12/20/02	Growing Poverty Is Shrinking Mexico's Rain Forest -- Five miles up a muddy trail from Emiliano Zapata, in southeastern Chiapas State, is Mexico's largest unpolluted lake, Laguna Miramar, and beyond that stands the last rain forest in Mexico. But today almost half a million poor people, speaking six different languages, live in that dying forest. For some here in Chiapas, the issue is turning from saving the trees to saving the people.(New York Times)
12/3/02	Mexican farmers demand higher subsidies -- Mexican farmers and ranchers said Tuesday that the 10 billion dollars in support prices announced by the government will be insufficient to protect them when agricultural trade with the United States and Canada is liberalized in 2003.(EFE)
12/3/02	Fox assures protection for Mexican farmers -- The government will confront agricultural subsidies in industrialized countries with its own "agricultural armor" and through action in international forums such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), President Vicente Fox declared Monday.(The News Mexico)
12/3/02	Farmers are Getting Plowed Under -- The show of porcine heft was a protest against an expected avalanche of U.S. bacon, ham, and pork chops when import tariffs on a variety of farm products are eliminated next year under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some U.S. pork cuts already cost just 27 cents a pound in Mexico, vs. $ 1.14 for domestic pork, and import prices will likely drop further.(Business Week)
12/3/02	Farm activists say market opening could unleash violence, migration, drug growing -- Anti-globalization activists predict a disaster for Mexican agriculture when the country lifts tariffs on U.S. farm products in January, a move they say will displace millions of Mexican farmers and send them streaming to the United States.(AP)
12/3/02	The Lacandon Jungle's Last Stand Against Corporate Globalization -- A battle is raging in Chiapas' Montes Azules Integral Biosphere, Mexico's Garden of Eden. The last stand against corporate resource exploitation is taking place in this remote, lush tropical jungle, home to Mayan communities.(CorpWatch)
11/12/02	Farmers vow they will fight to protect Mexican agriculture -- Southern Mexican farmers said they would take up arms if necessary to protect the nation's embattled agricultural sector, a local daily reported.(The News Mexico)
11/12/02	Mexicans fear invasion by U.S. corn tortillas for health, economics -- Whether rich or poor, the tortilla serves as a key component of several other Mexican dishes, including quesadillas, tostadas and enchiladas. But critics say this nutritious staple of the Mexican diet has become less "Mexican" and more foreign, and is increasingly threatened by the import of cheaper corn from the United States and increasing amounts of imported beef.(DPA)
11/12/02	Mexico can't compete with U.S. and EU farm subsidies: -- The agriculture secretary told an international conference on Wednesday the nation's farmers cannot compete with subsidized goods from the United States and Europe and that Mexico will enact reforms to combat "disloyal practices".(The News Mexico)
11/12/02	Sowing Disaster? -- It's an hour-and-a-half drive over switchbacks from the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca to the village of Capulalpan, a settlement of some 1,500 people nestled in the Sierra Norte Mountains. The thick forest and remoteness of this mountainous region has long enabled the local Zacateca Indians to maintain their cultural integrity and, to a great extent, write their own rules. (The Nation)
10/2/02	Human Rights, Biodiversity, and Local Autonomy: -- The Montes Azules Integral Biosphere Reserve (RIMBA-Spanish acronym) is emerging as the testing ground for the conflicting interests of corporate ownership and profits on one hand and human rights protection, biodiversity conservation and struggles for autonomy on the other.(Global Exchange)
9/30/02	US, World and Transnational Agencies Want to Clear Indigenous Out of Montes Azules -- Never before have the interest and actions of the United States government, large transnational companies and some world agencies (which range from the UN to Conservation International, and include all levels of the federal governments the Mexican one) been so obvious in the Selva Lacandona and in Montes Azules. Environmental, bioprospecting, eco-tourism and birth control (eventually, sterilization of indigenous women) programs are acting as the spearhead for a far-reaching strategic and military project. According to Mexican officials, it is an "international security" matter, a problem of "serious ungovernability," a "war operation."(La Jornada, Hermann Bellinghausen)
9/24/02	Zapatista Seed Saving Project Puts Its First Collection of Traditional Corn Seeds Into Deep Freeze Storage in Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico -- The prayers of the kneeling school board members and education promoters were sung softly in Tzotzil. Eventually they floated above the burning candles and escaped through the metal door smiling as they gently caressing the fog-shrouded mural newly painted on the front of the massive concrete library. (AScribe Newswire)
9/12/02	No new dams without rate reductions, Chiapas governor says -- The government of the southern state of Chiapas plans to fight construction of three new hydroelectric power plants, officials said. Chiapas Governor Pablo Salazar Menduguchia said Tuesday the state would oppose the project as long as the federal government and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) refused to cut electric rates.(EFE)
