I make a re-post of this text from
Global Justice Ecology.org, as it narrates controversy about implementation of the REDD programme in Chiapas. Also, it is noted that a demarcation line is finally being made to define the borders of the "Zona Lacandona"
(forty years after the law of the Brecha Lacandona was enacted and thirty-six years after Montes-Azules nature reserve was established in the selva). It's still worth mentioning that inability of Mexican bureaucratic authorities to define the "nuclear" zone of the selva led to multiple evictions of indigenous communities from their lands (see the above link to Pangea web-page).
In the reposted article, the special emphasis is made on the miserable destiny of lacandones who became, consciously or unconsciously, traitors of their indigenous identity:
==While the members of the Lacandon Community are the beneficiaries of both the monthly REDD payment and access to vast territory, such benefits come at a high cost. In the words of Miguel Angél García, Coordinator of the Chiapan NGO Maderas del Pueblo, “Of all the ethnic groups in Chiapas, the one that has suffered the greatest abuse of their rights are the Lacandones; they’ve been robbed of their history, of their identity, and of their dignity, and they’ve been turned into walking folkloric entities. There’s nothing worse than that.”==
Read the full text:
(La Selva Lacandona, Carretera Fronteriza. Photo is mine, year 2005)
A Broken Bridge to the Jungle: The California-Chiapas Climate Agreement Opens Old Wounds
