bikeways. But so far nothing has been done.

The official goal is that in 10 years five percent of travel in the city will be on bicycle.

That many bikers would cut annual emissions of carbon dioxide by 2.4 million tons, 5,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, 80,000 tons of carbon monoxide and 100 tons of particulates, according to official estimates.

The contacts between the ITDP, Bicitekas, UNAM and the capital city government go back several months.

During the term of Marcelo Ebrard, begun in December 2006, several pro-cycling measures were initiated, such as allowing bicycles on buses and the subway.

Treviño said that in December there will be special lanes for bicycles along a stretch of the central Reforma Avenue, 14.9 kilometers, and the city will launch a campaign to promote bike riding.

The Bicitekas activists will boost official plans not only by participating in the discussions but also by continuing to organize city bike tours: on Thursdays the Lobos-bike route, on Fridays the Lunáticos cyclists, Saturdays the Biciellas, and Sunday's the Biciraptors, Biciperros and the Paseo del Gato.

And they will continue their nude bike tour once a year as part of the global mobilization that takes place in several cities every June to call attention to bicycle riding.

The capital of Mexico, home to nine million people, has a gigantic dump that is on the verge of collapse and emits two million tons of climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually.

The Mexican capital is a long way from meeting its recycling goals. - Photo Stock

The Bordo Poniente dump emits two million tons of carbon-based gases into the atmosphere each year, which represents 15 percent of the greenhouse effect gases produced by this city of nine million people, second only to automobiles, the main source of climate changing gases. Closing down the dump would be the equivalent of taking some 500,000 cars off the roads. After at least four postponements in five years, the Bordo Poniente, opened in 1985 in the east of the capital, will be shut down in January. But for now there is no alternative dump site, although the authorities are considering various possibilities.

“The situation is complicated and time is running out, but the authorities are making an effort and we are confident that a crisis will not erupt,” said Alfonso de la Torre, an expert in municipal waste management and head of the environmental management department at the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

“The citizens have no idea what they might face if there is no place to put the garbage,” De la Torre told Tierramérica.

The city lacks money to close down the dump in compliance with environmental standards, which require engineering works and possibly the construction of a gas emissions collector to generate electricity. The cost would be about 100 million dollars.

Nearly all of the capital's waste management plans, including the construction of four recycling and energy centers and a new fleet of garbage trucks, fail to make it from paper to reality or lag far behind schedule.

The 2004 Integrated Program for Solid Waste Management, which called for setting up the recycling and energy centers and closing down the Bordo dump, projected that by 2008 three-quarters of the residents of Mexico City should be separating household waste for recycling. Today, less than 10 percent of the people in the capital do so.

Official studies indicate there are another 130 unauthorized garbage dumps in ravines, green areas and vacant lots around the city, and some 6,000 in the areas surrounding the capital. The dumps foment harmful fauna, like rats, and the liquid runoff from the decomposing waste filters into water supplies.

De la Torre admits that there are no studies about the real impact of the illegal dumps on the environment, but he believes the effects remain limited. However, the president of the Mexican Federation of Sanitation Engineering, Jorge Sánchez, believes that “the capital has hit bottom.”

“The authorities must see this moment of shutting down Bordo Poniente as an opportunity to move from pragmatism to a new framework for waste management, because the current model no longer works,” Sánchez told Tierramérica.

The government, which owns the Bordo Poniente land, ordered its permanent closure when it realized it was saturated and threatens to contaminate the aquifer and water channels. The municipality asked for more time, but finally agreed to shut it down.

The 375-hectare dump has been receiving the bulk of the capital's waste since the 1980s. Ninety percent of the more than 12,000 tons of garbage arriving daily — half of it domestic — is buried, the rest is sold and recycled.

If the plans made more than four years ago by the capital's government — led since 1997 by the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) — had been carried out, by now the city would be well on its way towards sustainable management of its waste.

The goals, now redefined, were to recycle 20 percent of the waste, use 45 percent energy generation, set aside 20 percent to produce fertilizer and bury the remaining 15 percent. With the closure of the Bordo Poniente dump, the municipality is negotiating with the neighboring state governments the possibility of sending them the garbage for a set amount of time and promises to have at least one of the recycling and energy centers up and running in 20 months.

“There is no other alternative than to make a leap in waste management, so we are hoping that the plans come in with funding, clear timelines and programs aimed at involving the citizens, which is fundamental,” said the president of the Mexican Federation of Sanitary Engineering.

Martha Delgado, environmental secretary of the capital's government, says it would have been better to postpone the Bordo Poniente closure, because “the new waste management model is a matter that will take several years” to resolve. In September 2007, Delgado admitted that despite the 2003 Solid Waste Law, which has yet to be enacted, and the 2004 management plan, the capital had been “incapable” of coming up with a new way to handle its garbage.

In late August, the authorities announced bidding for the work needed to close down the Bordo Poniente dump and the construction of the energy and recycling centers, with the aim of sharing the costs with the private sector.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the residents continue to set out their garbage without separating the different materials — and nearly all of it ends up in Bordo Poniente. Some 2,500 trucks carry the garbage. Half of the vehicles are more than 10 years old and some have been around since 1965. The trucks themselves pollute and they lack space to carry separated materials.

The city now has 250 modern garbage trucks, but needs more than 2,000. The city officials recognize that such a purchase is beyond the means of the municipal budget.

University expert De la Torre attributes the lack of action by the authorities to “society's resistance to change,” political problems and lack of resources. However, sanitation engineering president Sánchez believes the problem lies in the short-term culture of the government leaders and their reticence to upset the voters. “There is no long-term vision, but this cannot continue, because soon there will be no place to put the garbage,” he said.

In the Western Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico, a very common conflict these days in Latin America is heating up: the booming mining industry versus local residents.

The Minefinders corporation in Huizopa, Mexico. - Project for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The displeasure with Minefinders after such a long time is due to the fact that “we became aware of the trickery, the abuse from the company,” campesino (peasant) spokesperson David de la Rosa told Tierramérica. “We became aware of the inequality of the relationship,” added Mario Patrón, an attorney who advises the group.

The residents of Huizopa, an enclave community in the Western Sierra Madre made up of 230 farming and ranching families who are self-sustaining, have maintained a camp since May near the not-yet-operating processing plant of the Compañía Minera Dolores, a subsidiary of Minefinders in Mexico.

Entire families from the Huizopa communal ownership association take turns there to ensure an uninterrupted presence. Although they do not get in the way of the mining company's work, their demands and the potential for escalating their protest keep the Minefinders plans on edge.

The corporation has a concession granted in 1994 by the Mexican government. With that authorization and the initial approval of the peasants it made around a thousand perforations in search of gold and silver.

To initiate exploitation of the precious metals, in 2006 it signed an agreement with the Huizopa community leaders, stating that it can operate on some 1,200 hectares. However, a good portion of the community maintains that the required consultation process never took place.

“The agreement signed with the mining company is illegal because it was not studied and was not voted on by the community assembly, and furthermore it is unequal; it doesn't have even the minimal principle of equality,” attorney Patrón said in a Tierramérica interview.

In addition, say the campesinos, the mining company has appropriated nearly 3,500 hectares of the 86,000 belonging to Huizopa.

A minority group among the residents supports the company, which has built houses and roads, but the majority wants a new agreement that includes financing for a community development plan, annual rental payments per hectare of mining, a system for participation in the profits, and environmental studies.

Minefinders says on its web site that it is 100-percent owner of the property at the Dolores mine, which it plans to exploit through open-pit operations for 15 years.

This is not an isolated conflict. In the last decade, recurrent problems have come to a head between the mining industry and the labor unions and residents in several Latin American countries, coinciding with the boom in international prices of precious metals.

In the past four years, gold prices have gone up 219 percent and silver 149 percent in a cycle that has brought multi-million-dollar profits for the companies and a jump in tax revenues collected by governments.

In Peru, there were 26 mining strikes in the first half of this year, just three fewer than the entire year of 2007. In Central America, where mining companies have identified at least 23 minable zones, citizen groups are on war footing, arguing that the mining executives are getting rich while destroying the environment and hurting the populations living near the mines.

The conflict between the government of Mexico and the leadership of one sector of the mining unions has continued since 2006.

The campesinos of Huizopa “will not fall into violence, but we will not give up until we achieve real benefits from Minefinders, because we know it is going to see heavy profits,” said spokesperson De la Rosa.

They estimate that in 15 years the mining company will take in about 3 billion dollars and could cause serious damage to the surrounding environment. The operations for extracting gold and silver from the rock will involve toxic sodium cyanide. The company says those economic calculations are mistaken. In Huizopa there are reserves “equivalent to 3 billion ounces of gold,” president Mark Bailey said in March.

The corporation, which is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and has three other projects in Mexico, informed its shareholders on Jul. 25 that because of an “illegal blockade” and “threats of violence from demonstrators,” its operations in Huizopa are on hold, but assured that in the following quarter it will begin full operations for gold and silver mining.

Police are guarding the mine and, according to reports from the campesinos, the Mexican army has been called in to conduct intimidating patrols.

On May 27, federal forces used tear gas to disperse about 100 campesinos who were conducting a sit-in, and two days later two Huizopa leaders were detained, but they were released soon after due to lack of charges.

Minefinders has not acted in an honest manner, say the Huizopa association and the non-governmental Project for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a group to which jurist Patrón belongs.

The company says it has spent 12.7 million dollars on assistance for the community that owns the land and that it has financed student scholarships in geology at a university in Chihuahua.

In a bid to end the conflict, it is offering six million dollars more and to sponsor social programs and activities focused on protecting the environment, and alleges that the campesinos have been egged on by people involved with the left-leaning and opposition PRD, Democratic Revolutionary Party.

“What they are offering proves the close-mindedness of the company. We have to take into account that they will be here for many years and we want good neighborly relations and benefits that are equitable for all,” said De la Rosa.

The representatives of Minefinders in Mexico declined to make any further statements to Tierramérica, stating that the negotiations with the campesinos are now under way.

On Aug. 12, a committee in the Mexican Senate called on several government entities to investigate possible human rights violations of the people of Huizopa, to help establish a dialogue amongst the parties involved, to study environmental and social impacts of the mining, and to report on the presence of the army in the area.

The campesinos' spokesperson said that as a result of efforts by the state government it was possible to begin dialogue with the company, but that there have been no results so far.

Medications that have been stolen or falsified, are expired, or sold without a doctor's prescription are the reality of the online pharmacy.

Medication labeling is crucial for verifying their legality. - Public domain

Enlarge your penis. Want to lose weight? Say good-bye to impotence. — Who hasn't received messages like this by e-mail?

The sale of medications over the Internet, in which thousands of vendors participate, continues to grow, fuelled by low prices, lack of need for a medical prescription and a supposed guarantee of anonymity. But the medicine that is purchased this way may be adulterated, it may have been stolen, it may be contraband, or may simply have passed its expiration date, and in the worst case may contain dangerous and even deadly compounds.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calculates that 10 percent of the medications sold worldwide are fake, although in some developing countries that portion can reach 25 percent. And half of the medicines sold over the Internet on web sites that hide their real address are believed to be fakes.

A study published last month by the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines says that 62 percent of the pharmaceuticals sold online are false and do not meet the minimum standards for health, including those intended to treat serious cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological and psychiatric conditions.

Ninety-five percent of the online pharmacies studied operate illegally, and 94 percent of their web sites do not have an identifiable pharmaceutical chemical in their product. More than 90 percent provide people with prescription-only medications without requiring a prescription.

In Mexico, which has the largest pharmaceutical market in Latin America and ninth in the world, annual sales of medications represent about 9 billion dollars. But because of sales of false medications the drug companies lose 700 to 900 billion dollars annually.

Furthermore, every so often pharmaceutical shipments are reported stolen, and 40 percent of the medications that expire end up in the garbage, in illegal markets or sold on the Internet.

The government and non-governmental organizations warn of the dangers surrounding online sales of drugs, but general measures to fight the trade have yet to be defined, although there are some isolated efforts.

Mexico will confront the phenomenon, although authorities, pharmaceutical executives and activists consulted by Tierramérica admit that it will be very difficult to shut down Internet sales.

Before the end of the year, Mexican health authorities will present new Internet monitoring and tracking systems. “There will be a new focus on this reality,” Luis Hernández, an advisor of Cofepris, the federal health protection commission, told Tierramérica.

This agency, entrusted with monitoring the safety of medications, is in an “intense process of readaptation” that aims to determine which medical products are being sold online, said Hernández.

In addition, Cofepris will propose a new general law on health to replace the law currently on the books, drafted in 1984 and since then undergoing regular reforms. “Globalization brought with it a new focus on commercial practices, which is why there has to be legislation with a current viewpoint,” he said.

“Cofepris warns the public that medicines are not merchandise, that it's not the same as buying a pair of shoes. They are inputs for health, which implies a risk, so that this new form of sales over the Internet needs to be dealt with and regulated,” Hernández said.

Thousands of web sites, some operating inside Mexico, offer mostly pharmaceuticals to enhance sexual performance, fight depression, lose weight or lower cholesterol.