9/12/02	The Johannesburg Declaration on Biopiracy, Biodiversity and Community Rights -- We, representatives of local communities, civil society organisations and NGOs from around the world, gathered around the world and at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, held in August and September 2002, discussed issues relating to the privatisation of our biological resources and the protection of the rights of holders of indigenous knowledge and technologies, especially as related to biodiversity.(The Coalition of US-based NGOs)
9/4/02	The Southeast: Transnational Plunder -- There is renewed interest at some official diplomatic missions in Mexico in knowing what the EZLN is going to do in response to a foreseeable adverse ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice on the legality of the constitutional counter-reform on indigenous affairs. The surprising change in the administrative leadership of the Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) has also aroused interest, with Florencio Salazar (recycled in social control tasks at the Department of Government) having been replaced and the Department at Tlatelolco having taking over leadership. Both issues are linked. (La Jornada, Carlos Fazio)
9/4/02	Hot seat may cool for Berkeley prof -Mexican scientists reportedly confirm his findings of engineered corn in maize -- Scientists in Mexico City may have confirmed one finding by a University of California at Berkeley scientist who caused an international furor last year when he reported finding traces of bioengineered corn in native Mexican maize.(Tom Abate, The San Francisco Chronicle)
7/24/02	US, World and Transnational Agencies Want to Clear Indigenous Out of Montes Azules -- Never before have the interest and actions of the United States government, large transnational companies and some world agencies (which range from the UN to Conservation International, and include all levels of the federal governments) been so obvious in the Selva Lacandona and in Montes Azules. (La Jornada)
7/19/02	Citizen Action in the Americas -- Food security and labor security are the fundamental priorities for Mesoamerica: without dignified work, families don't have enough income, and without income, we have hunger, hopelessness, and migration. We must reinvigorate and reorient small- and medium-scale production in the countryside if we are to break the cycle of hunger and exodus from the region.(Enlaces America)
7/17/02	Indigenous Groups of Latin America exhort governments to Protect Bio-Diversity -- Farming and Social indigenous Organizations of 12 countries recently reunited in Guatemala in the second week of Biological and Cultural Diversity, assuring that the destruction of their natural wealth is due to the governments of Latin America, and Bio-Technological companies. (La Jornada)
7/15/02	Killing the Messenger -- A parochial tussle over a professor's published research has mutated into a full-blown academic fight between critics and defenders of biotechnology. (Mother Jones)
7/15/02	Fox tells farmers to modernize if they want to compete in global market -- President Vicente Fox on Saturday acknowledged a falling pesos has drastically reduced Mexicans' buying power making it difficult for working class families to cover their basic needs, and that this disproportinately hurts peasant farmers.(The News Mexico)
7/15/02	Final Declaration of Week for Cultural and Biological Diversity II -- We were born between the flowers and the heat radiating from the mineral springs, since childhood we learn how to walk the mountain and to store water between the rocks; we pray to the hills, celebrate the sky, and from this, all things are born. The forest's that remain, the flowers and animals that remain, remain where we walk and where we live. (Week for Cultural and Biological Diversity II)
7/3/02	CEC to examine genetic diversity of traditional maize varieties in Mexico -- The Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America (CEC) has informed the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States that it intends to study, and prepare a special report upon, the potential effects of transgenic corn on traditional varieties of maize in Mexico.(Commission for Environmental Cooperation)
6/17/02	Piles of poisons: -- Mexico is facing a growing mountain of hazardous waste, despite an environmental accord with the US and a continental trade deal that were supposed to discourage further environmental degradation. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in force since 1994, is a relatively "green" trade treaty. (Alternatives Journal)
6/17/02	U.N. slammed for distributing GM corn in Guatemala -- Guatemalan environmental activists slammed the United Nations Tuesday for distributing genetically engineered corn to drought-hit peasants in the Central American nation through its World Food Program (WFP). Environmental group Madre Selva said U.S. laboratory tests on a sack of UN-distributed corn it acquired in eastern Guatemala detected genetically modified varieties, which some scientists fear could be unsafe for human consumption. (Reuters)
6/12/02	GM contamination spreads in Mexico -- Recent reports from Mexico suggest that despite a moratorium on planting GM corn strains, the genetic home of the crop, with thousands of strains, has been contaminated with GM strains. (BBC)
