The Tarahumara Aren’t Running:
Standing Firm at Copper Canyon
Randall Gingrich and Tom Barry
Coming to Santa Fe
from Sierra Tarahumara
When: Tuesday, June 18
Time: 4 PM
202
Galisteo Street
Santa
Fe, New Mexico
The Tarahumara of the Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon)
aren’t running. Many know of the Tarahumara or Rarármuri (“those who walk/run well”) from reading Born to Run and other accounts of their long-distance running
feats.
Now, instead of running, the Tarahumara are taking a firm
stance against a government-sponsored megatourism project. With the assistance
of the Defensa Tarahumara network and Tierra Nativa in Chihuahua City,
Tarahumara communities are resisting a culturally and environmentally
destructive plan to bring luxury hotels, a golf course, and “adventure tourism”
ventures to their homeland in the Sierra Tarahumara.
In February a couple hundred Tarahumara marched to the
Palacio del Gobierno in downtown Chihuahua to demand that the state government
end its tourism project, which is stealing their land, contaminating their
water, and threatening their livelihoods. They joined a protest organized by
mestizo farmers and ranchers who were demanding that the killers of
assassinated water-rights activists be brought to justice. The newly mobilized Tarahumara
brought their complaints
to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington in March,
which insisted that the Mexican government respond to the Tarahumara complaints.
Randall Gingrich,
founder and director of Tierra
Nativa, will present a video about the threats to the culture and
environment of the Sierra Tarahumara --
and the current unprecedented resistance. Over the past two decades, Tierra
Nativa has supported Tarahumara opposition to illegal logging and mining
operations. The latest threat is “Adventure Tourism” including cable rides,
golf courses, and luxury hotel complexes – without adequate water supplies and
with resulting sewage contaminating the Barranca del Cobre. Gingrich has been key
to the success of several Tarahumara communities in mounting legal actions to
stop the megatourism project – both in
international forums and in state and federal courts.
Tom Barry directs
the TransBorder
Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington. A longtime
New Mexico resident, Barry is researching a book on climate
change and the water crisis in the greater transborder region. In close
collaboration with Defensa
Tarahumara, Barry is writing a chapter on climate change induced water
crisis in the Sierra Tarahumara and an investigative essay on the megatourism
project. Barry is the author of numerous books on Mexico, Central America, and
U.S. foreign policy, including the Challenges
of Cross-Border Environmentalism and Border
Wars.
If you are interested
in supporting the work of Tierra Nativa and the TransBorder Project, learning
more about these issues, or arranging media interviews, contact:
Randall Gingrich
Tom Barry
575-313-4544
No comments:
Post a Comment