In Oaxaca, indigenous peoples interrupt the land enclosures of renewable resources.
NACLA, Gabriela Valdivia & Scott A. Sellwood
On a sunny afternoon in July 2013 we sat in a blockade in Alvaro Obregon, in the municipality of Juchitán, Oaxaca, along the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to listen to fishers and farmers reflect on life at the Isthmus. Since 2012, these Istmeños have blocked the only access road to the Barra de Santa Teresa—a thin strip of sand and mangroves that separates the Mar Superior from the Mar Inferior on the Pacific coast of the Isthmus—to stop the construction of what would be Latin America’s largest wind-farm: the San Dionisio project. The now shelved project would have required 102 turbines and transmission infrastructures, and would have been the eighteenth wind-farm constructed across the southern Isthmus since 2006.
Developed through a contract between Marena Renovables (a consortium made up of Australian merchant bank Macquarie’s Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. and PGGM, a Dutch pension fund service provider), this project illustrates a growing global trend in “green” financial investments for private providers and consumers of electricity. In the case of the Isthmus, a series of factors are at play…
Read the complete article on NACLA
For more information see: Civil Mission reports violation of right to consultation for wind-energy project, PBI Express Concern Over Risk Faced by HRDs in Guerrero and Oaxaca, Researcher Raises Alert About Environmental Dangers of Wind Farms, Oaxaca’s Wind Parks May Violate OECD Rules, “Any consultation to be realized now is illegal”, Oaxaca’s wind farm surge produces clean power – and protests and URGENT ACTION: Indigenous Community Harassed for Activism
