Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T08:44:26.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Environmental Networking in Mexico: The Comité Nacional Para la Defensa de los Chimalapas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Elizabeth Umlas
Elizabeth Umlas*
Affiliation:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Geneva, Switzerland
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In fact, for the chimas, the defense of their patrimony is a fundamental part of their history.... What is new is the growing interest of different branches of government and of national and international groups, which have realized the importance of the Chimalapas. Voces en la selva

Although often individually weak and marginalized in Mexico, environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and indigenous communities coalesced in the early 1990s around the issue of preserving the Chimalapas rain forest in southeastern Mexico. They then brought the problem to national and international attention and eventually helped force the redrawing of a proposed highway route. This research note will analyze the formation and activities of the Comité Nacional para la Defensa de los Chimalapas (CNDCHIM), a network of environmental NGOs, artists and intellectuals, activists and researchers, and representatives of forty-five indigenous communities in the Chimalapas. CNDCHIM formed in 1991 in response to a proposed highway that was to run through La Reserva El Ocote in the Chimalapas, one of Mexico's last two rain forests. The Chimalapas issue is extremely complex, entailing social justice, land tenure, megaprojects, federal and state politics, and environmental policy. This study will focus mostly on CNDCHIM and its relationship with the Mexican government, placing the organization within the context of agrarian conflict and the political and ecological issues surrounding the potential destruction of the Chimalapas.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , 1998 , pp. 161 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The research for this research note was conducted in Mexico in 1993–1994 with a dissertation grant from the Yale University Center for International and Area Studies, and also during the summer of 1995. I would like to thank Margaret Keck of The Johns Hopkins University for her comments on previous drafts; four anonymous LARR reviewers for their extremely helpful evaluations; and numerous interviewees in Mexico, including members of various environmental organizations and CNDCHIM as well as government officials. An earlier version was presented to the Latin American Studies Association in Washington, D.C., 28–30 September 1995 and appeared as a chapter in my dissertation.

