Green accolades for three Mexican forest defenders

MEXICO CITY – A major US environmental group has honoured three Mexican forest defenders for risking their lives and liberty to battle rampant logging in the mountains of Guerrero state.

The Sierra Club, which has 750 000 members, announced the award for Felipe Arreaga, who is imprisoned; his wife Celsa Valdovinos, who has been fighting for Arreaga’s freedom, and Albertano Penalosa, who was injured in a recent ambush that killed two of his sons. Club officials also announced at a news conference that they would join with Greenpeace to warn would-be visitors about violations of human rights and rampant deforestation in Guerrero, which depends heavily on the key tourist centres of Acapulco and Ixtapa.The Chico Mendes Award had been granted only six other times since it was inaugurated in 1989 to honour a slain defender of Brazil’s forests.”It’s only given to very special people for very special reasons,” said Alejandro Queral, the Sierra Club’s international policy adviser.”It’s given to people who put their lives at risk.”The last Chico Mendes Award, in 2000, went to Rodolfo Montiel, also a member of Arreaga’s Organization of Peasant Ecologists who had been imprisoned on allegedly falsified charges.The Peasant Ecologists were founded in 1998 to battle rampant logging that was stripping away resources and damaging water supplies in the mountains east of the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo resort area.They soon clashed with powerful timber interests in Guerrero, which is notorious for remote, impoverished villages and for violent local political bosses.Montiel and colleague Teodoro Cabrera were freed by President Vicente Fox in 2001 after major international environmental and human rights groups denounced their convictions on drug and weapons charges as fraudulent.Arreaga was arrested last year on what defenders say was falsified evidence for a 1998 slaying of a local politician’s son.Penalosa and Montiel also were charged in the case.Amnesty International’s Americas Programme director Susan Lee told a news conference last week that a detailed investigation convinced the group the men were innocent and Amnesty International has declared Arreaga a prisoner of conscience.Valdovinos held back tears as she accepted the award last week, while complaining that “we haven’t seen the support of our government”.Penalosa’s wife Reyna Mojica lost the battle with her emotions and wept as she described the ambush that killed two of her sons while injuring her husband and another son in May.She said the organisation would keep fighting to protect forests: “From there comes the water, the air that we breathe.”Mario Patron, who represents Arreaga, complained that so far he had seen little change in official actions despite the April 1 inauguration of a left-leaning governor whose election ended 76 years of rule in the state by the entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party.”We’re not calling for a boycott” of Guerrero’s tourist sites, Queral said.But he noted that many Sierra Club members travel and he said the idea was to pressure the state government into acting.A state spokesman, Manuel Nava, said by phone that new Governor Zeferino Torreblanca had ordered new investigations into the cases.”I wish we could change the whole situation in the three months we’ve had,” Nava said.But he added, “I believe the results won’t be far off.”- Nampa-APClub officials also announced at a news conference that they would join with Greenpeace to warn would-be visitors about violations of human rights and rampant deforestation in Guerrero, which depends heavily on the key tourist centres of Acapulco and Ixtapa.The Chico Mendes Award had been granted only six other times since it was inaugurated in 1989 to honour a slain defender of Brazil’s forests.”It’s only given to very special people for very special reasons,” said Alejandro Queral, the Sierra Club’s international policy adviser.”It’s given to people who put their lives at risk.”The last Chico Mendes Award, in 2000, went to Rodolfo Montiel, also a member of Arreaga’s Organization of Peasant Ecologists who had been imprisoned on allegedly falsified charges.The Peasant Ecologists were founded in 1998 to battle rampant logging that was stripping away resources and damaging water supplies in the mountains east of the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo resort area.They soon clashed with powerful timber interests in Guerrero, which is notorious for remote, impoverished villages and for violent local political bosses.Montiel and colleague Teodoro Cabrera were freed by President Vicente Fox in 2001 after major international environmental and human rights groups denounced their convictions on drug and weapons charges as fraudulent.Arreaga was arrested last year on what defenders say was falsified evidence for a 1998 slaying of a local politician’s son.Penalosa and Montiel also were charged in the case.Amnesty International’s Americas Programme director Susan Lee told a news conference last week that a detailed investigation convinced the group the men were innocent and Amnesty International has declared Arreaga a prisoner of conscience.Valdovinos held back tears as she accepted the award last week, while complaining that “we haven’t seen the support of our government”.Penalosa’s wife Reyna Mojica lost the battle with her emotions and wept as she described the ambush that killed two of her sons while injuring her husband and another son in May.She said the organisation would keep fighting to protect forests: “From there comes the water, the air that we breathe.”Mario Patron, who represents Arreaga, complained that so far he had seen little change in official actions despite the April 1 inauguration of a left-leaning governor whose election ended 76 years of rule in the state by the entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party.”We’re not calling for a boycott” of Guerrero’s tourist sites, Queral said.But he noted that many Sierra Club members travel and he said the idea was to pressure the state government into acting.A state spokesman, Manuel Nava, said by phone that new Governor Zeferino Torreblanca had ordered new investigations into the cases.”I wish we could change the whole situation in the three months we’ve had,” Nava said.But he added, “I believe the results won’t be far off.”- Nampa-AP