Mexico: Despite the closure of pig farms in May, Yucatán indigenous call for more protective measures and ask for participation in the inspection of the companies
“Indigenous community calls for protective measures as pork industry grows”, 07 July 2021
...The state has recently become an epicenter for growth for the pork industry, and intensive pig farms have begun to appear amid the jungle landscape in areas inhabited by indigenous beekeepers and small farmers. With plans to establish more farms in the region come questions about the local impacts of intensive pig farming in Mexico. Those questions triggered an official complaint by citizens in partnership with several NGOs and resulted in the closure of four Yucatán pig farms due to environmental concerns in May. The environmental protection agency, Profepa, announced the closures after carrying out inspections of farms in the municipalities of Maxcanú, Kinchil, Opichén and Mérida. It found a lack of environmental impact assessment results and inadequate management and reporting of hazardous waste and wastewater...According to Greenpeace México, there are 257 pork farms in the country, of which 122 (47%)“are in regions considered a priority for biodiversity conservation. Some of the farms in the western part of the state of Yucatán are near the Ria Celestún Biosphere Reserve, a protected area which forms part of a large wetland corridor...“The farms have a treatment plant, but it doesn’t work perfectly. The water flows into the forest after that. In the area where we saw the water, we noticed that there were dead trees”...The beekeeper from Kinchil explained that local producers can no longer label their honey as organic since the bees are exposed to chemicals in the wastewater from the pig farms...“We would like to be part of a team of local caretakers of the region, and participate in water sampling. We aren’t against the company, we are against what could happen if people begin to get sick and native species are damaged. We aren’t going to stop the company if it is doing things correctly”...