“Mexico right now has no regulation for sales of medicines over the Internet, but the best way is to raise consumer awareness with broad campaigns and set up pages on the Internet itself to inform people about the risks of buying” their medications online, said Héctor Bolaños, president of the Association of Free Access Medications Manufacturers (those that do not require prescriptions).

“We have seen adulterated medicines or which do not contain the ingredients of the original formula, and others with lower quantities (of the active ingredient) or toxic substances,” he told Tierramérica.

For Alejandro Calvillo, president of the consumer protection group El Poder del Consumidor, many pharmaceutical companies that operate in Mexico sponsor the Internet sales sites, although they complain that some send fake or adulterated products, in the end “for them it is part of the business, it is a way of positioning their brands.”

The WHO discourages pharmaceutical advertising, but in Mexico medications are openly advertised and, further, “through ad campaigns they even create diseases in order to sell more and more,” Calvillo said in a Tierramérica interview.

In this of 104 million people, with 70 percent of the population self-prescribing its meds, there are 224 pharmaceutical laboratories belonging to 200 companies, 46 of them corporations that are majority foreign owned. Their drugs are sold in supermarkets and in about 23,000 pharmacies.

Mexico is a good market for the sector, because of its demographic characteristics. In 1970, the population over age 65 represented four percent of the total. By 2025 it will be 15 percent, and life expectancy will reach 81.6 years for women and 76.8 years for men.

The drug companies know that the higher the age the greater demand for health services and for medications.

“I know that because of embarrassment many adults buy Viagra (a drug for erectile dysfunction) over the Internet. It's difficult to fight that, but they have to be warned that they could be in danger” from the pills they buy online, said Bolaños.

In 2004, The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency found in a worldwide investigation that in Mexico there were about 200 pharmacies that sold their products online, and most were located along the U.S.-Mexican border. From those sites they sold adulterated versions of Viagra and some illegal narcotics.

According to the U.S.-based Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, in 2010 the global value of sales of falsified medications will reach 75 billion dollars, representing a jump of more than 90 percent from 2005 levels.

“The Internet, where sites appear one day and disappear the next, is an excellent place to sell adulterated medicines. The consumers must be informed about this because their health is at stake, and the authorities should monitor it to the maximum extent,” said Bolaños.

Widespread cigarette advertising and the freedom to smoke in public — including in hospitals and schools — continue in most Latin American countries.

Children often end up as second-hand smokers - Photo Stock

Most countries in the region violate their own commitments to ban tobacco advertising and to prohibit smoking in public places, especially hospitals and schools.

Eliminating cigarette ads and imposing hefty taxes on the tobacco industry are the best ways to reduce consumption, recommends the World Health Organization (WHO) in its Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008.

Based on data from more than 150 countries, the document shows that tax revenues from tobacco sales around the world are 500 times greater than the amount spent on fighting tobacco addiction, which is a cause of deadly diseases.

Studies obtained by Tierramérica correspondents and statistics from the WHO indicate that, in Latin America, Venezuela and Brazil have the highest national annual budgets to fight tobacco use, at about 4.6 million dollars each. The lowest in the region is Paraguay, with just 33,830 dollars.

Venezuela takes in 634 million dollars in tobacco taxes each year, and Brazil about 1.1 billion. Paraguay's tobacco tax revenues reach 12 million dollars.

In Chile, a Latin American leader in regulating and banning consumption of tobacco, the anti-smoking budget is around one million dollars, while tobacco tax income is about 1.2 billion. The health costs of smoking cost the Chilean government 1.14 billion dollars a year.

Among the most permissive is Argentina, with 1.45 billion dollars in tobacco tax revenues, some 550 million more than what it spends on fighting tobacco use. Unlike its neighbors, this country has no national law on the matter, while the harm tobacco causes its citizens costs 2.2 billion dollars a year.

Mario Virgolini, coordinator of the Argentine Health Ministry's tobacco regulation program, told Tierramérica that the difference between tobacco tax revenues and expenditures for the health impacts of smoking “clearly show that it costs society more to deal with the disease than to avoid consumption.” “The greatest cost, which is immeasurable, is the 40,000 deaths per year caused by tobacco” in Argentina, he said.

Uruguay has won recognition from the WHO as the first country in the Americas and the third in the world to ban smoking in enclosed spaces and work areas, without exception. The national measures have been in place since 2006.

In the opinion of Luz Reynales, head of tobacco research at Mexico's National Public Health Institute, the region's nations must be “stronger” when it comes to taxes on the tobacco industry.

“Higher taxes are needed to obtain sufficient resources to attack the epidemic,” Reynales told Tierramérica.

Through its tobacco taxes, Mexico takes in 2 billion dollars a year, but spends 3 billion on prevention programs and health-related costs.

Tax as a percentage of the sale price of cigarettes varies in Latin America and the Caribbean from 70 percent in Uruguay and Venezuela, and two percent in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The WHO has calculated that an additional 10-percent hike in cigarette prices could cut consumption by four percent. If the price went up 70 percent, it would prevent a quarter of the approximately 5.4 million deaths reported annually that are associated with smoking.

Most Latin American countries have ratified the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, in force since February 2005.

The pact prohibits advertising and sponsorship by cigarette companies of any activity, and discourages industry interference in public health policies, bans tobacco companies from contacting youth, and establishes smoke-free public spaces.

However, the WHO's 2008 report reveals that in the Americas there is a severe problem of non-compliance.

Of the 35 countries studied by the WHO, just nine ban tobacco ads on the radio and broadcast television, and only three (Bahamas, Brazil and Chile) prohibit advertising in their newspapers and magazines.

The study did not include that Uruguay in March enacted a ban on advertising in any media, except the Internet.

On local Internet portals, tobacco ads are banned in Brazil and Chile. Billboards and signs for cigarettes are banned in public areas in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Aside from the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Guatemala, Uruguay and Venezuela, the rest of the countries in the region allow the distribution of advertising by mail and other media. Only in Chile and Uruguay is it prohibited to show images of tobacco brands on television programs and in films.

Tobacco companies are banned from sponsoring public events in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Uruguay.

Freedom to smoke in hospitals and in schools continues in 21 countries in the Americas, and in 26 there are no smoking regulations for government buildings.

The Pan-American Health Organization's online system for tobacco information reports that the industry continues to offer cigarettes free to students.

In 2003, nearly 11 percent of young Argentines said they had received free cigarettes from tobacco companies. In Chile, the portion was 8.6 percent and in Ecuador 11 percent in 2001, according to the information system.

In Mexico, 10 percent of young people reported being offered free cigarettes in 2005, and in Brazil 7.8 percent in 2006.

A patent for a common bean has been overturned in the United States and the move applauded as the end to a fraud, but is not likely to have much impact in Mexico, where its cultivation and consumption is limited.

A yellow variety of the common bean has been under an unfair patent for years. - Photo Stock

After eight years of bureaucratic proceedings, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in late April revoked the patent for a type of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) that it had granted to U.S. citizen Larry Proctor, whose claims to have invented the bean were backed by dubious empirical evidence.

Although the beans may differ in size and coloring, they are all of a single species, Phaseolus vulgaris L.

It was a case of bio-piracy that serves as an example of how the United States patent system “can end up having perverse effects,” Jorge Mario Martínez, of the Mexican office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told Tierramérica.

Obtaining the repeal of the patent cost more than one million dollars in lawyers and the involvement of social activists, the Mexican government and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), based in the Colombian city of Cali.

It also meant losses for Mexican farmers, who could not sell in the United States the bean that is exactly the same as Proctor's. Proctor is president of the seed company POD-NERS.

Between lawyers and bureaucracy, the alleged inventor enjoyed profits from beans that he bought at a market in Mexico in 1994.

From the packet he purchased, he selected the yellow beans and planted them. Then he chose the best ones from that harvest and, through cross-breeding, produced what he described as a uniformly yellow crop. In 1996 he applied for a patent, which was granted in April 1999 with the name Enola.

In this case, the standards of the U.S. Patent Office were “a clear incentive to bad behavior, to profiting through fraud,” said Martínez, who coordinated the edition of the book “Knowledge Generation and Protection: Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Development”, presented by ECLAC in April.

The book states that the U.S. patent system, the most advanced in the world, was created to foment innovation and scientific research.

However, with the passage of time, many patents have turned into currency of exchange among corporations and ingredients of a market in which the countries of the developing South are on the losing side, both for lack of innovative capabilities and for the lack of knowledge and use of the instruments of intellectual property.

“I know of a Costa Rican who was robbed of his invention and who asked what he could do, because they had then patented it in the United States. He was advised to forget about it unless he was willing to spend years and money on attorneys and travel, with no guarantee of getting the patent revoked,” said Martínez.

According to Silvia Ribeiro, researcher and head of the non-governmental Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC), the case of the Mexican bean clearly demonstrates how “despicable” the U.S. patent system can be.

“In this case they acted without any rigor, because from the beginning we saw as a group that this patent didn't make sense. It was the stealing of a Mexican bean,” Ribeiro told Tierramérica.

The patent demonstrated that bio-piracy can reach extremes, she added. “Bio-piracy” is a term coined by environmental groups to define the harmful registration of the knowledge of others, or ancestral knowledge, about plants or living beings originating in the South. The practice is generally attributed to scientists and corporations of the wealthy North.

Getting the Enola patent overturned at first appeared simple, so the first year, after receiving the complaint from the farmers and from ETC, the Mexican government intervened. But the attempt failed, despite having spent 250,000 dollars on lawyers.

CIAT took up the issue arguing that it is necessary to defend the rights of the millions of small farmers in Latin America who have grown this crop for centuries.

The Center holds the world's largest collection of this staple food, with 35,000 varieties, 260 of which are yellow and six identical to Enola.

CIAT director Geoffrey Hawtin is pleased with the repeal of the patent, but disappointed that it took so long. The defendant, Proctor, used appeals to delay the decision and to continue profiting from the bean, he said.

Hawtin said farmers suffered threats of lawsuits and intimidation for many years simply for planting, selling or exporting a bean that has been cultivated for generations.

However, the available data indicate that the Proctor case has not caused an economic debacle in Mexico, because the yellow bean is not widely exported or consumed, unlike the black bean.

Bean production — mostly black beans — in Mexico expanded from 887,800 tons in 2000 to 1.36 million tons in 2006. In that period, exports to the United States grew from 5,525 to 12,203 tons.

As for imports, between 2000 and 2006, they more than doubled from 61,900 to 130,700 tons.

In Mexico, 1.8 million hectares are planted with beans and 570,000 people grow this crop. Although it is an age-old practice, the average yield here is 731 kilograms per hectare, compared to 1.6 tons per hectare in the United States.

Efforts by small farmers in Mexico to avoid intermediaries and get their products on supermarket shelves have failed due to the chains' strict rules, say farmers groups.

Some supermarkets don't make space on their shelves for small farmers' products. - Wikimedia Commons

The “autoservicio” (self-service) stores, as supermarkets are known in Mexico, are responsible for sales of 52 percent of food and perishable items in the country, and in the capital the proportion rises to 70 percent.

These large stores have pushed out the old markets and the neighborhood shops, according to the federal government's consumer protection agency. Those stores could disappear within the decade.

The small farmer faces the “voracious and nearly absolute power” of the supermarkets and the intermediaries, says Pedro Cervantes, coordinator for Agromercados, a marketing firm whose members include coffee growers with scant resources.

“It isn't easy to meet the supply requirements imposed by the large supermarkets, and they have a policy of paying the supplier up to three months after product delivery — most small farmers can't wait,” Cervantes told Tierramérica.

As a result, many coffee growers hand over their product to intermediaries for a lower but immediate pay, he said.

“Sometimes coffee or other farm products pass through the hands of seven or eight before reaching the supermarket in the form and frequency demanded,” Cervantes added.

The U.S.-based mega-store Wal-Mart and Mexico's Soriana and Comercial Mexicana chains together have 1,800 supermarkets across the country, of which 1,033 belong to Wal-Mart.

The combined Mexico sales of the three for 2007 surpassed 27.7 billion dollars. Their original suppliers are in the countryside, where 5.6 million farmers live and work, and where 75 percent of the country's poverty is found.

The growing power of the supermarkets is not just a Mexican phenomenon. Gathering force since the 1990s, it is happening in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, says the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), published Apr. 15.

The supermarket chains concentrate 50 to 60 percent of all food sales in the region. It is “an extraordinary increase”, considering that just 10 years ago they controlled 10 to 20 percent, according to the study, carried out by some 400 scientists from around the world.

The penetration of the supermarkets is growing by giant steps in the cities, and even in some rural areas, states the report.

The IAASTD says the consolidation of the supermarkets' presence has widened the gap between the prices paid to the food producer and what consumers pay at the cash register.

This has an impact across society, generating displacement of small farmers, loss of employment and even changes to the cultural patterns of rural dwellers and consumers, says the report, which was sponsored by the World Bank and five United Nations agencies.

The Rural Confederation of Mexico in 2005 and 2006 signed agreements with the supermarkets so that its three million members could sell their products directly to the companies, avoiding intermediaries and losses.

But those agreements failed, announced Confederation spokespersons in January, because the farmers could not comply with the volume and regular delivery schedules imposed by the supermarket chains. Furthermore, payment was much delayed, arriving up to eight months after delivery.

Most of the farmers prefer to deal with the intermediaries, which gather large volumes of products at the central supply site located just outside Mexico City.

