Mexico City is breathing a sigh of relief as water levels in the Cutzamala reservoir, which holds roughly 25% of the capital’s water supply, have reached a 10-year high. Increased rainfall in the past year has not eased the water woes of other major Mexican cities, however. Meanwhile, experts say preoccupation with precipitation levels mask deep structural and administrative flaws contributing to Mexican water-supply problems. “Whether it rains and how much it rains is being used as a smokescreen,” says Alessia Kachadourian, an environmental hydrogeologist and water consultant who works in the private and public sectors. “Mexico is functioning under a fragmented, outdated vision of how water works, and the rain cannot be blamed for Mexico’s water supply issues.” Basic water supply is a constitutional right many Mexicans have not enjoyed in recent years. In mid-June 2024, 87.8% of Mexican municipalities were experiencing “abnormally dry” conditions and...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Latin America continues to hold the dubious distinction as the world’s deadliest region for environmental and land-rights defenders, according to the latest version of an annual report on such attacks. The report, issued Sept. 16 by Global Witness, a U.K.-based nonprofit, says that of the 124 murders worldwide last year of activists trying to protect their lands and livelihoods, 105, or 85%, occurred in Latin America. The 13th such annual accounting issued by Global Witness, the report listed eight Latin American countries among the 10 countries with the most activist murders in 2025. Colombia, with 39 killings, led in the number of murders for the fourth consecutive year. Brazil had 26 killings, followed by Honduras (12), Mexico (10), Guatemala (8), Peru (4), Ecuador (3), and Nicaragua (3), according to the report, issued under the title “Collective power: The struggle for protection for land and environmental defenders.” The Philippines...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
Researchers say images of a puma that were captured last October are evidence of environmental health in southern Brazil’s portion of the Pampas, the grassland biome that also covers parts of Argentina and Uruguay. The male puma (Puma concolor) triggered the camera trap last October in the São Donato Biological Reserve, a 4,392-hectare (10,852-acre) protected area of wetlands and grasslands managed by Rio Grande do Sul state. Plentiful in the Pampas in the 19th century, pumas became very rare in the biome by the beginning of the 20th century amid a surge in hunting of the animal for the purpose of selling their hides. In Brazil, such hunting was prohibited by a 1967 federal law, but massive damage had been done to the cat’s population. “This is the first registered sighting of a puma in the São Donato Biological Reserve,” says José Caresani, part of a team of...
[ Log in to read more | Subscribe ]
