Since the announcement of the Plan Puebla Panama by Mexican President Fox in March 2001, hundreds of organizations representing thousands of area residents have organized massive resistance to the Plan while pushing for economic alternatives which bring prosperity and dignity to all segments of society without environmental degradation.

On March 2-4, 2001, at the Third National Indigenous Congress, representatives from 40 Indigenous groups throughout Mexico rejected the PPP stating, "For us, Indian peoples, our Mother Earth is sacred, and so are all the beings which inhabit her. They are not a commodity which can be bought or sold. For this reason, we cannot accept the destruction of our territories through the imposition of mega-projects by the federal and state governments in our various regions throughout the country. We demand a moratorium on all projects that involve bioprospecting, mining, water mega-projects, and all biopiracy activities taking place in our lands and in our country, until the Indian peoples have discussed in their own time the issues related to the control of their resources."

On the 12th of May 2001, 250 representatives from 109 civil society organizations met in Tapachula, Chiapas and announced; "Considering that any development plan should develop as the result of a democratic process rather than an authoritarian one we firmly reject the Plan Puebla Panama because it is a renovation of savage colonialism of Central America (South-Southeast Mexico and Central America), to the service of the interests of global capital, the transnational corporations, and of the oligarchy. A plan that further deepens the impoverishment of the villages and the destruction of our culture and nature. We categorically reject the intent to impose this plan in spite of the will of the interests of our people."

On the 15th of June, as presidents from all Central American countries and Mexico met in El Salvador to declare their support for the plan, 25,000 teachers in the state of Chiapas, Mexico went on strike against the PPP.

On the 22nd of September 2001, campesino, indigenous, labor, and civil organizations throughout Mexico gathered in Jalipan, Veracruz to reject the current form of the PPP, focusing on the lack of civil society participation and the potentially devastating social and economic impact of large transnational corporations. They announced, "Our towns and organizations have a long tradition in the struggle. During many years they have faced the acts of spoils and the violence of the powerful, it is because of it that in this Forum, the participating organizations have agreed to increase our resistance to the Plan Puebla Panama. We call on the organizations of the Mexican communities to plunge into this fight in defense of the rights of our communities."

Most recently, on Nov. 22-24 nearly 1000 representatives of 300 indigenous, labor, social, and human rights organizations and communities throughout Mexico, Central America, Canada, Australia, the United States, and various countries in Europe gathered in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala for II Foro Xelaju 2001. Entitled "Confronting Globalization, People are First" Foro Xelaju was the second such event of a series planned to unite various organizations throughout all countries in Central America and Mexico in the struggle to confront and combat the massive neoliberal development plans of the PPP. At the conclusion of the event, they declared "For the men, women, and assistants of the Foro Xelaju, the PPP is a prefabricated geopolitical project that looks to construct Mesoamerica into an area of services and infrastructure, designed by the logic of transnational corporations, Ênational oligarchy groups, and international financial institutions. This project hopes to create an infrastructure of services for the exportation of goods, the exploitation of our natural resources, biodiversity, and workforce of our communities, with no response in any moment to the social problems of the mesoamerican people and their communities."