The deadly costs for Mexico's Indigenous communities fighting climate change

• Published date: 06 March 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

Mexico's Indigenous communities are on the front lines of ecological preservation. Many still live on their ancestral lands and struggle against development projects that would destroy some of the world's most precious ecosystems that they call home. Their resistance has taken the form of protests, blockades of major highways and the occupation of government buildings.

These communities are showing us how the fight against climate change begins at the local level. They also have valuable lessons to teach us about maintaining plants, fauna and species native to their lands. But Mexico has become the deadliest place in the world for environmental and land activists protecting Indigenous territories, according to the nonprofit Global Witness, which says 54 environmental and land defenders were killed in Mexico in 2021. We need to protect Indigenous people from increasingly violent threats, if we are to also protect our fragile environment.

As journalists, we have seen what communities are facing. We recently traveled to Paso de la Reina, a town where six Indigenous environmental activists have been killed over two years for defending their pristine Rio Verde River. The activists had protested against the construction of a hydroelectric dam and excessive sand and gravel mining on the riverbed, and set up a blockade on the road leading to their town and the Rio Verde.

This isolated Chatino and Mixtec Indigenous territory lies in the southern state of Oaxaca ? a couple of hours drive from the beach resort of Puerto Escondido, popular with foreign tourists. Researchers told us they believe the activists were targeted for their environmental work. Prosecutors aren't following up on the killings. And the Indigenous community has spoken to few reporters, providing no details about the killers, for they fear more reprisals.

Indigenous defenders are increasingly becoming the last line of defense for the environment in Mexico, playing an essential role in the monumental task of preserving the national biodiversity. Indigenous people comprise less than 5 percent of the world's population, but take care of an estimated 80 percent of the Earth's biodiversity, according to the World Wildlife Fund. And Mexico is one of the seven most biodiverse countries on the North and South American continents, along with Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and the United States.

Of these countries, Mexico possesses the largest percentage of land collectively owned by Indigenous and...