Conference within the scope of the grant "15 Days at CES",  integrated in the activities of NECES.

Abstract

Mexico is now facing an unprecedented socio-environmental deterioration, in which water depletion plays a central role. The deterioration of the water cycle - caused by its over-exploitation, poor management and pollution - not only seriously affects the structure and function of the ecosystems in many regions but is also cause and effect of significant economical, political and social conflicts throughout the country. For decades, different groups of Mexican professionals, scholars and civil organizations have denounced the existence of serious deficiencies and shortcomings between what water management is and what it should be in Mexico. These deficiencies and shortcomings are acknowledged by the Mexican government itself as part of the discourse on scarcity, explaining them based on three factors: historical heritage, transition from backwardness to development and the lack of coordination between the different levels of government due to certain legal inconsistencies. However, the problems, recurrences and conflicts are so serious and deep that these factors, although significant, do not explain the situation satisfactorily.

Recently, the National Assembly of Environmentally Affected People, a counter-hegemonic civil organization which gathers and coordinates more than 130 peoples and communities across the country, has submitted to the Latin American Water Court a lawsuit against the Mexican government. In this lawsuit, the Assembly argues that, since the debt crisis of 1982, this government has continuously implemented a strategy of adaptation, retreat, fragmentation, and legal and institutional reforms designed to guide public policies towards the progressive privatization of public services associated with water as part of international commitments. In this conference, I will present and discuss some of the main components of this lawsuit, including the potential distortion of individual and collective rights consecrated in the Mexican laws, the systematic and strategic induction of State flaws by the Mexican government itself and the imposition and concealment of a State violence regarding the compliance with fundamental rights, the fair law enforcement and the satisfaction of basic needs.
As member of the Mexican university community, I must also discuss the role played by the public university in the water debate in Mexico.

Short biography

Raúl García Barrios is a full researcher at the Regional Centre for Multidisciplinary Research CCRIM) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He possess professional training on biology and economy and obtained his PhD in agricultural and natural resources economy at the University of California in Berkeley. He has thirty-five years of experience working with impoverished rural and urban communities, over fifty published works and has lectured more than forty academic courses on different subjects from the fields of economic/institutional theory, ecological/evolutionary theory and ecosystem management.

In the last ten years, he has focused his research work on local and community activities of ecological restoration in the hydrological region of Cuernavaca, Morelos. In this period, he was regional coordinator for the university macro-project: "Ecosystem Management and Human Development: Apatlaco and Tembembe basins", and is, for six years now, director of the Ecological Restoration Station "Barrancas de Río Tembembe" of UNAM.

He is member of the National Academy of Bioethics and of the Union of Scientists Committed to Society, both Mexican. Currently, his research focuses on environmental justice and protection, and popular consultancy for the defence of nature. In his own words, Raúl García Barrios is "a compulsive explorer in green trousers". He is also international consultant for the project "SCRAM - Crises, risk management and new socio-ecological arrangements for forests: a perspective from science and technology studies".

After the conference, the researchers Paula Meneses (CES), João Rodrigues (CES), Helena Freitas (Centre for Funcional Ecology and Departament of Botany of UC) and Rita Serra (CES) will make a 10-minute comment and, after that, the discussion will be opened to the present audience.