6/3/02	Kernels of Truth -- A team of Cal scientists came under attack from colleagues and biotech interests after finding modified DNA in native Mexican corn. They may be wrong, but given just how much is at stake, why hasn't anyone else bothered to ask the same question? (East Bay Express)
5/20/02	The Fake Persuaders -- While, in the past, companies have created fake citizens' groups to campaign in favour of trashing forests or polluting rivers, now they create fake citizens. Messages purporting to come from disinterested punters are planted on listservers at critical moments, disseminating misleading information in the hope of recruiting real people to the cause.(The Guardian (UK))
5/1/02	Monsanto - Up to its dirty old tricks again -- The journal Science reporting recently on how the Mexican "maize scandal" was driving the battle over GM crops "to new heights of acrimony and confusion", noted the part played by, "widely circulating anonymous e-mails" accusing researchers, Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, of "conflicts of interest and other misdeeds". (The Ecologist)
4/26/02	Mexican groups ask for NAFTA study of genetically modified corn -- Indigenous communities from Oaxaca and environmental groups asked a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) commission to study the ecological impact of genetically modified (GM) corn found growing in Oaxaca and Puebla. (The News Mexico)
4/25/02	GM corn contamination in Mexico: Freak of 'Nature' or Institutional Breakdown?: Outlining the Roles and Responsibilities for Genetic Contamination of Corn in Mexico -- Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley discovered Mexican native corn varieties contaminated by transgenic DNA (Nature, November, 2001). The Mexican National Ecological Institute (INE) and the National Biodiversity Commission (CONABIO) later confirmed the genetic contamination of native varieties in a preliminary report presented January 23rd, 2002 and on April 19 reported that their subsequent studies shown contamination of corn as high as 35% in 95% of the tests conducted. (Global Exchange)
4/19/02	Corn study spurs debate over corporate meddling in academia -- When a prestigious scientific journal backed away from a study that found genetic contamination in Mexican corn, it was a big public relations victory for the biotechnology industry. (AP)
4/19/02	Mexico's vital gene reservoir polluted by modified maize -- The Mexican government has confirmed that despite its ban on genetically modified maize, there is massive contamination of crops in areas that act as the gene bank for one of the world's staple crops. (The Guardian)
4/19/02	Genetically altering Corn concerns Native People -- The Continental Week of Action against Genetically Modified Corn, sponsored by the grassroots group Global Exchange, will see protests against the technological "manipulation" of corn across the U.S. Mexico and Canada from April 10 through April 17. (Native American News)
4/17/02	UN moves to curb bio-piracy -- A United Nations conference has agreed new measures to prevent so-called bio-piracy, the use of wild plants by international companies to develop products such as medicines without rewarding the countries from which they are taken. (BBC)
4/11/02	Biotech protesters mobilize across North America -- Consumer and environmental groups in North America today launched a week of protests against what they call contamination of Mexico's traditional corn by genetically engineered varieties. (IPS)
4/6/02	Greenpeace stops US shipment of maize to Mexico to eliminate source of genetic contamination -- Greenpeace swimmers blocked the harbor entrance of the port of Veracruz, Mexico today to stop the ship "Sea Crown" transporting 40,000 tonnes of genetically engineered (GE) maize from the United States. Greenpeace repeated its call for a ban on all US GE maize imports as they are the most likely source of the genetic contamination discovered over six months ago in a country that is the world's most important centre of origin and diversity for maize. (Greenpeace)
4/4/02	Still More on the Mexican GM Maize Scandal: Conquering Nature! ...and Sidestepping the Debate over Biotech and Biodiversity -- Nature magazine's flip-flop today over the testing protocols involved in determining GM maize contamination in Mexico -- the Centre of Genetic Diversity for the vital food crop -- is just the latest in a string of absurdities as the scientific community struggles over what to do as genetically-modified germplasm invades the genetic homelands of the world's food supply. (ETC Group)
4/4/02	Fight Rages Over Bioengineered Corn -- A prestigious scientific journal is backing off a study concluding DNA from genetically modified corn contaminated native maize in Mexico, amid an unusually public and bitter exchange between its authors and their critics over "bad science" and questions of incompetence. (AP)
4/4/02	Journal editors disavow article on biotech corn -- The science journal Nature has concluded that a controversial article it published last year on the discovery of genetically engineered corn growing in Mexico was not well researched enough and should not have been published. (Washington Post)
4/1/02	Bio "gold" rush in Chiapas on hold -- A $2.5 million project to research Chiapas plants for possible commercial use was halted after it roused the ire of indigenous rights activists. When does "bioprospecting" become "biopiracy"? (NACLA)
