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March 7, 2006

WALKING THE LINE

What Mexican activists can teach the U.S. about poverty and the planet

[Rachel's introduction: People are an important part of an ecosystem.
If they are poor and unhealthy, then the ecosystem is poor and
unhealthy. Many Mexican activists know this too well, but the closest
thing the mainstream environmental movement in the United States has
to this integrated people-and-poverty approach is the often-neglected
environmental justice movement.]

By Oliver Bernstein

As the border organizer for Sierra Club's Environmental Justice
program, I bounce back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border
supporting grassroots environmental activists. More than the food,
language, or currency, the biggest difference from one side to the
other is what issues are considered "environmental." Perhaps nowhere
else on earth is there such a long border between such a rich country
and such a struggling one, and this disparity seems to carry over to
which issues take priority.

For example, Laguna La Escondida in Reynosa, Mexico, a water source
for the surrounding community whose name means Hidden Lagoon, is also
an important migratory bird stopover point. Reynosa citizens concerned
about their environment are working to clean up the lagoon to protect
their families' health from the waste dumped into its waters.
Neighboring Texas citizens concerned about their environment are
working to clean up the lagoon to prevent habitat destruction for
hundreds of migratory birds. This binational effort is a terrific
start, but it avoids confronting the issue of poverty. For all their
goodwill and concern, the Texans' narrow focus on bird habitat
prevents many of them from seeing the bigger problem -- human habitat.

Since the enactment of NAFTA in 1994, rapid industrialization along
the border has led to some of the fastest population growth in either
country. Almost 12 million people now live in Mexico and the United
States along the nearly 2,000-mile border, and by 2020 that number
could reach 20 million. This is not "smart growth," but instead a
ferocious growth to support the movement of consumer goods.

NAFTA was supposed to bring economic prosperity to Mexico, but the
poverty and human suffering along the border tell a different story.
Mexico's more than 3,000 border maquiladoras -- the mostly foreign-
owned manufacturing and assembly plants -- send about 90 percent of
their products to the United States. The Spanish word "maquilar" means
"to assemble," but it is also slang for "to do someone else's work for
them." This is what's really going on; the maquiladora sector produced
more than $100 billion in goods last year, but the typical maquiladora
worker earns between $1 and $3 per hour, including benefits and
bonuses. Special tariff-free zones along the border mean that many
maquiladoras pay low taxes, limiting the funds that could improve
quality of life.

Those who don't work in the maquiladoras live in their shadows. The
industrial growth has drawn more people and development to the region,
putting additional pressure on communities and the environment. Towns
that until recently were small agricultural settlements now produce
toxic chemicals for a worldwide market. Informal, donkey-drawn garbage
carts cannot keep up with the waste stream from booming border cities.
The natural environment suffers, indeed, but the most immediate
suffering is human.

I recently visited a community near Matamoros, at the eastern end of
the border, where the streets and canals were filled with trash.
Rather than a classic litter campaign, the local activists explained
that their biggest concern was the roads. If the local authorities
don't pave the road, they told me, the garbage trucks cannot get in
and pick up the waste. Even burning the waste would be preferable to
having to live with it in their homes, they say. The activists lament
the polluted canals and the litter, but their focus is on the people.
Without regular pickups, families live with trash piling up in their
houses, and their children get sick.

South of Tijuana, on the western end of the border, a small
environmental group advocates for more drains and sewers. Heavy
seasonal rains flood the valleys and bring sewage and trash tumbling
down to the beaches. While a goal of the local campaign may be to have
cleaner beaches and unpolluted water, the way to reach that goal is by
talking about quality-of-life issues like proper drainage from homes,
regular trash pickup in outlying areas, and safe drinking water --
something that 12 percent of border residents do not have. In the
United States, these issues are all too often considered a given,
lumped into the category of "basic services." But even in the U.S.
there are people who suffer as we ignore their poverty, having decided
that it is not an environmental issue.

People are an important part of an ecosystem. If they are poor and
unhealthy, then the ecosystem is poor and unhealthy. Many Mexican
activists know this too well, but the closest thing the mainstream
environmental movement in the United States has to this integrated
people-and-poverty approach is the often neglected environmental-
justice movement. The EJ movement works for justice for people of
color and low-income communities that have been targeted by polluters.
The EJ movement is our salvation -- but we must stop viewing it as
extracurricular to the business of conservation.

It's time to support the right to a clean and healthful environment
for all people. This means that residents in the border region should
not suffer disproportionately from environmental health problems
because of the color of their skin, the level of their income, or the
side of the international line on which they live. It also means that
environmental activists should not look past human poverty to save an
endearing species, but must look instead at the big picture.

The cries of intense poverty and injustice across the world are
getting louder. It is time for the environmental movement to listen,
and to act.

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Oliver Bernstein is a Sierra Club environmental-justice organizer
along the U.S.-Mexico Border.