The new Mexican government under Claudia Sheinbaum receives a lot of media attention and makes a lot of promises, including on water and environment. «Access to water will be a priority for our government,» Sheinbaum said during her election campaigning, promising to «revise» and «regulate» the water permits that have been granted to corporations.
In her «Mensaje de saludo y bienvenida», the new Minister for Environment Alicia Bárcena Ibarra also addressed the issue of water:
«We set out 10 principles. (…)
6. Sanitation, restoration of rivers, watersheds and forests to ensure access to clean water
(…) so that we have a guarantee of access to clean water. But we have a problem, more than 70% of our rivers are polluted. We have to make such a big effort that I think practically the whole of Mexico should be dedicated to cleaning and restoring the rivers.»
But farmers don’t trust these promises. Not expecting help from Claudia Sheinbaum, farmers are resisting, Tamara Pearson reports for the website Truthout:
«Despite her qualifications, many movements and analysts see her and her party Morena’s potential impact on the environment as palliative at most. Limited by corruption in her party, organized crime and a track record of prioritizing corporations over people and planet, Sheinbaum is unlikely to challenge the international and local economic forces holding the environment hostage.»
Anselma Margarito, an Otomí Indigenous activist leader, told Truthout:
«In all these years, we’ve seen that the government doesn’t care about our land or Indigenous communities, and the only thing they care about is money and mega construction projects.»
Read the story of Tamara Pearson on TruthOut
Photo: Anselma Margarito, an Otomí Indigenous activist leader, speaks at the Fifth National Assembly for Water and for Life in Mexico City, Mexico, in August. By Tamara Pearson, TruthOut
