San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. The inter-institutional environmental table, which coordinates federal and state governments activities "in order to resolve the denunciation of seizure and ecological damages and the possible relocation-indemnification negotiated with the settlements" in the protected natural areas of Chiapas drew up a report on April 30 concerning the so-called" irregular settlements" in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.

The document proposes "liberating" (or dislocating) "immediately" the communities of Nuevo Salvador Allende, Nuevo San Rafael and 8 de Febrero, and subsequently expelling Arroyo Cristalina, Sol Paraíso-Las Ruinas and El Buen Samaritano. The explicit aim is "to give clear signs of protection for the protected natural areas, particularly Montes Azules."

These six villages are very newly established, and they are all on the lands of what is called the "Lacandón community," the grant which, by a 1972 presidential decree, made a few Lacandón families the nominal owners of 614,000 hectares.

Not much in the way of owners. In addition to living quite far away from these lands, and having abandoned agriculture, the Lacandón families "possess" eight natural protected areas (ANP) by federal government decree, although only Montes Azules (331,000 hectares) has a management program in place. The other ANPs are: Lacantún (61,000 hectares, also a biosphere reserve), Nahá and Metzabok ("flora and fauna protection" areas), Yaxchilán and Bonampak ("natural monuments", sic), Chan-Kin and La Cojolita. These add up to 432,000 hectares of the 614,000 which belong to the community. Outside of being security guards in the archeological regions of Yaxchilán and Bonampak, the Lacandón have very little to do with the matter.

The document from the environmental table starts from the premise that "the Selva Lacandona forms part of the international ecosystem called the Maya Selva" (a geographical concept which was coined during the last federal PRI government, following the tourism logic of the Mayan Route created under Salinas). Out of an "original area" of 1,8 million hectares, according to the table there are more or less 600,000 hectares left intact in the Selva Lacandona. "The rest have been lost due to agricultural and forestry activities."

The environmental table was established on September 13, 2001. It is presided over by the Secretary of Rural Development for the Chiapas government, Rubén Velázquez. The Semarnat delegate, Ramón Aguirre, acts as technical secretary. Others participating are, for Chiapas, the Department of Government (whose head is Emilio Zebadúa), the Under Secretaries of Rural Development, Arturo Luna and Jaime Magdaleno, the Department of Indian Peoples, the Department of Justice and the state head of the Institute of Natural History and Ecology, Pablo Muench.

In addition to Ramón Aguirre and Victor Lichtinger (who has both verbally and personally demonstrated a great interest in Montes Azules), the federal government is represented at the table by Guillermo López Portillo (who has for many years been the Director of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve), Rodolfo Díaz Arvide, state Sedesol delegate, Iván Azuara, for the National Forestry Commission (Conafor), as well as delegates from the Department of Agrarian Reform, the Department of Agrarian Justice and the PGR.

Among those who have expressed varying degrees of disagreement over the dislocation of the communities in Montes Azules are the Departments of Government and of Indian Peoples of Chiapas, the governor himself, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía and Iván Azuara, the federal Conafor delegate. All of the rest have followed the dislocation line.

The most recent report by the environmental table - which met a week ago - reiterated the coordination accords which had been established for 2001-2202, among which are "drawing up a relocation plan for irregular settlements." Specifically, the Semarnat has the role of "designing and implementing, in coordination with the SRA and the state Executive, the relocation program." The Chiapas government, in turn, is committed to "providing federal officials with the facilities for supervising the activities." While the document does indeed propose that the state government "intensify negotiation and dialogue with social organizations," it makes it quite clear that the intention is to dislocate, and in some cases relocate, a certain number of communities. And so it plans for "the movement and goods of the groups to the new locations," which would be secured in another part of the state (most certainly outside the Selva Lacandona), once the "description of the invading groups" is concluded and a "program of establishment of the relocated groups" is guaranteed.

Or rather, no but yes: the program for dislocating the communities in Montes Azules is still on, regardless of whatever negotiations might take place.