4/1/02	Report Back and Declaration from the Water, Light, And Land For All! Forum in Guatemala, March 2002 -- Between March 21st 23rd men and women representing 98 organizations and communities from 21 countries met faced with the general preoccupation caused by the plans for the construction of dams with different ends in different regions. (Global Exchange)
3/31/02	During the Mesoamerican forum they demanded water, light and land for rural villages -- Ninety-eight global organizations protested against the Plan Puebla Panama, Plan Colombia, and the FTAA. They oppose the construction of cams at the expense of rivers and villages in the region. They cry out for the application of justice against those responsible for State-imposed genocide. (La Jornada)
3/25/02	The biotech corn debate grows hot in Mexico -- What is grown today in the vast cornfields of Iowa and on small local farms may have only limited genetic resemblance to those agricultural ancestors, but southern Mexico in particular remains the center of corn genetic diversity around the world. That's why the international scientific battle now raging over the reported presence of genetic material from genetically engineered plants in Mexican corn is so bitter and emotional. (Washington Post)
3/21/02	Email death threat arrives for lawyer of Ochoa's family -- The attorney representing the family of murdered human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa received a death threat Monday, a week after she accused the city police handling the Ochoa investigation of incompetence (The News Mexico)
3/21/02	Seeds of Destruction -- Last fall, a University of California, Berkeley researcher announced the discovery of genetically engineered corn in the remote highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. The corn was popping up along roadsides, out of cracks in the sidewalks and seemingly anywhere else it could find soil, in scores of mountain settlements. (In These Times)
3/21/02	Frequently Asked Questions: Genetic Contamination of Mexican Corn -- Ten frequently asked questions about the genetic contami nation of Mexican corn, along with their answers. (Global Exchange)
3/13/02	Mexican environmentalist speaks about saving country's forests -- Environmentalism in Mexico has a dim future unless young people are taught to be more aware of their world, according to Rodolfo Montiel, a Mexican environmentalist who was released from prison late last year. (Associated Press)
3/4/02	Mexico's 'devastating' forest loss -- Deforestation -- which environmentalists say is one of the most pressing concerns affecting the planet -- will top the agenda at a United Nations meeting of environment ministers in New York on Monday. (BBC)
2/28/02	Genetically Modified Food: As biotechnology spreads, questions grow, too -- If Mexican politicians are concerned about genetically modified corn, Michael Hansen has an even more alarming possibility for them to contemplate. (Atlanta Journal and Constitution)
2/26/02	In Corn's Cradle, U.S. Imports Bury Family Farms -- For many generations, corn has been the sacred center of civilization in Mexico, the place where the grain was first cultivated some 5,000 years ago. But the modern world is closing in on the little patch of maize that has sustained millions of Mexicans through the centuries. The powerful force of American agribusiness, unleashed in Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement, may doom the growing of corn as a way of life for family farmers here, agronomists and economists say. (New York Times)
2/19/02	Mexico signs international accord on "biopiracy" -- Mexico, China, Brazil, India and eight of the world's most "biodiverse" countries signed an alliance in Cancun Monday to fight biopiracy and press for rules protecting their people's rights to genetic resources found on their land. (The News Mexico)
2/8/02	Preserving the integrity of Indian corn -- In southern Mexico, the place where corn was born, this original gift of Indian America is now in danger of extinction. Genetically modified corn imported from the United States is rapidly blending with indigenous corn varieties. It carries high potential for destroying the local strains and threatens to obliterate the central source of food for millions of Indian agriculturalists. (Indian Country)
2/2/02	EZLN and Chiapas school launch project to reduce genetic contamination -- The Zapatista National Liberation Army's autonomous education committees and students from January 1st Secondary School in Oventic, recently launched a seed preservation project called "Mother seed of resistance" to reduce genetic contamination. (The News Mexico)
1/30/02	Contaminación Transgénica Del Maíz Indígena Mexicano -- La contaminación transgénica ya ha llegado a extremos peligrosos en el maíz indígena mexicano. Está ya acelerándose la pérdida de la soberanía alimentaria no sólo de las comunidades indígenas, sino del país. (CIEPAC)
1/28/02	The Tale of the Mystery Corn in Mexico's Hills -- Mexico, the corn-consuming capital of the world, has been cautious about corn. Congress banned GM corn crops in 1998 even while allowing GM cotton and tomatoes. The current administration has been considering loosening the ban in an effort to improve agriculture and attract investment. (Newsweek)
1/24/02	NGO's condemn lack of GM corn policy -- If the government waits too long before taking measures to contain the spread of genetically modified (GM) corn, the consequences could be catastrophic. (The News Mexico)
