PBI-UK and PBI-Canada webinar – Volunteering for Protection: Indigenous rights and the impacts of megaprojects
On June 10, PBI-United Kingdom and PBI-Canada organized a webinar on “Volunteering for Protection: Indigenous Rights and the Impacts of Megaprojects” in collaboration with PBI-Mexico and PBI-Honduras.
The webinar, moderated by Rachel Cox, featured Lilian Lizeth Flores from the Honduran Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication (ARCAH) and Alejandra Ignacio Alvarez from the Human Rights Solidarity Network (RSDH) in Mexico.
The webinar also featured Melody Moore, a field team volunteer who has been with PBI-Mexico for the past five months.
ARCAH – Honduras
Lilian noted that she is an Indigenous Lenca land defender.
She highlighted the concerns that ARCAH has about a proposed dam that would displace the Lenca community of Jiniguare.
Notably, the pending construction of the dam has been linked to UK Finance, a British banking association that has as members the Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank NV, The Toronto-Dominion Bank, Scotiabank Europe and The Bank Of Nova Scotia, the National Bank of Canada, and Canada Life.
Lilian emphasized: “We need to stop the funding from the bank because what the bank is doing is causing harm to us. It is not a benefit to our country. It’s a beautiful area. We will not let them harm our culture, our animals, our flora, our fauna, because it is so beautiful what is there.”
She also explained: “Construction hasn’t started on the dam, but they say they have the money, all the money to start. But they are not taking the Lenca people into account, all they talk about is themselves, they don’t involve us in the process at all. They just say that it is good.”
“There are two places where they are directing the water already. They are already channeling off this water and selling it.”
Lilian further commented: “But this is in our land. Why do they want this new dam? They’ve never consulted us. They’re always just damaging our community. And this is going to have a huge negative impact on our whole community. We are the Lenca people. We are fighting against this. It’s our land. It’s our ancestral land. We’ve had it for generations. So many generations that we’ve existed and lived there. We don’t want to leave there. Our roots are there. They want everything. They want to rip us from our roots. Tear us away from our roots. They just want to keep making money.”
RSDH – Mexico
Alejandra noted that her organization works in the Indigenous Purhépecha region of Nahua territory in the state of Michoacán. Among the key issues, she highlighted, are the avocadoes that are grown primarily for export to the United States. Canada is the second largest market for avocadoes grown in Mexico.
Alejandra also noted the struggle against mining companies. A specific concern is the Luxembourg-based steel manufacturing company Ternium that has a concession of 5,000 hectares within the Indigenous Nahua community in Santa María Ostula in the coastal highlands in the state of Michoacán.
The Canadian mining companies that operate in Michoacán have included Catalyst Cooper Corp., Terra Nova Gold Corp., Fischer Watt Gold Company Inc., Rome Resources LTD-IMMSA, Candente Gold Corp., and Silver Shield Resources Corp.
Alejandra further highlighted: “Over the last three or four years, we have been able to prove that at least 10 human rights defenders have been disappeared or murdered [in Michoacán] as a result of the work they’ve been carrying out against the mining activities with international financing.”
She also commented: “[For people outside of Mexico it’s] perhaps not so much about not buying, but about responsible consumption, not only of avocadoes, but of crops in general. The impacts are not only on communities, on people, the production that produces a situation, and we have good evidence of this, in which Michoacan is experiencing a concept known for a while as macro-criminality. We have the damage caused by the projects, but it’s linked with organized crime which also implicates the authorities.”
PBI accompaniment
Melody Moore is a British volunteer with the PBI-Mexico field team.
Melody commented: “It’s never-ending the situation of megaprojects consistently trying to remove people from their land and take all the resources of the people from there and it’s definitely difficult to see that playing out in real time especially when you’ve formed these relationships with activists who we are in contact with all the time.”
“That is something really beautiful and special about our role because you get the opportunity to get to know people, to get to form relationships, and to understand this perspective.”
She added: “I do constant analysis of their situations of security, provide them with physical accompaniment, and really just continue to try to open up spaces for dialogue for them to carry out their actions and be heard by different levels of authorities here in Mexico.”
The importance of accompaniment.
Lilian further noted: “We really are very grateful to PBI for the accompaniment that has been offered us. It’s very important that we have the accompaniment of PBI because we are living in a situation of emergency because it’s possible that the dam project will force us off our land. We are very grateful for the work PBI does in order to support us in our struggle, we are very grateful for the advocacy activity, for the communication work carried out in the UK because it’s very important that the British banks stop financing the company and PBI has offered us support in all of these important areas.”
Alejandra added: “For us PBI accompaniment has been really important in training activities, in workshops that PBI carries out have been very important in terms of protection and political advocacy but also the advocacy work itself that PBI carries out directly and in the opening up of possibilities we have to raise our voices with the authorities. It has also been very important to us the information that PBI has provided about the situation, about the effects of avocado production and mining activities and this has led to expressions of solidarity from a wide range of people. We would also say along with these political activities the actual physical accompaniment that is provided to us by PBI as really helped in terms of our protection. The accompaniment that PBI has also provided in opening up the opportunity to enter into dialogue and to enter into networking with other organizations.”
Opportunities to help accompany
The next call for volunteers for PBI-Mexico will be from August 18 to 31, 2025. PBI-Honduras expects that their call for volunteers will come in September 2025. You can sign up to the PBI-UK mailing list or subscribe with PBI-Canada to get more information about these volunteer opportunities.
A Toronto-based activist who has previously been a field volunteer wit PBI-Colombia will be joining the PBI-Mexico protection team this coming July-August.
We continue to follow the concerns raised by Lilian in Honduras and Alejandra in Mexico, as well as the work of our colleagues with the PBI protection teams in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Cuernavaca, Mexico.
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