Human Rights and Socio-Environmental Conflicts of Mining in Mexico: A Systematic Review

Socio-environmental conflicts are situations that exemplify human rights transgressions caused by extractive activities. These are present in developing countries where extractivism, imperialism, and colonialism paradigms prevail. In the context of Mexico, criminalization, violence, and the absence of rule of law promote these conflicts, frequently aggravated by involvement with private interests. In the last 20 years, the relationship between human rights in the mining sector and its impact on the environment has been a critical research subject. This paper aims to carry out a systematic review to analyze human rights transgressions related to the mining industry’s impact in Mexico, and identify factors causing socio-environmental conflicts. The current study shows a systematic analysis based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology. This method contributed to the collection of references that describe conflicts due to human rights transgressions and environmental damage in mining areas in Mexico. Human rights transgressions caused by mining in a Mexican context demonstrate the inability of the state to stop the increase in socio-environmental conflicts and its lack of concern towards preventing damage to the environment.

Two sides of the same coin: increasing material extraction rates and social environmental conflicts in Mexico

This article seeks to explain the multiplication of social environmental conflicts in Mexico as a consequence of expanding and intensifying extractive activities. It examines how the Mexican state has provided private and foreign capital greater access to the country’s natural resources in the transition from state-led import-substituting industrialization to export-oriented market-led development. This, it argues, has led to accelerating material extraction rates in the context of rising global demand for primary commodities; while the negative environmental and social impacts have in turn led to a growing number of conflicts involving the inhabitants of directly affected rural communities, who organize to resist. Based on standardized procedures for material flow analysis, it presents the results of an investigation into the domestic extraction rates of minerals, metal ores, biomass, and fossil fuels from Mexico, between 1990 and 2018. It finds that domestic extraction rates increased significantly during this period, with the exception of fossil fuels, which peaked in 2006, declining thereafter due to the exhaustion of the country’s most important oil reserves. The evolution of domestic extraction rates is juxtaposed with the emergence of related social environmental conflicts by drawing on multiple databases of conflicts around extractive activities in Mexico.

Extreme citizens science for climate justice: linking pixel to people for mapping gas flaring in Amazon Rainforest

In the Ecuadorian Amazon - one of Earth's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas and home to uncontacted indigenous populations – 50 years of widespread oil development is jeopardizing biodiversity and feeding environmental conflicts. In 2019, a campaign to eliminate oil-related gas flaring, led by Amazonian communities impacted by fossil fuel production, resulted in an injunction against the Ecuadoran Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment and Water. On January 26, 2021 the Court of Nueva Loja issued a historical order to ban gas flaring in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The present Citizen Science project plaied an important role in this process, enabling the production of independent spatial information through participatory mapping with indigenous and farmer communities. Globally, lack of independent information about oil activities has led to the monitoring of gas flaring by satellite imagery, achieving remarkable results. However, apart from institutional and remotely sensed data, reliable spatial information on gas flaring in the Ecuadorian Amazon is not available. Therefore, we adopted the Community-Based Participatory Action Research approach to develop a Participatory GIS process, aiming both to provide reliable data and to support social campaigns for environmental and climate justice. This work presents the first participatory mapping initiative of gas flaring at a regional scale, carried out completely through open source data and software. Having identified 295 previously unmapped gas flaring sites through participatory mapping, we highlight that the extent of gas flaring activities is well beyond the official data provided by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment and NOAA Nightfire annual datasets, which map only 24% and 33% of the sites, respectively. 75 of the detected sites were in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. Moreover, 39 of the identified sites were venting instead of flaring, a phenomenon never before documented in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This study demonstrates that, because official datasets and satellite imagery underestimate the extent of gas flaring in the Ecuadorian Amazon, community-based mapping offers a promising alternative for producing trusted, community-based scientific data. This community-produced data can support campaigns for legal recognition of human rights and environmental justice in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Finally, this study shows how local environmental conflicts can foster policy transformations that promote climate justice.

Environmental digital conflicts: Spanish-, german-, and russian-speaking actors

Introduction. Almost all significant social communications are moving to virtual spaces. Thus, environmental conflicts play an increasingly important role in public life, as civic activity in solving environmental problems grows. The development of eco-territorial conflicts and requests for their social reactions lead to the emergence of digital conflict zones, sectors of the media space in which the current environmental agenda is discussed by a wide range of users. The analysis of conflicts in the digital environment is truly relevant and can be performed using neural network technologies. Methodology. Big data obtained from social media has become an important source of analysis of social processes, behavioral characteristics, speech perception, society's assessment of events and phenomena. The purpose of the work was to determine the specifics of perception in the media space of environmental conflicts in urban planning and construction. To analyze digital content, a multimodal approach was used along with neural network technologies, text analysis, sentiment analysis, analysis of word associations. The research data was collected using Brand Analytics and the corpus Sketch Engine. Content analysis was carried out using the multilingual technology of neural networks TextAnalyst 2.3. and visual analysis using the Tableau platform. Results and Conclusions. As a result of the study, common and different signs of the development of digital conflict zones related to environmental problems in the Spanish, German and Russian-speaking media space were identified.