1/20/02	GM corn stirs up divisions in Fox cabinet -- Last May, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, informed the government they had found genetically-modified (GM) corn in the mountains of Oaxaca, eight months later, President Vicente Fox has yet to announce how his administration will respond. (The News Mexico)
1/14/02	No quick solution to deforestation in lush Chiapas -- Here, as in hundreds of communities tucked in the temperate forest and tropical jungle that span the southeastern flank of Chiapas, destitute Indian villagers are cutting down trees and burning the undergrowth to clear fields for cultivation and cow grazing. (Christian Science Monitor)
12/29/01	Mexicans angered by spread of corn -- In a cautionary tale about the difficulty of controlling genetically modified plants, corn researchers in Mexico went ever higher into remote mountain villages looking for natural varieties of the 4,000-year-old crop. (Associated Press)
12/5/01	Mexico in danger of losing forests -- Mexico could lose its tropical jungles within decades if the government doesn't seriously hike the amount of money it allocates to deal with deforestation, according to the environment secretary (Associated Press)
11/9/01	US Government's $2.5 Million Biopiracy Project in Mexico Cancelled: Victory for Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas -- After two years of intense local opposition from indigenous peoples' organizations in Chiapas, Mexico, the US government-funded ICBG-Maya project aimed at the bioprospecting of Mayan medicinal plants and traditional knowledge has been "definitively cancelled" by the Project's Chiapas-based partner, ECOSUR -- El Colegio de la Frontera Sur. The US government confirmed today that the ICBG-Maya Project has been terminated. (ETCGroup.org)
11/2/01	Greenpeace: Fox administration to legalize GM crops -- In closed-door meetings with agribusiness executives, the Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa) is working to legalize the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops, Greenpeace Mexico announced on Thursday. The meetings were convoked by Sagarpa to discuss the creation of a measure that would set the rules by which GM agricultural products could be grown and sold on a large scale. (News Staff)
10/17/01	Campesinos demand end to GM imports -- Campesino organizations from Chihuahua to Chiapas on Tuesday called on President Vicente Fox's administration to block genetically modified (GM) corn allegedly being imported from the United States. (Associated Press)
10/1/01	Background and information about Mexican maize and the contamination -- Mexico is the center of origin and diversity for maize, one of the most widely consumed grains in the world. Such centers of origin and diversity are important regions for the development of new breeds or varieties of crops. The introduction of genetically modified species (all genetically identical) drastically reduces genetic diversity. (Global Exchange)
9/27/01	Serious genetic contamination revealed in Mexican maize -- Greenpeace today called on Mexico to adopt emergency measures to combat the first serious outbreak of genetic pollution in the centre of diversity of maize, located in several communities in the state of Oaxaca. (Greenpeace)
9/19/01	Results revealed about studies in Oaxaca -- The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) confirmed yesterday that natural varieties of maize, which is cultivated in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca are "contaminated" with genetically modified (GM) maize. (La Jornada)
9/10/01	Third-world imports besiege Mexico farmers -- For Rodrigo Hernandez, ground zero in the war over globalization is not Genoa or Seattle, but a stretch of freeway slicing through a desolate swamp. It's where he and hundreds of other farmers last month dumped 400 tons of pineapple they couldn't sell. (LA Times)
7/23/01	Mexico 73rd in environmental sustainability among 122 nations -- Environmental unsustainaibility issues such as deforestation, lack of infrastructure, over-exploitation of resources, inadequate laws and institutions, and extreme poverty put the viability of the Plan Puebla-Panama at risk. (La Jornada)
6/26/01	Report on the Forum for Biological and Cultural Diversity -- We are pleased to send you information about the First Week for Biological and Cultural Diversity which took place in Chiapas June 14-17, 2001. (Global Exchange)
6/17/01	Participants at a forum on biodiversity reject the Puebla-Panama plan -- The participants at the First Week for Cultural and Biological Biodiversity, taking place in San Cristobal de las Casas, expressed their complete rejection of the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP), considering it "a new type of colonialism allowing transnational businesses to benefit while the underclass suffers." (La Jornada)
4/12/01	Transgenic Pollution by Horizontal Gene Transfer? -- Landraces of indigenous maize growing in remote regions in Mexico have been found contaminated with transgenic DNA. Molecular analysis suggests horizontal gene transfer mediated by CaMV 35S promoter. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reports. (Institute of Science in Society)
2/7/01	Mexican Indians Attack Biopiracy -- Iladia Rodriguez waved her leathery arms and let out a furious stream of complaints in her native language. The 70-year-old Maya Indian needed no translation to convey her contempt for one foreign word that punctuated her testimony.