Ramón Martínez Coria, Foro para el Desarrollo Sustentable, A.C.

18 de abril, 2013

Center for Latin American Studies

University of Pittsburgh

Sponsored by GSPIA’s Dean Office; CLAS; International Development

Studies Association; Ford Institute for Human Security and GSPIA’s

Politics of Development Colloquium.

About the makurawe or

guarijío, who own a particular

history, linked to their life in

the mountains. It explains their

ancestral isolation of their

survival. Until now they live in

the sierra madre of Sonora and

Chihuahua.

The cultural integrity of the Guarijío indigenous people is threatened by the proposed

LOS PILARES / BICENTENARIO dam project on the upper River Mayo in southeast

Sonora state, northwest Mexico.

During the 1980's the federal government authorized two new ejidos for landless

Guarijíos: Guarijíos-Burapaco and Guarijíos – Los Conejos. This period is today

referred to as the New Slate (la cuenta nueva) involving a process of ethnic, cultural and

social revitalization, along with a reordering of property boundaries and their regional

space. Today their land is menaced by the project of a dam.

The current dam project design includes three technical options affecting the scale of

impacts, as per the height of the dam curtain and the size of necessary containment

levees or dikes. These impacts include physical displacement of homes and

communities within the ample reservoir catchment basin behind the dam. Many yori

landowners in this region have already negotiated the sale of their properties to

government or project agents.

The project's prime justification states the dam and reservoir are necessary for

downstream flood control (“civil protection”). Periodically, within 7-9 year cycles, heavy

rains fill the silting Mocúzarit dam and the resulting overflow floods the lower Mayo valley,

including rural and urban parcels within the Irrigation District 038; notably, in Navojoa,

Huatabampo, Etchojoa and Bacobampo.

The Bicentenario / Los Pilares dam project is part

of an ambitious Sonora state government plan,

Sonora Sí, focusing on 22 water supply projects in

this arid state.

Diseños de VIVIENDAS para guarijios desplazados

Guarijío communities and others in the upper River Mayo watershed -- with its unique

biodiversity and cultural patrimony -- face risks in the planned LOS PILARES dam

project, as the loss of biodiversity of the river, and intense changes in their territory.

These impacts will affect Guarijío routine culture, subsistence practices and wherewithal,

given probable habitat changes and loss of key resources, access to cemeteries and

sacred sites.

Guarijío routine culture is based on a long-evolved and very sustainable use of the

natural resources occurring in their territory. Their livelihood includes farming maize,

beans, squash and other vegetables, in addition to raising cattle and goats. Houses

and implements are made with traditional sources and techniques. The habitat provides

valuable food and medicinal resources as well.

Guarijío leaders and families do not want to be displaced from their traditional territory

and way of life. At the same time, they sense amorphous risks affecting their families

and integrity as a native group, given the planned reservoir's flooding

Traditional megaproject

displacement has not

included the affected and

afflicted in sharing project

benefits. Independent

agencies are not invited to

monitor the forced

displacement process.

Evidence from several

projects throughout the

world confirms they induce

more poverty and human

rights violations for the

displaced or “resettled”.

As a result of this process, in February 2012 a solidarity committee (Red Kabueruma) rekindled contacts with the

Guarijío communities. Red Kabueruma has members from several institutions: Foro Para el Desarrollo

Sustentable, A.C., El Colegio de Sonora, UNAM, UAM-I, among others.

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