From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: Good News for Mexican Rainforest (RAN #75)
Organization: Save the Humans!
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 05:45:33 GMT
Summary:  highway diverted, Indians respected, please send a thank-you note


                    Good News For Mexican Rainforest

[This is Rainforest Action Network's Action Alert #75 dated August 1992,
minus the nice map.]

           Immediate threat ends, but land title still major issue

On July 7, the Mexican government announced plans to re-route a four-lane toll
highway that would have plunged through the heart of the Chimilapas rainforest
in Mexico's southeastern state of Oaxaca.  Mexico's new environmental minister,
Santiago Onate, issued the statement two months after Mexican President
Salinas de Gortari engaged in a public session discussing the road and other
social problems in the Chimilapas region.

    An official announcement ensuring that the route will be changed is
expected by mid August.

    Though the changed route for the road takes some immediate pressure off
the local rainforest, underlying land titlement issues continue to threaten
Chimilapas, one of North America's last intact rainforests.

    With its bountiful plant and animal life, the 1.5 million acre Chimilapas
rainforest stands apart from most of Mexico's original rainforests because it
has not yet been ravaged by development and colonization.  Before European
colonization, 55 million acres covered nearly 11% of Mexico.  But now, less
than 5 million acres of Mexican rainforest remain, and the rate of destruction
is estimated at 250,000 acres per year.

    Chimilapas, however, remains relatively well conserved because the local
Zoque Indians have adamantly defended their territory and resources throughout
the last 500 hundred [sic] years.  So in spite of staggering nationwide
levels of deforestation, nearly 2.5 million acres -- almost one half of all of
Mexico's rainforests -- remain in Chimilapas and its neighboring regions.
These expansive forests harbor vast stores of natural and genetic resources
and are largely accountable for Mexico's ranking as the fourth most biodiverse
country in the world.

    Ironically, one of the Zoque's main tools for defending the rainforest
comes from a land purchase which allowed the Zoque to purchase their own land
for 25,000 gold pesos in 1687.  This agreement provided an effective basis for
later land claims by the Zoque, and in 1850 the Mexican government recognized
these Spanish land titles.  In 1967, a presidential decree re-confirmed the
Zoque's rights to 600,000 hectares of land.

    Unfortunately, lax enforcement of land rights and poor demarcation has
allowed more and more encroachment upon Indian land and the rainforest,
particularly since 1967.  After the 1967 demarcation, the government refused
to effectively execute the decree and has not surveyed [n]or marked the
Zoque's territorial boundaries.  Government inaction has encouraged cattlemen,
loggers, speculators, and drug merchants to move into Chimilapas and devastate
the region's resources.

    In the last two years, the Zoques have formed a strong coalition with
other Indian groups in the region, and have effectively demarcated most of the
Indian lands.  This is an important first step towards expelling illegal
ranchers and lumber companies, but international pressure is essential to
encourage the Mexican government to enforce the Presidential Resolution of
1967.

[And now, the words that make this forum different from talk.politics.*]

                              WHAT YOU CAN DO

1.  Thank the Mexican government for their wise decision to move the path of
    the planned road.  Ask that the Federal government enforce the
    Presidential Resolution of 1967, so that the indigenous people of
    Chimilapas can effectively protect their land and the forest.  Explain
    that this protection is essential to Indian efforts to develop a
    sustainable economy which provides for them and protects the forest.
    Address your correspondence to:
      Lic. Luis Donaldo Colosio
      Secretario de Desarollo Social
      Ave. Constituyentes
      Mexico, DF, MEXICO

2.  Contact the "Friends of Chimilapas" c/o Rainforest Action Network.
    Spanish speakers can contact Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste at:
      Cerro del Sombrero 139-5, Col. Campestre
      Churrubusco, DF, MEXICO
      Tel/Fax:  011-52-5-548-6599

Postage for 1 ounce First Class mail to Mexico is 45 cents.

Rainforest Action Network, 450 Sansome Suite 700, San Francisco Ca. 94111
(415) 398-4404

Transcribed by Cameron Spitzer in San Jose Ca.

Xref: sparky alt.save.the.earth:1124 ca.environment:856