Latin America's largest market — 304 hectares with 1,489 sales posts and 1,881 warehouses — is where the supermarket trucks arrive daily to get their products.

A small farmer alone cannot abide by the conditions imposed by a supermarket, like delivering large volumes, providing packaging and waiting for deferred payment, says Rita Schwentesius, an expert in global agroindustry at the Autonomous University of Chapingo.

The supermarket chains prefer to buy from the supply centers in the capital and in other cities, although they also receive products in their own warehouses, as long as the deliveries comply with their conditions, Schwentesius said in a Tierramérica interview.

To avoid intermediaries, the government and some local authorities are encouraging and financing the integration of farmers into networks.

But such initiatives have functioned for only a few, agree Schwentesius and Cervantes.

“Most can't meet the requirements of the supermarkets,” said Agromercados coordinator Cervantes, who was able to establish a group among the members to provide supermarkets with packaged coffee, both whole bean and instant coffees.

In the case of processed products, most supermarkets require the supplier to stock the shelves themselves.

If in three months the sales are slow, according to parameters set by the supermarket, the product is returned and it is very unlikely that they will be able to return to the shelves in the future, chain executives told Tierramérica.

The requirement that suppliers put their own products on the shelves, as well as employing children or the elderly to pack up the clients' purchases in exchange for tips, are practices aimed at cutting costs.

The IAASTD notes that one of the arguments justifying the existence of supermarkets is that the consumer would benefit from the larger scale, with better products and prices.

But the study says that the dominant position of the supermarkets reduces competition — and thus reduces those presumed benefits

In Mexico, the situation could be different. By the late 1980s, when this country began implementing aggressive policies of open trade, the rise of the supermarkets was dominated by a few national chains in partnership, without open competition among them, according to several studies.

Wal-Mart stepped on to the Mexican market in 1991, inviting consumers to compare its prices and services with the other supermarkets.

That strategy was a blow to national competition and led to clashes with Wal-Mart, which in 2002 resulted in its expulsion from Mexico's National Association of Supermarkets and Department Stores.

Some observers say the presence of Wal-Mart, which now dominates the Mexican market, forced its competitors to lower prices and improves services.

The IAASTD suggests confronting the broad power of the supermarkets, monitoring and analyzing their strategies of self-regulation, and urging consumers to pursue a more fair commerce.

Indigenous farmer Jesús León Santos hardly knew what to do 25 years ago when he decided to try to regenerate eroded land in southern Mexico. Now he is celebrating winning the Goldman Environmental Prize 2008.

León Santos has known since childhood what it's like to live where degradation means trees are scarce. - Courtesy of Grupo Periodismo para Elevar la Conciencia Ecológica

“We showed them that the cultivation techniques of our ancestors are the best and that they represent life. We are on the right path,” León Santos said in an exclusive Tierramérica interview.

This farmer, 42, has led land recovery projects since he was 18, inspired by traditional indigenous knowledge, and on Apr. 14 was awarded the annual prize given by the U.S.-based Goldman Environmental Foundation, seen as the “Green Nobel”.

León Santos's program is carried out in an impoverished indigenous region of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, part of the Mixteca, one of the worst eroded areas of the world, according to the United Nations. The area is also suffers high emigration.

The Small Farmer Integral Development Center of the Mixteca, which León Santos heads, planted about four million trees there, developed rainwater retention systems and promoted traditional crops. Some 400 indigenous families have benefited directly from the projects, and many neighbors are actively participating in the initiatives.

Most important, they have recovered the tradition of the “milpa”, a style of agriculture developed by the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica, which helps keep soils fertile.

The Mixteca covers parts of the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla, in southern Mexico, and is home to Mixteca or Ñuu savi Indians (people of the rains or of the clouds). In Oaxaca it extends across 16,000 square kilometers.

Goldman Prize winner León Santos, who received an award of 150,000 dollars, is this year's representative for the North American region. The other winners were Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza of Ecuador, Feliciano dos Santos of Mozambique, Rosa Hilda Ramos of Puerto Rico, Marina Rikhvanova of Russia and Ignace Schops of Belgium.

TIERRAMÉRICA: — What does it mean to you and your organization to win the Goldman Prize?

JESÚS LEÓN SANTOS: — It has been the most important thing that has happened to me in a long time. This unites us with people who are conserving the environment and makes us stronger. The 150,000 dollars will go to a fund in my organization to continue developing our work. Imagine that! It represents the budget of an entire year. We manage some 100,000 dollars that come from European organizations.

TA: — To come up with and develop projects like yours in a poor area, with degraded land and high rates of emigration is an uphill battle. How did you begin?

JLS: — I became involved in this because when I was a boy I saw that we faced many difficulties. My parents sent me to look for firewood and I had to walk hours and hours because it was very scarce. The trees had disappeared. We thought that the Mixteca had to be green again, like it was in the past, and those were really only words because we didn't know what to do. Then there came clarity, and 25 years later we see that we have achieved what we never imagined possible.

TA: — What are the most evident changes?

JLS: — Many people who come to the parcels say that it's a paradise, and then I say that it is a paradise that has been created little by little. Today we enjoy the wood and the birds that for years we didn't hear singing because there were no trees. The soil is beginning to change. When one walks through the trees, the sound made by our feet on the leaves was something we had never heard before.

TA: — What role did the pre-Hispanic techniques for cultivation and land conservation play in these achievements?

JLS: — In addition to planting trees and creating ditches to retain rainwater, we pushed the recovery of traditional farming systems, the “milpa”, which consists of planting maize, gourds, beans and others on the same parcel, using our seeds from our own harvests, without buying anything. This means the soils don't deteriorate and it improves fertility.

Unlike monoculture, these systems not only provide a balanced diet, they conserve soil fertility. In the 1970s and 1980s, when they began using fertilizers and improved seeds here, this knowledge of our peoples was pushed out. But we have recovered it.

TA: — The genetically modified seed companies are asking Mexico to allow its maize varieties to be planted here because they say they are much more productive. What do you think?

JLS: — The GM seeds can be monsters in comparison to what nature has done. We can't be playing with what is natural, and those companies are truly creating monsters that attack life, not just the native seeds but also ourselves. What I'd tell the seed companies is that they carry out campaigns that are not ethical, because they lie and they bribe governments.

TA: — But each year there are more and more GM crops in the world and their promoters argue that this technology has come to stay.

JLS: — To everyone who thinks that our ancient systems are a matter of romantic ideals we say that we are on the right path. What they are proposing is a disaster. When those modified seeds can't be controlled, they can cause a global catastrophe.

TA: — How should this danger that you see be dealt with?

JLS: — We have to do what they do: campaigns. They have an incredible amount of money and can make their million-dollar propaganda, and at times even buy the authorities to allow them to plant their crops. We have to work in a different way: convince the public and show them that in truth what we are making is life.

Mexico has meager resources to fight trafficking in fauna and flora across its vast territory, while the crime continues just down the street.

The endangered scarlet macaw (Ara macao). - Adrian Pingstone

Half of the 22 species of multicolor and green parrots are in danger of extinction, and just 300 mating pairs of scarlet macaws (Ara macao) remain, according to official documents. But these birds are sold at markets in the capital and Mexican other cities, almost in plain view.

“We can get any rare animal for you,” Germán, who runs a four-square-meter vending stall at the Sonora market in the capital, told this reporter.

The vendor, who doesn't give his surname, has cats and dogs and canaries for sale, and behind a screen an eagle for 200 dollars, and a murky aquarium with dozens of small yellow frogs, with a price tag of five dollars each.

What Germán is hiding are wild animals that are in danger of extinction, the sale of which is punishable by one to nine years in prison. But he sells anything, legal or not: tarantula spiders for nine dollars, spider monkeys for about 1,000 dollars, and a black iguana for about 350 dollars.

Illegal trafficking in wildlife is a serious crime, but “nobody has reliable figures” to determine the scope of the problem, José Ramiro Rubio, assistant director of the federal prosecutor's office for environmental protection, Profepa, told Tierramérica.

Rubio points out that Profepa has just 500 inspectors and that each one, for a monthly salary of 750 dollars, has to monitor species trade, logging and compliance with environmental regulations.

Earmarked for the protection of wild animals from trafficking, “at most our yearly budget reaches one million pesos,” or about 935,000 dollars, he said.

“We don't have the capacity to deal with problems of this magnitude. We would need an army. The issue is complex because of the size of Mexican territory (1.9 million square kilometers) and the riches it has,” according to Rubio.

Mexico is one of the 15 in the Group of Megadiverse Countries, created in 2002 by the nations that together hold 70 percent of the Earth's diversity of flora and fauna. The others are Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela.

Although no official figures are available, the authorities estimate that exotic species trafficking in Mexico is third only to drugs and arms trafficking.

Each year, Profepa seizes between 15,000 and 23,000 animals captured illegally, or about to leave the country or to be sold within Mexico, and arrests about 50 people per year for related crimes.

Mexico's vast territory, with the Atlantic to the east and the Pacific to the west, and with many routes out of the country, makes it difficult for inspectors to halt local and international trade in wildlife species, says Rubio.

However, Profepa has identified some 60 sites in the capital and in the central cities of Guadalajara and Puebla where trafficking is a serious problem.

In the south and east, where Mexico's jungles are found, illegal wildlife trade and hunting especially affects jaguars, songbirds and ornamental birds, wild pigs, spider monkeys and howler monkeys, crocodiles and other reptiles, as well as plants, including rare orchids.

In northern and central Mexico the species targeted for trafficking are deer, mountain goats and lynx, as well as puma, macaws, aquatic birds, orchids, palms and cactus.

Parrots and other such birds are on the verge of disappearing as a result of trafficking, says María Elena Sánchez, president of Teyeliz, a non-governmental organization that fights this crime.

For every animal that reaches the hands of a buyer, it is estimated that another four die during capture or transport, and in addition the birds' nests and eggs are destroyed, Sánchez told Tierramérica.

An extensive investigation published in 2007 by Teyeliz and Defenders of Wildlife in Mexico warns that in 10 to 15 years many species will have disappeared forever from this country.

For the vendor in the Sonora market, it is not difficult to avoid the Profepa inspectors. “They don't come by often,” Germán says.

The tents with animals for sale cover some 400 square meters. Dozens of parrots, parakeets, doves, and turkeys are kept in small cages. Also for sale are cats and dogs, iguanas and other lizards.

But most of the sellers say they can get just about any animal — even in a few minutes — as long as the buyer puts some money down up front.

The Teyeliz president is calling for more inspectors and a bigger budget. Though she admits that “more than an army, what we need is to educate the consumer not to buy endangered animals.”

The government has never carried out an educational campaign on this issue. But Teyeliz and other groups aren't going to wait around — with whatever resources they can get, they're planning to launch one this year, says Sánchez.

An unprecedented budget for Mexico's forest policies and the government's goal to plant hundreds of millions of trees have not been enough to calm the debate about the scope of deforestation.

Reforested mountainous terrain in Mexico. - Comisión Nacional Forestal

That figure is 30 million more than the total trees planted in 2007.

“They are doing some interesting things, with highly qualified people. We should be open to the changes,” Sergio Madrid, spokesperson for G-Bosques, a coalition of 14 citizen groups and forest producers, told Tierramérica.

The government has not established special zones for reforestation, except for some special programs centered on threatened areas, especially in the country's southeast. The campaign operates mostly in response to requests from owners of rural land and from state governments.

Each state has set its own goal, and the combined total yields the total of 280 million trees to be planted across more than 600,000 hectares in a bid to halt loss of forest cover. In 2007, the governmental National Forestry Commission (Conafor), received 80,000 reforestation requests, but could only attend to half.

Of the 100 forest municipalities facing greatest marginalization — located primarily in Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca states — 85 percent of the requests were fulfilled.

Among the dozens of species of trees, bushes and cactuses, pines are the most widely planted. In arid and semi-arid zones, examples of the species planted are: mesquite, nopal, agave and stone pine (Pinus pinea L).

In temperate areas, the trees being planted are the sacred fir (Abies religiosa), ash, cypress and oak; and in the tropical regions cedro rojo (Cedrela odorata), big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), andiroba (Carapa guianensis) and trumpet tree (Tabebuia rosea), among others.

But environmental groups, like the Mexican affiliate of Greenpeace, say that the tree-planting project is a failure and hides an alarming rate of deforestation.

The Conafor general coordinator for conservation and restoration, Vicente Arriaga, told Tierramérica that those “acidic criticisms” from some activists are the result, in part, of their own lack of contact with foresters and the peasant farmers who receive or request official support.

The current rate of deforestation, according to Arriaga, is less than 300,000 hectares per year. In a decade reforestation “will have compensated the loss of forests,” he said.

The conservative government of President Felipe Calderón has the backing of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the highest global authority on forest issues, to stop forest loss in Mexico and to reduce illegal logging to a minimum.

But Héctor Magallón, head of the Greenpeace-Mexico forest campaign, says the official deforestation figures are not credible, and that 600,000 hectares of forest are lost yearly.

Mexico's forests cover approximately 56 million hectares and play a fundamental role in channeling two-thirds of the freshwater consumed in the country.

