ABOUT THE SIERRA: POLITICAL ECOLOGY:
Congressional Testimony

Statement of Samual H. Hitt,
Director of Forest Guardians

Before the
U.S. House of Reppresentatives
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations,
Export Financing and Related Programs

Excerpt:

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Protecting the environment is interrelated with many of the most serious economic and political issues in Mexico. The uprising in Chiapas reminds us all that we cannot afford to ignore the problems of rural Mexico. Hundreds of millions of dollars in military expenses, social and environmental damages in Chiapas could have been avoided with proper investments in social justice, grassroots development and environmental conservation ten to twenty years ago. The rebellion in Chiapas is no isolated incident, but is indicative of systemic problems throughout Mexico. Similar problems of injustice, environmental destruction, and indigenous unrest exist in northwestern Mexico.

The experience of the Sierra Madre Program, which organizes community development and conservation in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, provides insight into the potential of U.S. foreign assistance when international nongovernmental partnerships are empowered to bridge the gap between governmental agencies and communities in recipient nations.

I would encourage the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations to consider the efficiency and effectiveness of grassroots support networks in enhancing environmental, social, and economic stability in many regions of the developing world. Grassroots support projects funded by The Biodiversity Support Program, InterAmerican Foundation, Appropriate Technology International, and USAID are a very productive use of American tax dollars. We encourage funding increases for these innovative programs which lead U.S. efforts towards building a sustainable and equitable future. These programs far outpace the effectiveness of megadevelopment schemes which are often funded by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.

The program has brought hope and technical assistance to remote communities suffering from environmental degradation, hunger, drought, corruption, and violent repression.

The Sierra Madre Program was initiated with private donations and a small grant from the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP). Over the past sixteen months, the program has received $75,000 from BSP and has raised other funds from private sources.

The Sierra Madre Program integrates conservation with the development needs of the indigenous and mixed blood (or mestizo) people of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua, Mexico. Over seventy thousand aboriginal Tarahumara, Tepehuan, Pima, and Warihio and a greater number of mestizos live in conditions of extreme poverty in the Sierra. Years of exploitation and competition for forest resources now threaten the last remaining segments of the most biologically diverse ecosystem in North America.

This program is the first significant international assistance to reach these remote mountains in northwestern Mexico. In just sixteen months of operation, the program has brought hope and technical assistance to remote communities suffering from environmental degradation, hunger, drought, corruption, and violent repression from drug traffickers and local political bosses known as caciques.

The Sierra Madre Program has taken the lead in exposing and denouncing the root causes of social and environmental problems in the Sierra. Murder, slavery, starvation, drug trafficking, land theft and corruption are among the problems uncovered by Mexican conservation partners in the Sierra Madre Program.

Over the past twenty years, the Sierra Madre has grown into the second most prolific drug-producing region in the world. Drug-related violence has destroyed dozens of indigenous communities and displaced hundreds of families. In the most extreme case, forty Tarahumara have been murdered and the remaining Tarahumara families driven out of their traditional ejido (or communal) lands by local caciques working in cooperation with drug traffickers and logging companies from Sinaloa.

In the municipality of Baborigame in far southwestern Chihuahua, three to four murders occur every week and indigenous families are regularly driven from their land. These crimes are almost never prosecuted because the justice system is controlled by drug traffickers. In one community, Coloradas de la Virgen, twenty-three families have lost their fathers to this violence. Numerous women and children have been raped or killed. The surviving family members flee to outlying communities where they face extreme poverty, malnutrition, homelessness and starvation.

The Sierra Madre Program not only brings international support to the Sierra, but facilitates a number of Mexican governmental agencies in an effort to bring justice and social services to this remote region. At the same time, the Sierra Madre Program is protecting some of the last remnants of the most biologically diverse pine forest in the world. Community participation is now being integrated into ecosystem management throughout the Sierra.