Development of a dynamics-based model for analyzing strategic water–environmental conflicts: systems thinking instead of linear thinking

A new evolvement in graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), a robust methodology for conflict resolution, is presented in this research effort to incorporate the systems thinking concept into the conventional paradigm of GMCR so that the dynamic nature of water–environmental conflicts can be modeled, and better outcomes obtained. To achieve this objective, a methodology is developed in three phases: static, dynamic, and outcome-based analyses. To develop the methodology, the Tigris–Euphrates basin conflict in the Middle East over the past 30 years, as a real-life case study, is used to show the robustness and capabilities of the proposed approach. Finally, a sustainable resolution to the current conflict is proposed, and the results are discussed. The proposed methodology benefits from improving the existing and often static-based conflict resolution developments by considering the dynamic nature so that the true root causes of complex conflicts are addressed, better strategic insights achieved, and comprehensive resolution provided.

Social-Environmental Conflicts in Chile: Is There Any Potential for an Ecological Constitution?

Social unrest is on the rise worldwide amid deepening inequalities, environmental degradation, and job crises worsened by increasing social-environmental conflicts. In Chile, a social revolt in 2019 resulted in a national referendum in 2020. An ample majority (78.3% vs. 21.7%) voted to draft a new constitution to replace the current constitution drawn up under dictatorship. The result led to the emergence and empowerment of several organizations demanding an “ecological constitution”. In this context, we aim to analyze: (1) the main social-environmental conflicts in Chile and how they are related to the country’s current constitution, and (2) the potential drafting of an ecological constitution that addresses these conflicts. Across different industries in Chile, we observed common problems that are intrinsically related to the current constitution. This relationship seems to be perceived by Chilean citizens since a survey carried out in May 2021 found 79% support for an ecological constitution. Moreover, 105 of the 155 delegates to the constitutional convention proposed three or more environmental principles to be included in the new constitution. A potential ecological constitution entails principles that would improve the current situation of social-environmental conflicts in Chile. Based on our analysis, we recommend the establishment of watershed-based “territorial rights” in the new Chilean constitution to improve sustainability and environmental justice.

Environment-Conflict Nexus: The Relevance of Thomas Homer-Dixons Environmental Conflict Theory in Africa

Using practical examples, the paper examines the relevance of Thomas Homer-Dixons Environmental Conflict Theory within an African context. It outlines that Homer-Dixon’s Environmental Conflict Theory is to some extent valid, but it suffers significant shortfalls that make its applicability and generalizability questionable. The paper has shown that the abundance of resources in Africa contributes more to violent conflicts than their scarcity. Resources in Africa are vast, and so are environmental conflicts. The paper underscores factors that aggravate environmental conflicts such as depletion, degradation, social cleavages, population growth and environmental scarcity and recommend solutions on how they can be redressed.

Characterization of ecologically dysfunctional municipalities: a contribution to Environmental Democracy

This research aims to promote a discussion on how to characterize an ecologically dysfunctional municipality, in terms directly linked to environmental legal noncompliance, and how it can impact the axes of Environmental Democracy, based on the identification of institutionalized environmental conflicts by governmental agencies that have a duty to conduct investigations and punish its offenders. The methodology used was a documental analysis of works published on the subject in books, specialized magazines, scientific articles available in libraries or on the internet; and the analysis of a case study, which took place in a medium-sized municipality in the state of São Paulo. Using the methodology, we were able to characterize ecologically dysfunctional municipalities, and their impacts on the structural axes of Environmental Democracy, in order to provide access to information, increase citizen participation, and resolve environmental conflicts.

Meaning-making on the ground: an empirical study on interactional framing in environmental conflicts

PurposeThe study aims to explain the communicative basis of conflicts in which actors stand in opposition in defining a negotiated situation and to deepen knowledge of environmental conflict development, in particular on how frames are (re)shaped through discursive choices in interaction.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts an interactional approach to framing and 1) identifies the frames shaped and reshaped in four environmental debates and 2) analyzes how framing activities affect the course of the debates.FindingsThis study contributes to understanding 1) the interactive nature of conflicts; 2) how the reception and interpretation of issue framing depends on the surrounding identity and characterization framing and 3) how framing activities, like identity work, emotional alignment and reframing, can affect the course of environmental debates toward polarizing or bridging.Research limitations/implicationsOn a methodological level, this study contributes to communication research by applying methodologies for investigating framing processes on a micro-level. This study investigates interactional framing, considering the perspectives of frame strategists engaging in issue arenas. The study provides an in-depth discourse analysis of the debates but lacks an overview on the entire issue arena regarding this conflict.Practical implicationsSkilled actors span boundaries by articulating issue frames that accommodate opponents' concerns and values while demonstrating the added value of the new frame, adjusting identity work in favor of relations with opponents. Furthermore, calibrating emotional intensity offers opportunities to mobilize support.Originality/valueThis research investigates which communicative competences are essential to act adequately in environmental conflicts, given their intractable nature, and suggests opportunities for cocreation by making discursive choices. This approach helps to uncover the micro-processes that escalate and de-escalate a conflict.