According to Greenpeace, Mexico is one of the world's five leading deforesters, with Brazil in first place and India in second.

The G-Bosques spokesperson Madrid agrees, noting that the government figures on deforestation are doubtful. He believes there were “methodological problems at the moment of compiling them.”

This year the government will spend some 500 million dollars on forest programs. This unprecedented sum is distributed among reforestation efforts, payments for “environmental services” to owners of forested lands, and soil conservation projects, among others.

But Greenpeace argues that planting trees does not solve the problem, because only a small percentage of the seedlings survive. “The program is a failure,” Magallón told Tierramérica.

Arriaga accuses the activists of using data from the 1980s and erroneously focusing on tree survival.

In the agro-forestry sciences, it is expected that in a period of 30 years just 10 to 30 percent of the planted trees will survive, says Arriaga: “That is not failure.”

Maximizing the density of trees per hectare is one of the program's objectives, because later the least thriving trees are thinned out, he said.

Between ages 10 and 15, trees have their greatest capacity to capture carbon, the main factor contributing to the greenhouse effect. After that, many trees should be cut, because if a high density of trees is maintained, they will lose their carbon capturing properties, he added.

G-Bosques' Madrid, who a year ago looked upon these government programs with suspicion, now sees them as the right approach, “although they remain insufficient.”

He noted that the government earmarks some 100 million dollars per year to pay various sums to owners of forest totaling 8.5 million hectares to conserve and manage the forests.

“The support could and should reach 20 million hectares, but there is progress and I wouldn't want to put the accent on the strategy's weak points,” Madrid said.

About the millions of trees to be planted this year, he commented that it is a valid program, “independently of the possible survival of the trees.”

Furthermore, the fact that the government is publicizing the reforestation effort and proclaiming Mexico as a world leader on the issue “isn't a negative, because with this it has activated environmental awareness,” he said.

Magallón, in contrast, sees it as “an embarrassment” that the government's support of conservation of existing forests is “so marginal” and that it is giving so much publicity to reforestation.

Arriaga refuted the Greenpeace assertion that the government spends more on reforestation than on soil conservation, payment to small farmers for environmental services and other areas. “We have met with them, and we have given them the figures,” he said.

The U.N. Environment Program established a global goal for 2007-2008 to plan one billion trees per year. Mexico is the country contributing most towards that objective, say the authorities.

Although there have been important efforts in recent years, Latin America lags far behind the industrialized countries in the global science and technology race.

Brazil on cutting-edge of world's aeronautics industry. - Embraer

These are international-caliber achievements in science and technology, but they fail to compensate for the gap that separates Latin America from the industrialized world.

Although some governments are making an effort to bridge the technology divide, “one doesn't see substantive changes,” Gonzalo Rivas, head of the science and technology division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), told Tierramérica.

Brazil is the region's leader when it comes to investing, with 1.05 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) set aside for science and technology. But it lags far behind Israel (4.5 percent), Switzerland (3.7 percent) and the United States (2.7 percent) — and doesn't quite reach the 1.4 percent earmarked by China.

According to Rivas, Argentina is second in Latin America in the effort to improve its performance in this field.

The Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation was created in December. Investment in this area grew from 0.3 percent GDP in 2003 to 0.6 percent in 2006. The goal is to reach one percent GDP in 2010.

Mexico set up a plan in 2007 with sights set on the year 2030 for joining the global group of 20 countries “with high competitiveness in science, technology and innovation,” according to official documents.

But for now its annual investment is just 0.49 percent GDP, 0.01 less than investment in 2000. The goal for 2030 is to reach 2.5 percent.

According to the 2006 IDB report “Education, Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean”, despite the increase in investments and yields in some countries, support for development of innovation in the region has not been proportional to the need or the challenges faced. In general, said Rivas, Latin American governments and business leaders talk about how important investment in innovation is, but “they never put up the resources.”

The lack of support translates into official statistics that are “not very reliable” and lag behind the times, the expert said in a telephone interview from Washington DC.

The IDB has been working since January with Argentina, Chile, Panama and Uruguay on support projects for developing science and technology.

Brazil's secretary of technological development and innovation, Guilherme Pereira, told Tierramérica that his country achieved regional leadership because of its broad plan of action, which was linked with industrial policy and the private sector.

“Innovation is priority,” which is why the Innovation Act was passed in 2004, as well as another law that regulates tax incentives aimed at encouraging technological creation, he said. The number of articles by Brazilian authors published in international scientific journals has risen in recent years to two percent of the total, which “is equal to Brazil's portion of the global GDP,” said Pereira.

In Brazil, patent requests — another way to measure innovation, along with the number of doctorates awarded — surpassed 23,000 per year in 2005. But two-thirds were requests presented by foreigners, according to official figures.

The 2007-2008 Human Development Report, of the United Nations Development Program, stated that between 2000 and 2005 Brazilian inventors obtained, on average, one patent per year per one million inhabitants.

In Argentina, which designate fewer resources for science and technology than its neighbor, there were four patents per million people in that same period — the highest in Latin America. Mexico had the same rate as Brazil of one patent per million inhabitants.

For the 2000-2005 period, Norway registered 103 patents per year per one million people, Japan registered 857 and the United States 244.

No government officials in Latin America deny that the region lags far behind in science and technology, but promises to catch up with the world's science leaders are multiplying.

Luiz de Miranda, metallurgical engineer and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said he was thankful that Brazil had developed an environment for innovation and for obtaining patents.

“The problem is that once you have the patent” one has to face a market dominated by transnational corporations, he said in a Tierramérica interview.

De Miranda created a coating that protects metal from corrosion, but his invention, the result of three decades of research, has yet to reach the market due to lack of commercial support.

But that is not always the case. Also in that country, Embraer, the Brazilian aeronautics company founded in 1969 by the government and privatized in 1994, is now the world leader in the manufacture of small airplanes (up to 120 passengers), thanks to the innovations of Brazilian engineers and designers.

In Argentina, scientists at the University of Quilmes discovered in 2006 that sildenafil, the main compound in the impotence pharmaceutical Viagra, is also useful in treating sleep disorders. Their research was published in the U.S. journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” in May 2007.

In Mexico, researchers at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) formed a partnership in 2007 with a mineral ore processing company to operate an electrochemical reactor that eliminates several steps in the traditional methods for separating out gold and silver from ore, as well as being less costly and generating no waste. Offers are now coming from abroad to purchase the invention.

Rivas noted that there are indeed important efforts in science and technology, but that the region has a long way to go to bridge the gap with the industrialized world.

It requires more public investment, “decisive involvement by the private sector, and that universities stop their navel-gazing tendencies and open up more to society and particularly to the productive sector,” he said.

More training of human resources and higher-quality education is needed. “The percentage of the population that reaches the university system remains very low, and with a strong trend towards humanities fields,” noted the IDB expert.

The plans of Latin American governments to fight indiscriminate logging have achieved some victories, but they continue to run up against strong economic interests.

Among the leaders in the destruction of forests: Honduras. - Fundación Democracia sin Fronteras

Of every 100 hectares of forest lost worldwide between the years 2000 and 2005, nearly 65 were in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that period, the average annual rate was 4.7 million hectares lost — 249,000 hectares more than the entire decade of the 1990s.

Deforestation remains difficult to deal with because there are many economic interests in play, according to Ricardo Sánchez, director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

At their latest forum, held Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Santo Domingo, the region's environment ministers received a limited-circulation report that reveals, among other matters, the failure of strategies against forest destruction.

The document, “Latin American and Caribbean Initiative for Sustainable Development – 5 Years After Its Adoption” (ILAC), evaluates the official commitments made by governments in 2002.

“There is action by governments against deforestation like never before, but we are seeing that it is not an easy task, because there is strong pressure from economic groups,” Sánchez told Tierramérica.

Logging brings the loss of biodiversity and degradation of soils, as well as contributing to the incidence of extreme climate phenomena, added the UNEP official.

Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of total area covered by forests fell in the Mesoamerica region (southern Mexico and Central America) from 36.9 to 35.8 percent, and in South America from 48.4 to 47.2 percent. However, in the Caribbean it increased from 31 to 31.4 percent.

According to Mexican expert Enrique Provencio, author of the ILAC report, the principal cause of the increased pace of deforestation is the advance of the monoculture farming frontier, a phenomenon that did not carry much weight in the 1990s.

“There was a rise in international prices of products like soybeans, which drove the occupation of forested areas, especially in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay,” Provencio told Tierramérica.

The ILAC report indicates that although forestry activity has maintained a positive performance for improving productivity and advances in sustainable management and other practices, such as certification of sustainably harvested lumber, it has not prevented the loss of forests.

“In some countries the reduction of forested area continues to be associated with the increase of livestock… and the classic model of expanding pasture area by cutting down forests has been applied,” says the text.

To confront deforestation, in recent years most governments have designed new monitoring and control mechanisms, with some even using the army to go after illegal loggers. Many countries have also passed laws that severely punish those who destroy forests.

Sánchez highlighted recent efforts, such as Argentina's passage in late 2007 of the Law on Forests following an active campaign that obtained 1.5 million signatures.

The new law stipulates that the authorities must draw up new forestry plans and that permits for logging will only be issued after the approval of an environmental impact study and the holding of public hearings.

Other positives the UNEP director has found in this environmental fight are the efforts of Brazil, which set up “inter-ministerial” mechanisms entrusted with the matter, and the creation in Chile and Peru of “super-agencies” against deforestation.

But the problem persists. “This shows that we continue to be economies dependent on the intensive use of natural resources and, with the growing demand for food and other products, that there was an advance of the agricultural frontier,” said Sánchez.

Provencio, former director of the Mexican government's National Ecology Institute, believes it is too soon to know whether the faster deforestation rate will continue in the coming years, but he pointed to initiatives under way that could halt or even reverse it.

There are forestry defense and reforestation efforts that have been very successful in Costa Rica, Cuba, Santa Lucia and Uruguay, he said. In contrast, “the situation in the Brazilian Amazon is of great concern, and that could have an impact on the indicators of the entire region.”

Another positive sign is the increase in the total area designated as nature protection areas. In the 2000-2005 period, it increased from 19.2 to 20.6 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, representing 320,400 square kilometers.

Although the increase in protected areas cannot compensate for the loss of forest, “the process gives us some hope,” said Provencio.

Except for a few notable exceptions, dolphins in captivity in Latin America face mistreatment from humans and the ills associated with being kept far from their natural habitat.

Performing dolphins. - Photo Stock

In Brazil and Chile, dolphin aquariums are prohibited, in Argentina there are two sites with nine dolphins, and in Venezuela there is one with just four of these mammals.

The 20 dolphin aquariums in Mexico — where they are presented as circus acts or are used, for their supposed curative benefits, for swimming with people, or as simple entertainment — are the example of a business that should not exist anywhere, says Yolanda Alaniz, one of the authors of the book “Delfinarios” (Dolphin Aquariums), the product of seven years of research.

More than half of the dolphins kept in captivity in Mexico since the 1970s have died early deaths from pneumonia, stress, gastric illness or trauma from blows, Alaniz told Tierramérica.

Dolphins are highly intelligent mammals that, in the wild, develop complex social networks. In captivity, most of their instinctive behaviors are repressed, they are forced to interact with humans, and they lose their ability to swim long distances and to work as a group to catch fish.

Chile enacted a regulation in 2005 that “prohibits the capture, captivity and permanent or temporary holding of all types of cetaceans for public exhibition or other ends associated with their use by man, whatever the characteristics of the installations in which they are intended to be kept.”

This rule, which under exception allows holding the sea mammals in captivity temporarily and only as long as the intention is their reinsertion in their natural habitat, was the result of a notorious case of maltreatment in 1996.

That year, in the northern city of Puerto Iquique, a traveling show had imported two dolphins from Cuba, one of which died before arriving. The other was barely surviving in a municipal pool and without food.

In the past 12 years, at last 11 projects for dolphin aquariums have been presented in Chilean cities, for recreational and therapeutic purposes alike. All have been rejected.

Chile “has a cutting edge position in the region. It is an example to follow when it comes to cetacean conservation,” Elsa Carrera, director of the non-governmental Cetacean Conservation Center, told Tierramérica.

Brazil has a ban on dolphin aquariums too, but does allow centers for caring for dolphins temporarily.

The problems involving dolphins in Brazil have more to do with their accidental or intentional capture on the high seas. Catching dolphins is prohibited, as in most Latin America countries, including Mexico, home to the highest number of dolphin aquariums in the region.

In 2007 images were released of some 80 dead dolphins on a boat along the coast of the northern Brazilian state of Amapá, which caused an outcry from environmentalists and much of the public.

Oceanographer José Martins da Silva Junior told Tierramérica that despite the bans the capture of dolphins continues. The eyes and genitals of the mammals are removed and sold as amulets that hucksters promise will bring wealth and attract women.

In Argentina, admission to the only two dolphin aquariums costs 14 dollars. They are located in Buenos Aires province and offer visitors the typical dolphin circus show.

Alejandro Arias, of the Argentine Wildlife Foundation's marine program, told Tierramérica that the “regulation of the aquariums in Argentina is better than in other countries.”

“The dolphins receive adequate treatment, (although) rather than on principle it's for commercial reasons. It is too expensive to buy and maintain a dolphin to then let it die or mistreat it,” he said, pointing out that buying a dolphin in Argentina can cost as much as 20,000 dollars.

