The 6^th Assembly of Environmental Affects against Environmental Destruction concluded in Oaxaca with participation of many social organizations.

Communities and organizations from different states, such as Oaxaca, Guerrero, Jalisco, Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Morelos, and the State of Mexico, among others, came together at the sixth National Assembly of Environmental Affects (ANAA) to exchange experiences and to create a plan of action in order to detain the construction of mines and road construction, such as the installation of poultry farms and mines for exploitation of minerals and the planting of genetically modified corn.

The assembly took place in Magdalena, Ocotlan, Oaxaca to support the citizens of this municipality and of San Jose del Progreso, as well as the other surrounding communities, in their fight against the mining operation, “La Trinidad,” property of the Mexican-Canadian company, Cuzcatlan.

Bernardo Vasquez Sanchez, spokesperson of the Committee of United Pueblos of the Valley of Ocotlan, said that the communities and social organizations who fight in different environmental fronts “understand the importance of uniting fronts in order to define the first outlines of the relationship of environmental solidarity between the country and the city, as well as between the distinct regions of the country affected by the destruction and the plundering of their water, their rivers, their aquifers, their mountains, their forests, their mineral reserves, their biodiversity, their local knowledge and traditions, their forms of organization, their autonomy, their tranquility, their health, their freedom, up until their existence.”

The Mexican state –underlined--, what should defend the interests of the people, “nothing else has been done to stimulate the completion of the laws and to permit openly or hidden all the ways for facilitating the environmental devastation of the country.”

Exposed in the case of San Jose del Progreso, Magdalena Ocotlan and other surrounding communities, the federal and state governments have been openly promoting to the Mexican-Canadian corporation, Cuzcatlan, for the mining operation, “La Trinidad” and thus to extract minerals and give enormous gains to the owners, leaving “a trail of droughts, soil destruction, air contamination, political persecution, and divisions amongst affected communities.”

Moreover, it was projected that the country is submerged in a “multiple crisis because of the growth in narco trafficking, the criminal economy, violence in the state,  incarcerations and assassinations of social and environmental leaders, the militarization of the area, and the imposition of projects that threaten to destroy environmental heritage.”

In the sixth meeting of the ANAA, representatives of communities and organizations participated who are opposed to the mines, La Parota, Guerrero; El Zapotillo, Jalisco and Paso de la Reina, Oaxaca, similar to the exploitation by the mines, San Javier, San Luis Potosi, and La Trinidad, Oaxaca.

Moreover, delegates from the states of Veracruz, Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, the State of Mexico, and Oaxaca, opposed to road and townhouse construction, to the operation of wind-powered plants, to the installation of poultry and pig farms, and to the use of genetically modified seeds for the affects to the environment and to their land were also present.

Also, members of the National Labor Union of Education Workers (SNTE) and of adherent organizations of the Peoples’ Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) were also present.

During the gathering, there was an open conversation via telephone with the Italian Network for Environmental and Social Justice, which was simultaneously being held in Vicenza, Italy, to analyze and discuss the privatization of public water and to defend the rights of the Mother Earth throughout the world.