Pavel Guzmán Macario, spokesman for the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacán, accused the Mexican government of ‘half-heartedly’ implementing public policies without taking indigenous communities into account and leaving them without support to tackle water shortages.
For this year, Pavel Guzmán Macario, has said that the communities, especially the Purépechas, are facing complications with regard to the human right to water, since the public policies implemented by the state government have been ‘isolated’ and do not take indigenous peoples into account.
In an interview with the media, Guzmán Macario noted that the water problem is still central in most indigenous communities, but with greater complications in those located near Lake Patzcuaro, Zirahuén and Cuitzeo, where the state authorities have not made important investments in water infrastructure, such as the construction of water treatment plants, which the communities urgently need.
“The lack of water in all the communities in this region is a problem and we see that this year it has already been announced that there will be problems with water shortages and this situation is combined with the fact that the authorities have not supported the communities in their work for the human right to water.”
The spokesperson for the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacán said that the state government and the heads of the Water and Basins Commission and the National Water Commission (Conagua) ‘have not understood’ that in order to resolve the water situation in these areas, they must consult the communities in order to implement public policies that will help improve the water situation, given the problem of scarcity in the lakes of Pátzcuaro and Zirahuén.
The activist mentioned that, for example, there are communities close to these lakes, such as Tecuena, Jarácuaro or Urandén, that have not been consulted, although they have the right to be, and that only state officials arrive to “impose” projects that violate the right to consultation, because, in his opinion, there is no general strategy to save the lakes, which have suffered for a long time from the neglect of the state and the contrary actions of private companies dedicated to the cultivation of berries and avocados.
One of the problems that should be addressed by the state government is the lack of investment in municipal infrastructure for drinking water treatment plants, as most municipalities do not have them or they are not functioning, as is the case in the aforementioned Salvador Escalante, Erongarícuaro, Quiroga and Pátzcuaro.
“They continue to exclude the communities from these policies, we asked for a working table with all the authorities and they didn’t even give us that, so we don’t see any real attention to the lakes from the government.”
He recalled that the 40 million pesos approved by Congress in December last year for Lake Patzcuaro is an insufficient amount that in reality will not even help to solve the problems that have existed for many years, and that for this reason both deputies and state and municipal officials are implementing ‘half-hearted’ measures that will not fully resolve the serious water situation in Michoacán.