Venezuela does allow dolphin aquariums, but bans their capture. However, there are just four dolphins that are part of the amusements at Diverland, on the tourist destination Isla de Margarita in the Caribbean Sea.

The mammals are used for brief nighttime shows, for swimming with visitors for 70 dollars a turn, and for therapy for children with autism, Down syndrome or other disorders, their trainer, Edwin Castillo, explained in a Tierramérica interview.

With extensive documentation, case follow-up and opinions from experts from many countries, the book “Delfinarios” casts into doubt the supposed effectiveness of therapy involving dolphins. There are no rigorous studies about dolphin therapy's effects. The argument is that contact with any domesticated animal in an environment different from the patient's usual surroundings causes some benefit.

There are many studies that show that dolphins, whose very nature is contrary to remaining enclosed in pools, secrete high quantities of substances indicating nervousness and stress when they interact with humans.

There are many cases in which, despite being subjected to conditioned acts, dolphins have shown aggression against humans in dolphin aquariums or similar circumstances.

Alaniz, a doctor who conducted the dolphin research with bio-ethicist Laura Rojas, maintains that in the aquariums there is a “chronic mistreatment in all senses,” but that they continue operating because of irregularities and corruption involving the authorities.

Officially reported are some 270 dolphins in captivity in Mexico. From 1997 to 2005, 48 died. But the book's authors, who visited all operating dolphin aquariums, argue that the numbers fall short of reality, because the people in charge of the aquariums are hiding information.

Even so, and with reports from officials or the businesses themselves, it was concluded that respiratory illnesses are the leading cause of death among dolphins in captivity in Mexico, followed by reasons related to poor care, such as trauma to the head, intestinal obstruction from ingestion of foreign objects, and asphyxiation.

Just four to six percent of the deaths were due to natural causes, say the researchers.

Mexican law allows capturing dolphins only for scientific purposes, but also accepts the animals' use in traveling or permanent shows. Until 2001, when dolphin aquariums came under regulation, such businesses had grown without any standards.

Dolphin aquariums can no longer operate in this country using captured animals or dolphins imported from the Caribbean or Japan, as was the case until the 1990s. The businesses can only use those that were born in captivity.

Alaniz and Rojas charge that such places, whose purpose is to make high profits, are not designed to hold dolphins “in minimal conditions of well being,” but rather “to make it easy for the users and for the people in charge of their care.” Dolphin aquariums should not exist, they say.

An invention of Mexican university researchers could put an end to the toxic waste that the mining of gold and silver leave behind.

A Peñoles drill worker. - Courtesy of Peñoles

The method, created by researchers at the public Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) here, involves an electrochemical reactor that would obviate several steps from the traditional methods of mining, is cheaper and does not generate waste.

Current methods use the poisonous cyanide and costly processes of heating up the ore to separate out the precious metals from the other minerals in the ore.

The reactor uses thyourea, a molecular compound similar to the urea obtained from the decomposition of plants or of hydrocarbons.

Thyourea, the oxidation of which is controlled with electricity, enters into action upon contact with the sandy or rocky material, and precipitates out the gold or silver. Furthermore, the compound can be reused almost infinitely.

The reactor has been operating since mid-2007 in a cubicle of no more than 16 square meters at the UAM, and it is hoped that by 2010 similar reactors will be working at the Peñoles mine processing plants in the northeastern state of Coahuila at four or five times the size of the prototype.

Peñoles, the world’s leading producer of refined silver and owner in Mexico of the deposit holding the world’s largest reserves of the metal, in the central state of Zacatecas, sponsored and financed part of the UAM project.

The company, with monthly operations of more than 300 million dollars and exports around the world, contributed around one million dollars to bring the invention to the experimental stage and to channel it into industrial use.

But that contribution required a strong effort to convince the company’s executives. The Peñoles mine in Coahuila created lead contamination affecting hundreds of nearby residents from the 1970s to 1990s.

“The industry executives don’t trust us, the researchers. The first thing they told me in Peñoles (12 years ago) was that the timeframe in which universities work is not their timeframe,” Ignacio González, electrochemical researcher at UAM (Iztapalapa unit) and one of the reactor’s inventors, told Tierramérica.

“We have to recognize that the scientists at Mexican universities are not accustomed to responding to the real needs of the companies, so it was very difficult to motivate Peñoles,” he added.

José Luis Nava, the UAM researcher who led the process of taking the invention to the industrial scale, maintains that the reactor “promises a great deal for the future of the global mining industry.”

The communities near the sites where the electrochemical reactor functions will not suffer contamination of any type, Nava told Tierramérica.

Once the reactor is in place, there will be significant economic benefits for Peñoles, according to González, though the company would not indicate the extent.

The patent for the invention in Mexico and Europe belongs to the UAM, but in other countries it is shared with Peñoles, which will see part of the royalties. It is hoped that other mining companies will want to implement this new, cleaner technology.

“There is nothing in the world like our reactor, and now that it will be moving to the industrial phase there will be a great deal of interest in the leading mining countries,” which include Australia, Canada, United States and South Africa, González said.

Peñoles operates mines in several Mexican states and has investments in several Latin American countries. It is also the world leader in production of metallic bismuth and sodium sulfate, and Latin American leader in processing refined gold, silver and zinc.

The company’s operations in Torreón, a principal city of Coahuila state, caused a scandal in the 1990s when it was found that Peñoles was releasing huge quantities of lead into the environment.

Twenty thousand people were contaminated by the lead. The authorities intervened, and the company accepted its responsibility, adopting lead mitigation measures and paying for part of the medical attention needed by the people affected.

Local doctors had been denouncing the contamination near the processing plant since the late 1970s, but at first Peñoles had tried to play down the importance.

In Mexico there are very few cases in which companies that are competitive on the international market enter into partnerships with researchers to seek solutions to industrial problems.

There are more than 2,000 centers of higher education in Mexico, of which 30 are public, like the UAM. The public universities that carry out 80 percent of the country’s scientific activity.

The UAM electrochemical reactor is one of the few effective contributions of the universities to Mexico’s industrial sector. In this country, the government earmarks less than 0.5 percent of the national budget to scientific and technological development.

Every year, some 300 indigenous people from the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz march naked through the streets of the capital to demand land. But while their unusual form of protest certainly attracts attention, there is little chance that it will achieve their goals.

The protesters, most of them from the Nahua indigenous community, are members of an organisation known as the Movement of 400 Peoples. The organisation suffered a heavy blow in 1992 when the police evicted them from a parcel of over 2,000 hectares of private land in Veracruz that they had occupied in 1988.

Following the eviction, they began to demonstrate in the capital to air their grievances.

First they demanded the release of 100 members of the group imprisoned on charges of squatting, theft, assault and murder. Once this had been achieved, they began to call for the restitution of the land they originally occupied or to be granted ownership of other land, as well as punishment for the authorities who evicted them 15 years ago.

In 2002, during one of their annual visits to the capital, where they spend two or three months living in tents set up between the busy downtown thoroughfares of Reforma and Insurgentes Avenues, they decided to take off their clothes as a form of protest. Since then, they have continued to stage their nude demonstrations every year.

“They stole everything from us, they took our land and locked us up in prison, and that’s why we march naked, just as we are,” Nereo Cruz, one of the group’s leaders, told IPS.

Cruz explained that the organisation’s name dates back to the 1970s, when it grouped together 400 different indigenous campesino communities.

“It’s hard to protest naked, but we are Indians committed to our cause, and we will keep on doing it until we get attention,” said Cruz, who spent seven years in prison after 1992.

Along with other members of the group, Cruz was accused of theft, squatting and a homicide, which he maintains was a trumped-up charge “to try to silence me.”

The 2,000 families who now make up the Movement of 400 Peoples are among Mexico’s 20 million rural dwellers, of whom 75 percent live in poverty.

Of the country’s total 31 million hectares of farmland, the growing export agriculture industry is concentrated on less than one million hectares. The rest is largely used by indigenous and other campesino (peasant farmer) families to grow their own food.

The majority of campesino families own their own land through the ejido system, a collective or cooperative form of land ownership which also allows for individual agricultural or livestock production.

Through the agrarian reform process initiated in 1917 at the end of the Mexican Revolution, roughly 100 million hectares of land – equivalent to over half of the country’s total land area – were distributed among millions of rural dwellers. Over the years, many of these lands have been absorbed by towns and cities, while others have been sold and put to other uses.

Nevertheless, some 70 million hectares are still ejido or collectively owned lands.

Much of the land distribution under the agrarian reform process was subject to the discretionary powers of the governments of the day, a situation that led to the emergence of a number of large campesino organisations, including the 400 Peoples.

In 1992, after 75 years of land distribution, a legal reform opened the way for the privatisation of collectively owned lands and brought an end to the granting of land under cooperative ownership.

This change in legislation authorised the sale of communal or ejido land. Moreover, from that point forward, in order for the government to distribute rural property, it would have to purchase it first.

The leaders of the Movement of 400 Peoples maintain that in 1989, then president Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) offered the organisation a parcel of land that was never turned over to them.

At the time, the campesinos who made up the movement included both land owners and non-owners, such as the children of former ejido land co-owners. Their goal was to obtain ownership of the land occupied in Veracruz in 1988.

In the end, however, Salinas allowed for a portion of the land to be granted to campesinos loyal to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), while the rest remained in the hands of its original owners, a family of former large landholders.

Most of the campesinos in the Movement of 400 Peoples are Nahua Indians, the largest ethnic group in Mexico. Out of a total population of 7.1 million, close to a million of the inhabitants of Veracruz are impoverished indigenous people.

Many of the indigenous cultures of southern Mexico and Central America have their roots in the Nahua people, including the Aztecs, who achieved significant cultural and economic development and control throughout central Mexico.

In recent years, 70 percent of the members of the Movement of 400 Peoples have received parcels of between two and three hectares per family, where they primarily grow citrus fruits. The remaining one-third continue to fight for land of their own.

In Veracruz, which ranks fourth among the states with the highest degree of marginalisation (out of a total of 31 states), one-third of the labour force works in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sectors.

For the 400 Peoples, exhibiting their naked bodies is the best way to draw attention to their demands. “Land is an essential part of life for campesinos, and that’s why we won’t rest until we get it,” said Cruz.

When the protesters staged their first nude demonstration, it understandably shocked the residents of Mexico City. But as the years have passed, the naked demonstrators have practically become part of the daily scenery in the capital.

Nevertheless, they continue to draw the attention of some of the city’s authorities, federal lawmakers and the Attorney General’s Office.

With regard to the 2,000 hectares of land that the protesters continue to demand, the authorities say that one part is already owned by other campesinos and the former owners, and that no more land can be granted for now.

But the protesters persist in their demand for land rights. At the same time, they are calling for punishment for Dante Delgado, governor of Veracruz between 1988 and 1992 and currently a federal legislator, accusing him of brutally cracking down on the 400 Peoples.

However, a Senate committee formed to study the case concluded in April 2007 that Delgado ordered the eviction of the group’s members in compliance with a court order, which means there are no grounds for the accusation.

Sources consulted in Veracruz claim that the Movement of the 400 Peoples has declined significantly in power and importance in the past decades. While its original membership was estimated at around 13,000 families, by the 1980s it had shrunk to roughly 8,000 families, of whom only 2,000 remain today.

“I only hear about them when I go to the capital. They’re the naked ones, right?” commented Father Alfredo Zepeda, a Catholic priest and member of the church-based Cultural and Educational Promotion Group, which has carried out communications and community support projects with indigenous people in Veracruz for 35 years.

For his part, Dante Martínez, an indigenous town council member in Ixhuatlán de Madero, remarked: “They’ve really dwindled. I think that now, more than a social movement, they’re like an agency that works on exerting pressure to get land and money.”

Ixhuatlán de Madero, located in the mountainous area of Veracruz, borders on the areas of influence of the 400 Peoples, which occupy lowlands along rivers and the Gulf of Mexico coast.

“Our neighbours are indigenous people, but they have lost a lot of their culture, and many of them are merchants and have even used the lands issued for business purposes,” said Martínez.

Cruz, one of the organisation’s leaders, refutes these accusations: “We are poor like all Indians. Otherwise, why would we make the effort to come here to the capital ever year and protest naked?”

The scandal of toxic China-made toys has cast doubt over the health safety of products for children around the world, and in Latin America in particular.

Few things seem more harmless than a child's toy. - Photo Stock

Government authorities fight the health risks of toys with regular but insufficient operations, but the problem is not limited to smuggled items, as became evident when the world's top toy manufacturer Mattel recently recalled tens of thousands of toys in the region.

The regulating capacity of authorities in Latin America is limited.

Determining whether a toy is safe, then, falls to the consumers, who usually are focused on the price tag and not on verifying the quality of their purchases, say observers.

The toys recalled by the U.S.-based Mattel — which reached nearly 20 million items worldwide when the company found they contained paint with high lead content and small, removable pieces — represent just a portion of the Latin American market.

Estimates by business groups and some studies indicate that in Mexico more than half the toys on the market are contraband or illegal copies, while in Brazil these represent 25 percent of the toy market. Other countries in the region report similar statistics.

