Mexican Area of Strategic Biodiversity in Danger
9/28/99
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Title: ENVIRNMENT-MEXICO: Area of Strategic Biodiversity in Danger
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 28, 1999
Byline: Pilar Franco
MEXICO CITY, Sep. (IPS) - Los Chimalapas, Mexico's greateast area
of biodiversity, is in danger of destruction and the government is
not doing enough to halt its slide to extinction, critics say.
Environmentalists and concerned intellectuals, who almost daily
denounce the threat to Los Chimalapas, have asked the government
to declare the site a nature reserve in a bid to save the natural
resources it contains and guarantee the well-being of its
inhabitants.
A regional development programme by the Ministry of the
Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnap) notes that the
conservation of Los Chimalapas ''will not be obtained by decree.''
The preservation of this strategic area, which has been the
object of recurrent regional conflicts, will only be possible
though a process that attends to the productive needs of the
populations of San Miguel and Santa Maria, the two municipal
seats, the Ministry says..
Situated in the heart of the strategic isthmus of Tehuantepec,
both localities need to diversify their economic activity in order
to fully take advantage of the area's natural resources - the only
route to well-being and development, says Semarnap.
The Ministry notes that it is hard to imagine the
establishment of protected areas without a comprehensive plan that
seeks to improve social exploitation of these resources.
Los Chimalapas is a region of critical geopolitical importance,
since it is traversed by an oil pipeline that unites the petroleum
and petrochemical region of Coatzacoalcos, in the eastern state of
Veracruz, with the refinery of Salina Cruz, in the southern state
of Oaxaca.
The area, which contains the most important oil-production
complex in Latin America, is inhabited mostly by ethnic Zoque
people, and counts the logging of cedar and mahogany trees among
its principal activities.
High-quality coffee used to be grown there, as well, before
this years slump in prices on the international market.
The so-called "Tehuantepec Isthmus Megaproject", announced at
the start of Ernesto Zedillo's presidency, whose six years term
ends in December 2000, was the spark that ignited a heated debate
over ecological and environmental upheaval in the area.
The project plans to unite the ports of Coatzacoalcos and
Veracruz through the construction of an eight-lane highway and
high-speed railroad.
The government hopes to convert the isthmus of Tehuantepec into
an "interoceanic highway", allowing the most fluid interchange of
goods in the world, university researcher Maria Antonieta Aguayo
told IPS.
The project by Zedillo's government also would be valuable ''to
the interests of the United States, since that country will hand
over the administration of the Panama Canal at the end of 1999''
to Panama, she added.
The United States and Europe have a strategic interest in
arranging for a much faster transport route than the one currently
existing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Aguayo noted.
To build the new highway, however, several rivers would have to
be diverted, which would affect the region's biodiversity and
cause soil erosion, say environmentalists.
The towns of Santa Maria and San Miguel Chimalapa are in the
area of the greatest biodiversity documented in the country,
according to various studies.
The zone contains six species of cicadas, whose origins date
back some 200 million years, several rare species of trees and
nearly 300 species of orchids.
Las Chimalapas is a cause of conflict between the states of
Oaxaca and Chiapas, which dispute ownership of a 180,000-hectare
area.
The complex tapestry of interests in the region requires a
sustainable development programme as the only option suitable for
local inhabitants, warns Semarnap.
The high level of poverty obliges the population to satisfy
basic needs through hunting, clandestine logging, trafficking in
wildlife and even sowing narcotic plants, according to one study.
Meanwhile, activists continue to loudly demand an end to the
destruction of Los Chimalapas and measures to guarantee the well-
being of its residents. (FIN/IPS/pf/dm/en/mk/99) (END/ks)