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SPAC Watch
SPAC Watch Research - Mexico
Accountability
• National Program for Environment and Natural Resources 2001 - 2006 . One of the main stages of this new environmental policy is " Assessment of natural resources - The new environmental policy will encourage users of natural resources and environmental services to recognize their economic and social value and this will result in them being used rationally."
• Section 4.3 of the strategy is titled "The New Environmental Management" - "One of the great challenges for national development is to improve the capability development in government and society to design and implement programs, policies and instruments to change the production and consumption practices in order to revert deterioration and exhaustion of natural resources and the environment, promoting an economic growth and social welfare" [i] The section contains guidelines and actions items to meet this challenge including encouraging the use of natural resources by indigenous people, using sustainable indigenous technologies to use natural resources, guaranteeing that the price paid at the present time by users of environmental goods and services reflect their real environmental costs.
• Mexico has developed SD indicators - one entire chapter deals with "Change in consumption habits" [ii]
• Mexico has brought out two national reports on progress towards sustainability [iii] .
Responsibility
• "Mexican farmers provided the protests' largest contingent, and not just because the meeting took place on their own embattled soil. Based on their experiences under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the free-trade model that it embodies, they had a lot to say. Farmers of maize and other grains, who produce for subsistence and for local and regional markets, have been hardest hit by liberalization, with imports from the United States driving prices down to unsustainable levels. But much of the export sector has suffered as well, with gains in industrial tomato farming more than offset by sharp declines in coffee, Mexico's most important export crop in both employment and output." [iv]
• Progresa: A new strategy to alleviate poverty in Mexico - "The principal goal of Progresa is to permanently increase the basic capabilities of individuals living in extreme poverty. The program is made up of three closely linked components, education, health and nutrition, based on the philosophy that the positive inter-relationships between health, education and nutrition enhance the effectiveness of an integrated program over and above the separate benefits from each of these areas." [v]
Implementation
• "Strong decoupling of environmental pressure from GDP, as seen in a number of OECD countries, has not yet been achieved in Mexico. Indeed, recovery from the currency crisis and overall subsequent rapid economic growth have occurred together with increased pressures n the environment, including through pollution and natural resource use, despite the establishment of a solid environmental legal and institutional framework." [vi]
• "However, though Mexico has recognised the severe environmental degradation confronting it, time as well as sustained and continuous efforts will be required to implement and fund its environmental policies. Devolution of environmental policy implementation has not been accompanied by adequate capacity building at state and municipal levels. This implementation gap reflects, in particular, the complex and sometimes unclear distribution of environmental competency across levels of government and limited local authority to raise revenues from taxes or charges." [vii]
Endnotes
[i] < http://carpetas.semarnat.gob.mx/dgeia/web_ingles/programa/4-3.shtml >
[ii] Sustainable development indicators of Mexico, Institute of National Ecology et al, 2000, < http://www.ine.gob.mx/ueajei/publicaciones/consultaPublicacion.html?id_pub=322&id_tema=12&dir=Consultas >
[iii] Our main achievements in 2001, SEMARNAT, < http://carpetas.semarnat.gob.mx/comunicacionsocial/acciones2002principaling.shtml >,
Some of our main achievements in 2002, SEMARNAT, < http://carpetas.semarnat.gob.mx/comunicacionsocial/acciones2002logrosing.shtml >
[iv] Fields of free trade: Mexican small farmers in a global economy", Timothy Wise, Dollars and sense, 2003, < http://www.dollarsandsense.org/1103wise.html >
[v] Progresa: A new strategy to alleviate poverty in Mexico, 1999, < http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/LAC/LACInfoClient.nsf/0/84bd33635a75a1ef852567fa007b3448/$FILE/Gomez%20Parker%20Hernandez.doc >
[vi] Environmental performance review of Mexico, OECD, 2004, < http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/33/18385233.pdf >
[vii] Environmental performance review of Mexico, OECD, 2004, < http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/33/18385233.pdf >