In mid-August, Peruvian police seized three tons of toys that reportedly issued a strong odor and showed excessively bright coloring. The official report said that most of the shipment was to be distributed to legitimate shops.

In Colombia, the value of seized toy shipments of dubious origin and quality totaled seven million dollars between January and August, while in Mexico an estimated 3.5 million tons of such toys were confiscated in that period.

The non-governmental Institute for the Private Protection of Intellectual Property, in Mexico, calculates that in January alone, when the traditional Catholic holiday of the Three Kings (Reyes Magos) is celebrated, legal toy sales reached 1.8 billion dollars — not even half the estimated total for illegal toys.

“Because the consumer rights culture is new in Latin America and due to the lack of controls, toys are pirated, but even the legal toys — not always free of dangerous materials — pose a serious threat to children,” Alejandro Calvillo, director of the Mexican non-governmental organization El Poder del Consumidor (Consumer Power), said in an interview.

Officials consulted for this report in several Latin American countries recognized that regulations fall short.

In Brazil, where toy inspections are conducted at random, Mauro de Britto, head of the anti-smuggling unit for Customs, said that 20 percent of toys are inspected and that it is one of the highest rates in the world.

But trade experts say that just three percent of the products Brazil imports, toys among them, are rigorously documented or tested for content.

De Britto noted that 100-percent monitoring is impossible, “because there is no way to regulate everything without compromising and paralyzing trade.”

In Colombia, Gilberto Alvarez, director of public health at the Ministry of Social Protection, said that regulating the toy market falls under the jurisdiction of the ministries of trade and industry. But they “deny that responsibility” because they've found that “putting a face on it” doesn't produce good results, he said.

The authorities Alvarez mentioned responded that inaction on the matter is a result of inadequate legislation.

In Mexico there are toy quality standards in place since 1994, and enforcement through random testing by the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks.

Nevertheless, like similar agencies in other Latin American countries, Mexico's does little or nothing when it comes to quality of contraband toys.

Nor is it able to detect problems like those of Mattel, which on Aug. 1 publicly acknowledged that some of its products, made in China, contained lead and would be recalled from the market.

With this case, the question of controls also came to the fore in the industrial sector.

In Colombia, the Ministry of Protection issued a regulation Aug. 15 whose purpose, it said, is “to protect human life, health and safety” and “establishes the health requirements that toys must meet that are manufactured, imported and sold in national territory.”

Under the new regulation, similar to rules existing in other countries for years, toys may not contain certain levels of substances like arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury.

In Argentina the government set new rules this month as well, including tariffs, in an effort to put the brakes on a broad list of imports, including toys from China, whose reputation has plummeted in the wake of the Mattel case.

In the late 1990s, Argentina banned the use of phthalates, substances that soften plastic, in toys for small children. Last year, inspections found several thousand products — nationally made and imported — that violated the ban.

Meanwhile, the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users asked the government to enact immediately a law passed in 2004 that prohibits the importation and manufacture of toys with substances considered toxic.

The authorities in several countries are working with the Mattel affiliates or importers on product recall, monitoring processes and public warnings.

“Children, who are the most vulnerable consumers, are exposed to serious threats due to scant quality controls for toys, but especially because of widespread contraband,” said Mexican Consumer Power's Calvillo.

Authorities say that deforestation in Mexico has been reduced by nearly 100,000 hectares annually since 1990 and could be halted in five years. But environmental activists refute those figures, saying forests continue on the road towards disappearing. Mexico has reversed the destruction of its forests, and in five years could reduce its deforestation rate to zero, say the authorities. But according to activists and civil society groups that is false. Some even say that if the situation isn't changed, the country's area covered by forests and jungles today would disappear in just over a century.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the highest global authority on deforestation, approved the latest studies by the Mexican government on the issue and went so far as to congratulate it for its achievements.

The official figures, presented in December, indicate that deforestation fell from 401,000 hectares a year in the 1990-2000 period to 314,000 hectares a year from 2000 to 2005.

Hosny El-Lakany, the FAO's assistant director for forests, said that “we should congratulate Mexico for its exemplary report for 2005 and especially for having achieved this reduction in deforestation rates in the country.”

However, the official statistics generate suspicions among eco-activists, because in 2001 the Mexican government itself talked about an annual deforestation rate of 1.1 million hectares, then it lowered it to 631,000, and later to 600,000.

“The situation of the forests is critical,” and that is proved by the different studies, evidence and the attitude of the government, for which the forest issue is now “priority number 40 or more,” Sergio Madrid, spokesman for G-Bosques, told Tierramérica. This new coalition of 14 civil society groups and forestry producers was created in September.

For G-Bosques (“bosques” means forests in Spanish), the forests and jungles, which cover some 56 million hectares in Mexico and capture two-thirds of the freshwater that the country consumes, continue on the road to extinction.

The activists argue that the government budget for forestry is just 0.01 percent of the overall budget, and that the support programs target just 13 percent of the jungle and forested areas.

Furthermore, they maintain that although the productive potential of Mexico's forests is more than 30 million cubic meters of lumber, current commercial output doesn't reach eight million cubic meters.

Mexico, which in the past 50 years has lost half its forest cover, maintains its place as the fifth country that most deforests its territory, says the international environmental watchdog group Greenpeace.

Meanwhile, the World Rainforest Movement warns that local jungles will disappear in about a half-century and the forests in little more than a century.

Manuel Reed, director of the government's National Forestry Commission, Conafor, applauded the activists for their concern about the forests, but considers their point of view disturbing.

“We have scientific and comparable data,” obtained under the parameters of the FAO and of other recognized experts, which demonstrate that in the last five years the destruction of the forests was halted and reversed, the official said in a Tierramérica interview.

Mexico is no longer the fifth country in terms of deforestation rates — that figure is from five years ago, said Reed. It is his understanding, he said, “that in the new report that the FAO is now preparing, we will be in a much better position.”

“The doors of Conafor are open. We don't hide anything. If they (the group G-Bosques) don't agree, they should come and we'll talk,” he said.

“It's true that we continue to lose forest, but there is already a very important turning point, and it is going to see a strong decline. We believe that in five years more, we could have a rate of zero deforestation,” Reed said.

G-Bosques spokesman Madrid refutes those statements: “Today we have no reliable data from the government about what is happening with the forests. First they tell us a million hectares, then 300,000 and other figures. This is a joke.”

Greenpeace paints the official figures as “happy tales” and accuses the authorities of pretending “to end deforestation through equations, decrees and speeches, without taking the measures that truly protect our country's forests.”

When the administration of President Vicente Fox got under way in 2000, the forests and water were raised to the category of “national security issues”. Under that banner, the government took up the Forestry Strategic Plan, which sets goals and objectives up to 2025, promotes new legislation, and created institutions like Conafor.

“I believe the government is trying to give a greater push to forest preservation, but unfortunately there is never a budget that reaches,” Rufino Meraz, leader of the Pueblo Nuevo ejido (rural cooperative), in the central state of Durango, told Tierramérica.

In that community of 243,000 hectares there is lumber production over an area of 84,560 hectares. The activity is considered sustainable by the government and is certified as such by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international agency that grants its seal, which ensures that the cultivation and harvesting of trees is environmentally and socially friendly.

“The government support that reaches us here is for the education of the people, to plant the idea that we have the resources and should take advantage of them. We have here almost a century living from the forest, and the forest is still here, which proves that it can be done,” Meraz said.

From 1997 to 2005, the total area of Mexican forests with FSC certification grew from 110,000 to 651,000 hectares.

G-Bosques points out that 80 percent of the forested lands in Mexico are in the hands of communities, but denounces that the government provides little or no help to that sector.

Conafor director Reed responded that the allegation was false: “Most of the budget goes to the communal areas and ejidos.”

About the forestry budget, the official admitted that little is invested in the sector, but stressed that the current expenditures — around 318 million dollars a year (which includes funds from federal and state governments — grew more than 1,000 percent since 2000.

“Of course we are not going to fix the forestry sector overnight, but we can guarantee that now there are very clear policies for Mexico's forests,” which did not exist in the past, he said.

Nevertheless, G-Bosques ends up with a bottom line that is completely different.

“All of the available diagnoses, whether from G-Bosques or from other institutions, show that our country's forestry resources are in grave danger. It is worrisome that while Mexico possesses such an important natural resource the government agencies don't make the problem a priority, and don't take effective action towards a solution,” said the group in a statement.

Mexico's Sierra Gorda Reserve embodies the paradox of the emigration of the poor: nature benefits from a smaller human population, while remittances from family members abroad are the main source of income for those who remain.

Sierra Gorda's hope for income. - Proceso magazine

The local authorities of the reserve, which covers 384,000 hectares in the central-eastern state of Querétaro, recognize this fact. Meeting here are the extremes of desert, semi-tropical and lower mountain ecosystems, which are the habitat of unique species — many of which have yet to be studied.

With emigration, farming, ranching and logging activities have seen a decline. But the landscape has changed also as a result of the money the emigrants send home to their families here: showy new homes made from more expensive materials like concrete, and a growing number of large trucks with U.S. license plates — the most prized object among young people, say local residents.

The latest data on population density — 25 inhabitants per square kilometer — is from 2000 and does not include the flood of emigration of young people in recent years.

Those who have stayed use little firewood, and their main source of energy is propane from small tanks. But there are several garbage dumps in different municipalities that are overflowing. The local authorities assure that by the end of the year there will be several sanitary landfills ready for operation, and that 70 percent of plastic and cardboard will be collected for recycling.

“Those who remain in Sierra Gorda are that critical mass who get by here (with the remittances sent by relatives abroad), reforesting, collecting carbon and protecting watersheds. For others, it is not an option faced with the craze of becoming 'gringos',” says Martha Ruiz, director of the reserve, referring to the nickname given to Mexico's neighbors to the north.

“This going to the United States weighs heavily on my soul because of the loss of identity, but I completely recognize that has allowed us to restore the reserve,” she adds in an interview for this report.

Emigration, particularly of people 26 and younger, is a long-time phenomenon in Sierra Gorda, but several studies indicate that it gathered strength in the 1990s.

The National Institute of Statistics says the state of Querétaro, with a population of 1.6 million, sees some 25,000 people emigrate to the United States each year — mostly from Sierra Gorda.

The residents of the reserve earn an average of 240 dollars a month, while those who emigrate are seeking jobs as farm laborers, which pay between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars a month, or as construction workers, which pays 2,000 or more.

“They leave because there is no work here. I have two brothers living there for the past 11 years. I don't remember them very well, but occasionally they send money,” says 14-year-old Dulce Banderas.

Here in Sierra Gorda, the population makes its livelihood subsistence farming and some commerce.

All of Banderas's friends have a family member or friend in the United States. She lives in Tilaco, one of the 600 villages in Sierra Gorda, 54 percent of which have fewer than 100 inhabitants.

Her schoolmate Omar Márquez believes that for “all those who go there (United States) it's pure work and more work. I wouldn't like that very much.”

“There, one doesn't know anybody. Some who leave come back on vacation, and arrive here with money, but they spend it all on beer,” he says during a break in an environmental education taught by two teachers and financed by the reserve.

Some 16,000 Sierra Gorda secondary-school students attend these classes, in which they learn to care for and appreciate their surroundings. But this doesn't prevent most of them from leaving for the country to the north once they turn 18 or 19, most without U.S. immigration papers and after paying 2,000 to 3,000 dollars to human traffickers to get them across the border.

“We make a maximum effort to transmit to them the value of this place, but the influence of the United States is very strong, and the kids start very young with the idea of earning some dollars and being able to buy a better truck,” says Salvador Ortiz, a teacher who coordinates the environmental courses, known as Eco-Clubs.

The emigration phenomenon is paradoxical in Sierra Gorda. If it were to stop, “we would have brutal pressure on all our forested areas,” warns Ruiz, director of the reserve that has been protected by the Mexican government since 1997 and declared a World Biosphere Reserve in 2001 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

“Our goal is that in 10 years we will be able to pay compensation and incentives to all owners of forest and of important areas of the reserve so that some of their children won't feel the need to leave,” she said.

With support from the government, from private foundations, and from the Global Environment Facility, through the UN Development Program (UNDP), over the last four years the authorities have paid for “environmental services” of owners of 21,500 hectares of the reserve, which is just 5.6 percent of its total area.

Here there are no large landowners. Those who receive payment for environmental services — 18 to 27 dollars a year for each hectare they conserve — are about 215 owners of plots around 100 hectares. Just a couple community-held properties are taking advantage of the program.

It is an area protected by federal and state laws, but 97 percent of its territory is in the hands of individual or community owners. It is with them that all conservation and restoration programs are agreed and developed.

Although attacks by insect and plant pests have taken their toll on the forests in recent years, Sierra Gorda is Mexico's nature reserve with greatest biodiversity.

Six wild cat species find their home here, including pumas (Felis concolor or Puma concolor) and jaguars (Panthera onca). According to scientists, their presence is a sign of good conservation of Sierra Gorda as these felines require vast areas to live and hunt.

The diversity is such that in a relatively small space there are black bears (Ursus americanus), spider monkeys (Ateles hybridus) and military macaws (Ara militaris), as well as 2,308 different plant species.