References

Alvarez, Sonia E., AND Escobar, Arturo 1992 “Conclusion : Theoretical and Political Horizons of Change in Contemporary Latin American Social Movements.” In ESCOBAR AND ALVAREZ, EDS., 1992, pp. 317–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amo, Silvia Del, Ezcurra, Exequiel, Pompa, Arturo Gomez, AND Wilkerson, S. Jeffrey K. 1992 Compromisos con el trópico mexicano. Mexico City: Group for the Conservation of the Tropics in Mexico.Google Scholar
Anaya, Ana Luisa, AND Alvarez, Marcela 1994 Plan de desarrollo y conservación de una Reserva Campesina en los Chimalapas. Mexico City: SEDESOL/INE and Programa de Acción Forestal Tropical.Google Scholar
Avila, Alejandro De, AND Garcia, Miguel Angel 1997 “Agua y escudo: La alianza de comuneros y ecologistas y la Reserva Campesina en Chimalapa.” In Semillas para el cambio en el campo: Medio ambiente, mercados y organización campesina, edited by Luisa Paré, David B. Bray, John Burstein, and Sergio Martínez Vázquez, 71–102. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Blauert, Jutta, AND Guidi, Marta 1995 “Strategies for Autochthonous Development: Two Initiatives in Rural Oaxaca, Mexico.” In Grassroots Environmental Action: People's Participation in Sustainable Development, edited by Ghai, Dharam and Vivian, Jessica M., 188–220. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bray, David 1995 “Peasant Organizations and ‘The Permanent Reconstruction of Nature’: Grassroots Sustainable Development in Rural Mexico.” Journal of Environment and Development 4, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 185–204.Google Scholar
Calderon, Fernando, Piscitelli, Alejandro, AND Reyna, Jose Luis 1992 “Social Movements: Actors, Theories, Expectations.” In ESCOBAR AND ALVAREZ, EDS., 1992, 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, Douglas, ET AL. 1995 Mexican NGO Networks and Popular Participation. Columbia University Papers on Latin America no. 39. New York: Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies, Columbia University.Google Scholar
CNDCHIM (COMITE NACIONAL PARA LA DEFENSA DE LOS CHIMALAPAS) 1992 Hacia una Reserva Ecológica Campesina en los Chimalapas. Mexico City and Oaxaca: Matías Romero.Google Scholar
Ecologia, Politica, Cultura, 1987 “Chimalapas: Para que permanezca.” Ecología, Política, Cultura 3 (Fall 1987):53–55.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo, AND Alvarez, Sonia E., EDS. 1992 The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
ESPACIOS CULTURALES DE INNOVACION TECNOLOGICA ET AL. 1993 La lucha por Chimalapas, 1987–1992: Una experiencia de concertación. Mexico City: Espacios Culturales de Innovación Tecnológica, S.C., Instituto de la Naturaleza y la Sociedad de Oaxaca, S.C., and Opción, S.C.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan 1992 The Politics of Food in Mexico. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan, AND Hernandez, Luis 1992 “Mexico's Difficult Democracy: Grassroots Movements, NGOs, and Local Government.” Alternatives 17:165–208.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan, ED. 1990 The Challenge of Rural Democratization. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Garcia, Maria Pilar 1992 “The Venezuelan Ecology Movement: Symbolic Effectiveness, Social Practices, and Political Strategies.” In ESCOBAR AND ALVAREZ, EDS., 1992, 150–70.Google Scholar
Garcia, Miguel Angel 1989 “The Chimalapas: In Defense of a Strategic Region.” The Other Side of Mexico, no. 12(Sept.–Oct.):6–8.Google Scholar
Knoke, David 1990 Political Networks: The Structural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Aldon, AND Mueller, Carol Mcclurg, EDS. 1992 Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
PACTO DE GRUPOS ECOLOGISTAS 1989 Tendencias, dinámica y magnitud de la destrucción de la selva tropical de Chimalapas, Oaxaca. Mexico City: n.p.Google Scholar
PACTO DE GRUPOS ECOLOGISTAS and GRUPO DE LOS CIEN 1988 “Chimalapas, Oaxaca.” Ecología, política, cultura 2, no. 4 (Winter):86–87.Google Scholar
Quadri, Gabriel 1993 “Consideraciones sobre medio ambiente y actores sociales en México.” Contribuciones (Buenos Aires) no. 1/93 (Jan.–Mar.):61–75.Google Scholar
Robles Gil, Luis Miguel 1992a “Avances en la conservación de los Chimalapas.” Especies en Peligro 1, no. 5 (Mar.–May):1, 3.Google Scholar
Robles Gil, Luis Miguel 1992b “Los Chimalapas y la iniciativa de ley forestal.” Especies en Peligro 1, no. 6 (June–Aug. 1992):1, 6.Google Scholar
Robles Gil, Luis Miguel 1992c “Una victoria para los Chimalapas, Oaxaca.” Especies en Peligro 1, no. 7 (Nov–Dec.):2.Google Scholar
Robles Gil, Luis Miguel 1993 “Reserva ecológica campesina en los Chimalapas.” Especies en Peligro (Mar.–Apr. 1993):13–14.Google Scholar
Robles Gil, Luis Miguel, AND Moctezuma, Oscar 1992 “Urge salvar los Chimalapas.” Especies en Peligro year 2, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jan. 1992):4–7.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney 1989 Struggle, Politics, and Reform. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Toledo, Victor Manuel 1992 “Utopía y naturaleza: El nuevo movimiento ecológico de los campesinos e indígenas de América Latina.” Nueva Sociedad, no. 122 (Nov.–Dec.):72–85.Google Scholar
Umlas, Elizabeth 1996 “Environmental Non-Governmental Networks: The Mexican Case in Theory and Practice.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University.Google Scholar