Mexico is one of the countries with the highest number of murders against environmental activists in Latin America.
Francisca Stuardo, a member of the Global Witness organization, said that of the 227 environmental defenders who were murdered around the world, 83 were indigenous and of the latter, 70 cases were concentrated in Latin American countries, including Mexico.
“(The killings of environmentalists) are mainly concentrated in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and Brazil, and to that are added 12 Afro-descendants who do not fall within the category of indigenous peoples, but they give an account of which groups are currently in a profound situation of vulnerability, of risk ”, she stated.
Therefore, he explained that “Latin America is the most dangerous region for the defense of the earth and the environment.”
“It is a region that exports raw materials, that already puts it in contact with a type of industry that has an impact on the land and territories. We do not necessarily have strong follow-up and diligence policies, the major regulatory framework we reach is voluntary preventive actions, but not necessarily to the bottom of demanding companies, and there is also a discourse of “how the investment is going to go foreign, we cannot lose it, our economy, our development ”, which we also have to take charge and change because there is a development model that is costing the lives of land and environmental defenders,” Stuardo explained.
“Latin America also, on the other hand, has a strong, organized civil society that has resisted for decades; in the case of indigenous peoples, centuries, to this type of practice. We have a tradition of defense that is very important and that is recognized by other regions ”,
Source: El Financiero.com.mx