The reserve holds ecosystems that vary with the altitudes, from 350 to 3,100 meters above sea level, and with diverse climates, and a geography of jutting elevations, canyons, and caverns.

This natural wealth has attracted non-governmental organizations, conservation foundations and UN agencies to support the conservation and recovery of the area and development efforts for the residents.

There are no notable social conflicts here; no problems related to the illegal drug trade or illicit crops that afflict other parts of the country.

While some people of Sierra Gorda emigrate, there are some new arrivals: the transnationals Shell Oil Company, Wal-Mart and Hewlett-Packard, and the Mexican Bimbo food company are providing different types of backing for the reserve. And soon others will join them, says Ruiz.

Less rain and more heat seem to be the cause of the persistent pests afflicting the trees of the unique Sierra Gorda reserve in Mexico.

The green of the Sierra Gorda forests could be lost forever. - El Universal Newspaper

The roundheaded pine beetle (Deondroctonus adjunctus), European mistletoe (Viscum album) and caterpillars have virulently attacked the forests of sierra Gorda, an area of canyons and hills rising 350 to 3,100 meters above sea level in the central-eastern state of Querétaro.

Some of the 50,000 residents of the reserve, extending across 384,000 hectares and a seven-hour drive from Mexico City, believe the pests have arrived out of divine will. Others say simply that “the climate has gone mad.”

According to the authorities and experts, the attack that has been recorded over the past five years is related to changes in the rainfall pattern, linked to climate change.

The phenomenon seriously threatens the zone, protected by the Mexican government, which in 1997 declared it a biosphere reserve, and by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which proclaimed it a World Biosphere Reserve in 2001.

Peasant farmer Esther Martínez, from Epazotes Grandes, one of the 600 communities on the reserve, most with fewer than 500 inhabitants, sees the problem with the wisdom of someone who has always lived in the countryside.

“The forests are weak, and that is why the beetles are stronger. This is because the rains were less and now everything is drier,” says Martínez as she digs a ditch along a community field on a sharp incline to prevent rains from flushing out the soil's nutrients.

Meanwhile, Patricia Balderas, of the town of Tilazo, believes the trees are dying because of “God's intention.”

There are no exact figures available about how many oaks (Quercus), junipers (Juniperus) and pines that cover 35 percent of the forested areas are compromised. But even a visitor can see the swaths of yellow amid the green in the forest from the serpentine roads leading into the reserve.

“There is a vast infestation; it is a growing problem. It's already part of the landscape and we can't control it,” laments Víctor Ildefonso, assistant director of the reserve.

In the past, the plagues emerged during droughts, but disappeared when winter arrived. “Now we have them all year round and everywhere. That's where we see the relationship with climate change,” Ildefonso told Tierramérica.

The meteorological records indicate that droughts and heat have gradually increased, and there is less and less rainfall each year, said Enrique Urribarren, then the Querétaro delegate of Mexico's Environment Ministry, in April.

Climate change is a palpable reality in Querétaro, and over the next 13 years studies suggest that precipitation in Mexico's central zone will be reduced five to 10 percent, Urribarren said in statements to El Universal newspaper.

“These plagues are clearly an effect of climate change. Even the people who live here say so: with less rain the forests have been debilitated,” reserve director Martha Ruiz told Tierramérica. “We don't know what to do,” she admits.

These kinds of problems — when climate change affects flora and fauna — are the central theme of World Biodiversity Day, May 22.

Meanwhile, the only alternatives for Sierra Gorda are to cut down the affected trees, burn them, or apply pesticides. The first option is impractical because of the great number of trees — some 400 per hectare — and the other two were ruled out because of their contaminating consequences.

To seek solutions, the authorities of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve will hold an international meeting of experts at its headquarters in the city of Jalpan de Serra, population 25,000. Representatives of the U.S. Forest Service will be among the main participants.

But for now, the beetle continues to advance. It digs small chambers that reach the sap circulation of the trees, particularly pines. This cuts off the flow of nutrients, leading the tree to dry out and eventually die.

Mistletoe, another enemy, is a parasitic plant that covers the trees, especially oaks and junipers, ultimately killing them.

The caterpillars, however, consume the seeds of the stone pine (Pinus pinea, L.), affecting the tree population. The 5,000 hectares of this species on the reserve are affected.

Not only will the trees be destroyed, there will be direct consequences for the rich fauna of Sierra Gorda, due to the loss of part of its habitat and the loss of the soil's ability to hold water.

On the reserve, where 30 percent of the land is communal property and the rest belongs to private owners, there are 360 species of birds, 130 types of mammals, 71 reptile and 23 amphibian species, and dozens of others yet to be studied. The wealth of the plant and animal life there is such that, for example, there are more butterfly species in Sierra Gorda than in the United States and Canada combined.

This is why it is described as Mexico's most biodiverse reserve. In the Sierra Gorda converge the vegetation of the semi-desert, the cloud forest, temperate forest, and low altitude jungles, over topography with deep canyons.

Until the 1980s, livestock, farming and logging activities went unchecked in the area — a situation that began to change when, in 1989, local residents set up the non-governmental Sierra Gorda Ecological Group.

The group, whose founders included the reserve's current director Ruiz, disseminated programs for environmental education, reforestation, protection and regeneration of vegetation, community improvement and better solid waste management.

Those efforts were crowned with the declaration of the biosphere reserve and the arrival of international support, such as from the Global Environment Facility, which, through the UN Development Program, has provided 6.5 million dollars since 2001.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the Mexican government, non-governmental groups and international agencies, plant and animal life in the Sierra Gorda began to recover.

But the latest attacks by the various kinds of pests could reverse what has been achieved.

Latin America is waging its first wars against uncontrolled advertising and consumption of junk food.

Junk food reigns at snack time. - Photo Stock

But gradually, in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama and Mexico, legislative bills or initiatives of governments, cities and parents' associations are making inroads in making junk food a little harder for children to get their hands on.

In the same school where the children can buy foods rich in fats and sugar, poor in nutrients, also for sale are fruits and vegetables. But almost nobody orders those.

This reporter followed the programming on two Mexican television channels between 2:00pm and 6:00pm and found that, in more than 100 advertisements shown by each station, at least half were for junk food.

In the United States, ads for candy, hamburgers, sugary breakfast cereals and the like, represent 34 percent of all commercials that children and adolescents see on TV, according to a study sponsored by the U.S.-based Kaiser Family Foundation.

The World Health Organization says this type of food contributes to the problem of obesity, which affects more than 20 percent of people over age five in the region.

And, according to WHO, the leading risk factors for non-contagious diseases — responsible for 60 percent of the 56 million deaths worldwide each year — are lack of consumption of fruits and vegetables, excess weight and obesity, lack of physical activity and tobacco use.

The U.S. American Heart Association says that Latin America stands out from other regions for having the highest proportion of heart attack risks as a result of high blood pressure, excess abdominal fat and permanent stress.

Brazil's National Health Monitoring Agency in November launched a public debate on regulations that would ban radio and TV advertising for soft drinks and foods with high content of sugar, saturated fat or salt. The government is expected to issue a decree on such measures in late June.

Regulating advertising “is interesting”, because it affects “innocent consumers” like children, and is an essential measure for containing the problem of childhood obesity, says Mariana del Bosco Rodrigues, a nutritionist with the Brazilian Association for the Study of Obesity.

Some city governments have banned sales of candy near or within schools. Others have improved what is offered at school snack time, such as fruit, vegetables and natural juices, she said in an interview.

Murilo Diversi, a food expert at IDEC, the Brazilian consumer defense institute, said that, luckily for his country, junk food advertising can be regulated by decree.

Between the periods 1974-75 and 2002-03, the proportion of Brazilian males between ages 10 and 19 who were overweight increased from 3.9 percent to 17.9 percent, while for females in the same age group it rose from 7.5 percent to 15.4 percent.

In Mexico, obesity among children ages five to 11 jumped 40 percent between 1999 and 2006. In that same period, the waistlines of women of childbearing age increased an average of 10 cm. Furthermore, 10 percent of Mexican adults are diabetic, and 30 percent of children have hypertension, according to official figures.

“The obesity epidemic is out of control. One of the most important causes is the change in eating habits and the lack of regulation of junk food advertising,” says Alejandro Calvillo, director of the Mexican non-governmental organization El Poder del Consumidor (Power of the Consumer), interviewed for this article.

According to the government's National Institute of Public Health, in the last 14 years the consumption of soft drinks increased 60 percent in Mexico, the world's second leading market for such beverages, after the United States.

Mexico's indigenous families, which tend to be the poorest, spend an average of two dollars per week on soft drinks and less than one dollar on milk, says the state-run Integral Family Development agency.

Despite pressure from ConMéxico, an association of the leading manufacturers of junk food, national lawmakers have been studying since 2006 a bill for restricting junk food ads. There is also a bill for labeling such products with warnings about their lack of nutritional value.

But the bills have run into some legislative roadblocks, and some lawmakers have reported meddling and even threats from manufacturers.

Upholding the discourse of snack food and beverage manufacturers in other countries, Ignacio Lastra, spokesman of the Mexican National Chamber of Industry, declared that a law will not resolve the obesity problem.

Lastra believes that families should instruct their children about adequate nutrition.

In the WHO's “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health”, governments are urged to create new taxes to discourage manufacturing food with little nutritional value and to limit advertising for such food that is aimed at children.

Doctor Mercedes Schnell, of the Venezuelan non-governmental Bengoa Foundation for Food and Nutrition, believes that banning junk food and related advertising is no guarantee of success.

It is best to educate the consumers, she said in an interview.

But, like most experts, she recognizes that “poor nutrition and excess weight and obesity among children is increased by the greater availability of fast food, outside the home, full of saturated fats and sugars and low in dietary fiber.”

Though for now there aren't any laws being considered for junk food sales or advertising, school officials have banned consumption in many schools.

Local governments and family associations in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico decided not to wait for national regulations and have designed their own programs for limiting the availability of junk food in and around schools.

In Chile, senators of the co-governing Party for Democracy are considering a bill to regulate the manufacture of low-nutrition foods and restrict its sale in and near schools.

Since 1997, a ban has been in effect in Panama on the distribution of fried foods and soft drinks in schools. But officials there admit it is difficult to enforce it.

Proper food choice, along with public policies in education, health, sports and advertising, could reverse the trend towards obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, says Bosco Rodrigues.

Buildings in North America produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases, sewage and other waste. In Mexico, ecological construction is just getting started, with 5,000 housing units near completion.

Mexican eco-housing does not include solar energy or wastewater treatment. - National Housing Commission

In North America, 11 to 30 percent of greenhouse-effect gases, which lead to global warming, come from buildings, which use a large part of the available electricity, water and raw materials, including precious lumber — often from illegally logged forests — and plastic composites like polyvinyl chloride or PVC, which are harmful to health.

Just in the United States, producer of nearly one-third of greenhouse gases globally, buildings use around 65 percent of all electricity, 40 percent of raw materials and 12 percent of the water consumed.

In Mexico, responsible for two percent of the world's greenhouse gases, buildings use 20 percent of the nation's electricity, 80 percent of which is generated by burning fossil fuels.

Canada, Mexico and the United States, partnered in the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), seek to curb the sector's contributions to climate change, which most of the scientific community agrees is caused by the accumulation of the Earth's atmosphere of gases that come mostly from the burning of carbon-based fuels.

Experts from the three countries have been studying the matter since the beginning of the year and in September will issue a broad-ranging report that is to include recommendations for government action.

The goal is to limit polluting construction practices and give a boost to sustainable building, which can be integrated better into the environment, consumes less electricity and, ideally, processes its own wastewater and garbage, as well as providing comfort and shelter to its inhabitants.

But it is an uphill fight. “The development of 'green building' is new, and the governments have no core policy in this area,” said David Morillón, an expert with the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and who will be one of the authors of the CEC's report.

Nevertheless, there are already some plans under way, and dozens of architects, engineers and researchers across North and South America who exchange information and expertise through virtual networks, and through regular seminars on “green building”.

In the past six years, Canada and the United States have developed new environmental standards for construction, private companies have set up certification systems for contractors who build sustainable buildings, and there is a “green” mortgage business emerging that takes environmental considerations into loan decisions.

Even so, the percentage of eco-buildings in those countries is no more than 10 percent of the total.

In Mexico, the government is sponsoring a sustainable construction plan for low-income residents. The initiative is being managed by the private sector. The result is some 5,000 housing units, most of which are between 40 and 70 square meters, are near completion.

For a country where housing demand surpasses a million units a year — although in the last six years only 500,000 have been built annually — the project is just a tiny step.

The eco-housing in Mexico aims especially to reduce consumption of electricity and water, but does not include solar energy or systems for treating wastewater, which are ideal for this type of construction.

“This is an experimental step” and is geared towards generating information and verifiable data so that it is the market “that finally imposes the need to head towards sustainable construction,” said Evangelina Hirata, director of the government's housing development commission, CONAFOVI.

But there is no promise that in six years Mexico will build all housing under sustainability standards, “which doesn't occur in any part of the world,” she added.

On Mar. 29 in Spain, the Technical Code for Building entered into force, requiring inclusion of renewable energy sources for supplying hot water and electricity in all buildings that begin construction or renovation as of that date.

