The Guarijio of Sonora and the menace of the dam project "Presa Pilares"
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Transcript of The Guarijio of Sonora and the menace of the dam project "Presa Pilares"
Ramón Martínez Coria, Foro para el Desarrollo Sustentable, A.C.
18 de abril, 2013
Center for Latin American Studies
University of Pittsburgh
Sponsored by GSPIA’s Dean Office; CLAS; International Development
Studies Association; Ford Institute for Human Security and GSPIA’s
Politics of Development Colloquium.
About the makurawe or
guarijío, who own a particular
history, linked to their life in
the mountains. It explains their
ancestral isolation of their
survival. Until now they live in
the sierra madre of Sonora and
Chihuahua.
The cultural integrity of the Guarijío indigenous people is threatened by the proposed
LOS PILARES / BICENTENARIO dam project on the upper River Mayo in southeast
Sonora state, northwest Mexico.
During the 1980's the federal government authorized two new ejidos for landless
Guarijíos: Guarijíos-Burapaco and Guarijíos – Los Conejos. This period is today
referred to as the New Slate (la cuenta nueva) involving a process of ethnic, cultural and
social revitalization, along with a reordering of property boundaries and their regional
space. Today their land is menaced by the project of a dam.
The current dam project design includes three technical options affecting the scale of
impacts, as per the height of the dam curtain and the size of necessary containment
levees or dikes. These impacts include physical displacement of homes and
communities within the ample reservoir catchment basin behind the dam. Many yori
landowners in this region have already negotiated the sale of their properties to
government or project agents.
The project's prime justification states the dam and reservoir are necessary for
downstream flood control (“civil protection”). Periodically, within 7-9 year cycles, heavy
rains fill the silting Mocúzarit dam and the resulting overflow floods the lower Mayo valley,
including rural and urban parcels within the Irrigation District 038; notably, in Navojoa,
Huatabampo, Etchojoa and Bacobampo.
The Bicentenario / Los Pilares dam project is part
of an ambitious Sonora state government plan,
Sonora Sí, focusing on 22 water supply projects in
this arid state.
Diseños de VIVIENDAS para guarijios desplazados
Guarijío communities and others in the upper River Mayo watershed -- with its unique
biodiversity and cultural patrimony -- face risks in the planned LOS PILARES dam
project, as the loss of biodiversity of the river, and intense changes in their territory.
These impacts will affect Guarijío routine culture, subsistence practices and wherewithal,
given probable habitat changes and loss of key resources, access to cemeteries and
sacred sites.
Guarijío routine culture is based on a long-evolved and very sustainable use of the
natural resources occurring in their territory. Their livelihood includes farming maize,
beans, squash and other vegetables, in addition to raising cattle and goats. Houses
and implements are made with traditional sources and techniques. The habitat provides
valuable food and medicinal resources as well.
Guarijío leaders and families do not want to be displaced from their traditional territory
and way of life. At the same time, they sense amorphous risks affecting their families
and integrity as a native group, given the planned reservoir's flooding
Traditional megaproject
displacement has not
included the affected and
afflicted in sharing project
benefits. Independent
agencies are not invited to
monitor the forced
displacement process.
Evidence from several
projects throughout the
world confirms they induce
more poverty and human
rights violations for the
displaced or “resettled”.
As a result of this process, in February 2012 a solidarity committee (Red Kabueruma) rekindled contacts with the
Guarijío communities. Red Kabueruma has members from several institutions: Foro Para el Desarrollo
Sustentable, A.C., El Colegio de Sonora, UNAM, UAM-I, among others.
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