Interoceanic Corridor Project information tour

Aim

To fund Miguel Angel's information tour through Europe in 2023 about the Interoceanic Corridor Macroproject and its destructive impacts.

Miguel Angel García Aguirre, founder of the charity Maderas del Pueblo, intends to travel to Europe in February and March 2023 for 4 weeks, to disseminate information about the Interoceanic Corridor Macroproject, planned and initiated by the current Mexican government. He wants to meet interested organisations, collectives and individuals who want to know more about this large-scale infrastructure project and how it impacts on the Chimalapas, one of the most bio-diverse regions on earth, and on the Indigenous peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region in southern Mexico.

What is the Interoceanic Corridor?

The “Programme for the Integral Development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec”, announced as a multimodal dry-canal, an alternative to the Panama Canal, is actually a macroproject that brings together a varied set of highly polluting extractive and agro-industrial megaprojects, which, if fully implemented, would negatively transform the entire socio-environmental and cultural dynamics of a large region of the south and southeast of Mexico.

This macroproject includes:

• A fast freight train with a parallel highway;
• The modernisation of the ports of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz and Salina Cruz, Oaxaca (with deep dredging and expansion of breakwaters);
• The modernisation of the two refineries and petrochemical complexes in said ports;
• Construction and operation –integrated to the Interoceanic Corridor - of the new refinery of Dos Bocas, Tabasco;
• The increase in private oil extraction from new deposits (conventional and by fracking) with the construction of new gas and oil pipelines;
• The increase in concessions for open pit mining;
• The connection of the Interoceanic Train with the megaproject called “Maya Train”, seeking complementary circulation of goods through the Yucatán Peninsula;
• Additionally, the creation of 10 industrial parks (500 to 1,500 ha) for the installation and operation of manufacturing companies, assembly plants for automobiles and machinery, subsidised by the Mexican people through the official declaration of the Isthmus as a "Free Trade Zone”; this would mean a colonisation process with an accelerated change in land use, which is the main cause of ecosystem degradation, even above contamination.

Why oppose the macroproject?

This set of megaprojects could in no way be harmonised with the physical and environmental environment, nor with the culture, worldview and ways of life of the 12 Indigenous peoples, plus afro-descendants and the hundreds of peasant communities, located in the 98 municipalities impacted (46 from Oaxaca, 33 from Veracruz, 14 from Chiapas and 5 from Tabasco), significantly affecting the region with the greatest biological diversity in Mexico and producer of the most important ecosystem services (water production, oxygen emission, climate regulation and biological diversity).

In particular, this package of megaprojects would irreversibly fragment the connection of the Chimalapas bio-region with the rest of the state of Oaxaca, and with the neighbouring states of Chiapas and Veracruz, taking into account that said bio-region is the area with the greatest biological diversity in Mexico and Mesoamerica, where 146 species of mammals, 316 birds and 445 day butterflies have been reported, which together represent 6% of national biodiversity, as well as the very high existing marine biodiversity in the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

The Chimalapas bio-region: threats and conflicts

Located in the heart of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Chimalapas bio-region is a vast territory of 600,000 hectares, ancestral property of the Zoque Chimalapa Indigenous people (descendants of the Olmecs), being the region with the greatest and best preserved biological diversity, and the greatest generator of ecosystem services in Mexico and Mesoamerica (thanks to the defence by their communities).

Said territory has been subjected to an aggressive process of invasion with impunity for more than 70 years, by loggers, ranchers, and drug dealers, from the neighbouring state of Chiapas, who have tried to dispossess the Zoque people of more than 160,000 hectares in the eastern portion of its territory, devastating to date 50,000 hectares of rainforest and cloud forest.

During those 70 years, the successive governments of Chiapas have covered up and encouraged these invasions, under the protection of an artificial and fraudulent "conflict of state limits" (Oaxaca-Chiapas) counting on the complicity of the federal government, and with the indifference and omission of the successive governments of the state of Oaxaca.

In November 2021 -and after 9 years of a trial over this constitutional controversy- the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation issued an unassailable sentence in favour of the Indigenous municipalities of Santa María and San Miguel Chimalapa. However, the current government of Chiapas, again with the support of the current federal government of President López Obrador, refuses to abide by said sentence.

Since 1991, the communities of the Chimalapas, with the support of our National Committee for the Defence and Conservation of the Chimalapas (CNDyCCh), self-decreed a Peasant Ecological Reserve (or Community Reserve) in their territory, a counterproposal to the intended imposition (by state and external actors) of a Federal Biosphere Reserve, which would deprive them of their sovereign right to decide on the use and management of their ancestral territory. The Community Reserve, as such, has not been recognised by the federal government.

Why support Miguel Angel’s campaign tour?

The 12 indigenous nations and afro-descendants, rightful owners of most of the territories in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, have historically raised persistent resistance and built social organisations in defence of their territory, their culture, and their invaluable natural assets.

Today, the indigenous peoples and communities of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec require the support and accompaniment, social commitment and financial resources, to peacefully resist this serious threat -ethnocide and ecocide- and in return, build a comprehensive development alternative, based on the proposals from those threatened communities.

Further information (in Spanish)

Maderas del Pueblo A.C. - Organisation website

CHIMALAPAS: Salvemos la gran selva de México - Video

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Rewards

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE FOLLOWING REWARDS WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE UK ONLY!!!

Delivery before Christmas is possible.

Hummingbird keyrings

Rainbow earrings

Lily rings

Wreath earrings

Dark shimmer earrings

Purple necklace

Turquoise necklace

Turquoise mixed necklace

Hummingbird earrings

Butterfly earrings

Lizard earrings

Dragonfly earrings

Xolo earrings

Heart earrings

This project successfully funded on 17th January 2023