According to the new rules, there will be limits on energy consumption based on the building's characteristics, greater efficiency of heat and lighting systems will be promoted, and there will be a required percentage of clean energy sources: direct solar energy and solar panels.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the sustainability seed is just being planted. “I hope that within a year the Mexican financial system begins to offer green mortgages,” after seeing that in the long term any sustainable construction will be cheaper and more beneficial for the user and the community, said Hirata.

According to UNAM expert Morillón, building sustainable housing can cost three to 20 percent more than conventional housing. But he is confident that the market will see prices fall once it becomes more widespread.

However, that could take years, and time is of the essence, he added.

Conventional construction in Mexico lasts 30 to 40 years, but in 10 to 12 years, the country could run out of petroleum, meaning there would be little electricity available for those buildings.

The clock is also ticking for the world's response to climate change. If fossil fuel consumption and environmental degradation continue at today's pace, by the end of the century the planet's average temperatures could increase 1.8 to 6.4 degrees Celsius and sea levels could rise 18 to 59 centimeters, according to the recently released Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Mexico intends to erect as many as 3,000 wind turbines on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by 2030. Peasant farmers have doubts about the project's benefits for the local community, and scientists warn about potential hazards to birds.

- Photo Stock

The government's aim is for wind-generated electricity — which now represents just 0.005 percent of the energy generated in Mexico — to reach six percent by 2030.

Achieving that goal involves setting up more than 3,000 turbines in Mexico's windiest zone, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southern state of Oaxaca, as well as several other wind farms around the country with dozens of turbines.

But erecting the windmills, tall towers with a 27-meter blade span, requires negotiating with landowners, most of whom are farmers. Some have complained that they were taken advantage of when the first wind farm was created in 1994.

Meanwhile, bird experts warn that many species are at risk of being killed by the giant blades, which could cause an environmental chain reaction across the continent, because various are migratory species.

“Everything is bent towards facilitating the wind farms, but there is not much interest in the birds, which in the long term could bring much broader problems,” Raúl Ortiz-Pulido, spokesman for the Mexican office of the BirdLife International, told Tierramérica.

The scientist acknowledged that the bird issue is taken into account in the development of each wind energy project, but “in an incomplete and incorrect way,” he said.

It is not the same to assess the effect of a project where a few turbines will be erected as it is to assess the impact of several projects together where there will be dozens of turbines, like the site planned for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Ortiz-Pulido said.

It will be overall effect that will have an impact on the birds, he said.

But the authorities assure that the plans take the environmental question seriously.

“In any project there are people for and against it, but in the long term the experiences in other countries have shown that wind projects bring many benefits to the communities and there are no significant environmental effects,” says Marco Borja, who heads a project to evaluate wind energy resources in Mexico for the state-run but independent Institute for Electricity Research, with the support of the Global Environment Fund (GEF).

In the last two years the government drew up norms to promote wind energy, and since December it has submitted to public review a new regulation for the use of wind energy from the environmental perspective. This could enter into force in March.

For even greater incentive, they obtained a non-repayable credit from GEF for 25 million dollars, granted through the World Bank. That is in addition to what the Institute for Electricity Research receives, and what the GEF has obtained from the United Nations Development Program — for a total of nearly 30 million dollars.

The aim is to encourage an energy source that is growing worldwide by more than 30 percent a year, reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

In the environmental standards for wind farms now being debated, the officials propose eliminating the environmental impact studies that other projects require. This requirement would be replaced by a “preventive report”, which is of a lower category and reduced scope.

In the introduction of the new norm, which by law must be open for public discussion for 60 days (with the deadline being the end of February), it is recognized that wind turbines can have “impacts on avian fauna”.

It states that the head of the project should make an “inventory of species that utilize the area, detailing their relationships to determine the repercussion of the displacement of some of them, mating seasons, nesting and raising of young.”

But some scientists say it would not be enough for the Isthmus area. Six million birds fly through Tehuantepec each year, including 32 endangered species and nine autochthonous species.

“We're academics, not activists. We don't know how to make our warnings reach the authorities,” said Ortiz-Pulido.

In La Venta, part of the Juchitán municipality in Oaxaca state, is where most of the official plans for wind turbines are concentrated. The impoverished region is home to 150,000 people, most working in farming and livestock.

There, the farmers are also upset with the official plans.

“The landowners were fooled with fixed arrangements, ridiculous payments for rent (for installing the turbines) and impediments to farming. We won't allow any more plans to be carried out,” Alejo Girón, leader of La Venta Solidarity Group, told Tierramérica.

The first wind project, La Venta I, began operating in 1994, and in the past two years continued with La Venta II. Now the government of Felipe Calderón has announced that it will open bidding for La Venta III, and others will follow, like the Oaxaca and La Ventosa projects.

They are projects in which transnational corporations like Spain's Iberdrola and France's Electricité have shown great interest, as have local firms like Cemex cement company, which are considering wind turbines for their own energy needs, and in some cases sell their surplus to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

Finalizing these plans means convincing the landowners, to whom CFE pays for each one of the 100 turbines already installed in La Venta less than 300 dollars a year, which is 10 to 20 times less than what their counterparts in other countries receive, says Girón.

“The wind projects created almost no new jobs and they don't benefit the residents. Here nothing changed. We remain poor despite the fact that the CFE promised that this would change,” Feliciano Santiago, municipal secretary of Juchitán, told Tierramérica.

Experts and activists plan to take two mega-developments in the Mexican state of Jalisco to international courts, for threatening the Chamela-Cuixmala protected area.

The Chamela-Cuixmala reserve is home to species like the wild boar. - Claudio Contreras

After receiving government approval to build in this fragile ecosystem, at the end of 2006, just as President Vicente Fox stepped down and the Felipe Calderón administration began, the developers accelerated work on their projects. Meanwhile, opponents are preparing their legal weapons, which may include lawsuits in international arenas.

“These plans, approved corruptly, can still be stopped,” Alberto Székely, spokesman and lawyer for the non-governmental Council for the Defense of the Pacific Coast, told Tierramérica. The Council has worked to prevent unsustainable development projects near the protected zone for over 10 years.

Székely said that objections to the projects would be lodged within Mexico, as well as with the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, made up of Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The Environmental Impact and Risk Directorate officially authorised the Tambora and Careyes Marina projects, on the edge of the Chamela-Cuixmala biosphere reserve, in the face of opposition from scientists and other experts, including the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (CONANP).

At least five similar projects for the same area were rejected in the 1990s. Among the entrepreneurs heading the projects that have just been approved is Roberto Hernández, a former banker and a close friend of Fox's.

“There are countless irregularities in the way these projects were approved, which cannot be tolerated,” Székely said.

The Chamela-Cuixmala reserve is a tropical dry forest, 131.3 million square metres in area, with abundant flora and fauna, several of them endemic. Close by are other protected areas, including nesting beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs.

According to the approval documents, which are lengthy and contain many technical and legal details, Tambora, the project proposed by the Operadora Chamela group, will occupy 6.8 million square metres of tropical dry forest adjacent to the reserve.

Construction sites will cover two million square metres and will include a golfcourse, a 100-room hotel, residential areas, beach clubs and parking lots. The project implies deforesting 1.7 million square metres of pristine woodland.

The Careyes Marina, proposed by the Imagen y Espectáculos de Lujo group to which entrepreneur Roberto Hernández belongs, will be built on 2.5 million square metres, of which 1.5 million will be preserved as a natural area. The rest will be used for a private marina, lagoons and 1,025 hotel rooms.

The official permits for the projects impose certain conditions, so the developers will have to alter their original proposals, submit detailed plans for environmental management and sign agreements with the authorities, among other things. The companies are already working flat out on these points, Tierramérica discovered.

Alberto Elton, director of CONANP for the Western region, where the reserve is located, confirmed that he had been approached by the developers. “The people in charge of Tambora told us: 'We've got the project and we don't want to make any more fuss. Let's sit down together, and give us your help to see what we can modify to come to an agreement.'”

“Now we have to make the best (cause the least damage to the reserve) of a bad job (the projects' approval),” he said.

CONANP made 29 criticisms of the Tambora environmental management program as originally submitted, including the risk posed by the project to “the continuity of the fragile local ecosystems.”

Elton said the Tambora project would have an inevitable impact on the biosphere reserve, recognised by the United Nations.

He preferred to give no opinion on the Careyes Marina, as CONANP had not been consulted about that project.

The law allows the Environmental Impact and Risk Directorate to request evaluations by other official or private institutions before accepting or rejecting a project, and to receive comments from social groups, but it is not obliged to agree with or accept their advice.

The Tambora project and its environmental management plan were also criticised by government bodies such as the Directorate General for Wildlife and the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity.

Similar criticisms were made by the Institute of Biology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which has a research centre in within the nature reserve.

“We will re-evaluate the permits and give our opinion, but as far as our studies go, we would still advise that the two projects should not be approved,” Tila Pérez, director of the UNAM Institute of Biology, told Tierramérica.

After receiving the criticisms, the developers made some adjustments to their plans during the last few months of 2006, which did not, however, change the essence of their original proposals, according to opponents. The Environmental Impact and Risk Directorate approved the modified projects as they stood, this time without asking for new assessments.

The Council for the Defense of the Pacific Coast gave Tierramérica access to the documentation on which they based their arguments that the authorities should reject the projects. In it, eminent biologists presented dozens of pages of empirical evidence against the companies' plans.

The Environmental Impact and Risk Directorate acknowledges receipt of these documents and say they have studied and considered them. The companies say the same thing. But their opponents can find no significant changes in the projects, and vow to battle on until they are stopped.

Indigenous women are at the forefront of a protest in Mexico demanding water. “We won't give up until they give us water,” says Beatriz Flores, one of the movement's leaders.

Beatriz Flores -

“We prefer jail over continuing without water,” Beatriz Flores, a member of the “General Command of the Mazahua Women's Army in Defense of Water”, told Tierramérica.

The group, despite its name, declares itself to be a peaceful movement. Its protest consists of maintaining an encampment of 50 to 70 people outside “Los Berros” water purification plant in the Mazahua town of Villa Victoria. The plant where the protesters shut off the valves is part of the Cutzamala water system, which supplies the capital and part of the state of Mexico.

Flores, 27, has three young daughters and combines her domestic duties with activism for water rights. Her family gets by thanks to a vegetable garden and the exhausting farm work of her husband.

“We asked them to supply water in our houses, and also an integrated development plan to get out of poverty. That is why we won't leave the plant until they listen to us,” Flores said in a Tierramérica interview.

Feeling the pressure, the government of President Felipe Calderón initiated talks with the indigenous women, but some officials claimed that part of the demands had been met in 2004 when the Mazahuas staged their first protests.

There are just over 100,000 Mazahuas living in the state of Mexico, in 13 mostly rural municipalities, nine of which are considered highly impoverished. The Cutzamala water system, built in the 1980s, passes near their communities, but most do not have access to this essential liquid.

According to the non-governmental Latin American Water Tribunal, based in Costa Rica, Cutzamala led to a decline in the environmental, social, cultural and economic conditions of the Mazahua peoples in Mexico, and prompted numerous problems and increasingly organized peasant protests.

Flores, who has to walk two kilometers for a little water for daily use — a task she shares with her eight-year-old daughter — spoke with Tierramérica by telephone from Villa Victoria.

TIERRAMERICA: The authorities say they already answered many of your demands in 2004, that they fixed the roads in your communities, among other assistance. Is that true? FLORES: In these two years that we have been protesting, they haven't really supported us in anything. They provided some assistance, but the leaders we had kept part of the benefits and resources. Everything was left incomplete, roads half finished and even some waterless toilets they gave us were just left about.

TIERRAMERICA: What do you plan to do now? Do you trust the government? FLORES: Awhile ago we announced that some day we would take over the (Los Berros) plant, and the moment came. We remain at the plant. Until we see the government turn to our side and change our region, we will stay there. Furthermore, if they don't comply, we'll shut the valves again, but this time completely. They tell us by January they'll resolve the problems. We're hoping they aren't misleading us.

TIERRAMERICA: Are you aware that closing the valves at the water plant is a serious federal crime? FLORES: Our protest will continue in spite of all that. If the government doesn't keep its promises we will take over the system again. We've already said it: we prefer jail to going without water. But it must be clear that we are not just asking for water, but rather an integrated plan to get out of poverty.

TIERRAMERICA: Why are women the ones leading the protests? Where are the men? FLORES: We women are here fighting for water because we are the ones who suffer most the lack of water in our houses; we are the ones maintaining the household. The men go out to work, but we are the ones carrying the water. But the men do support us.

TIERRAMERICA: How do you deal with the lack of water? FLORES: The Cutzamala system takes it all, and it's unfair that we don't have water. It's very difficult for us to live this way, because with water we would be able to do many things. But we feel like our hands are tied without it. We have to carry water two kilometers, transporting it with burros and 20-liter containers for cooking and other needs. I go in the morning, and in the afternoon my eight-year-old daughter goes.

TIERRAMERICA: Why do you think the authorities haven't supported you? FLORES: We don't understand why they've abandoned us. They don't support us Indians. They don't want to see our problems. But we are strong and persistent, and the fight will continue until we are able to change the region and have water for everyone.