The peso has strengthened over the last few days, as a good economic tidings from the U.S. make a recession in that country look less likely. (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)
The Mexican peso appreciated against the US dollar for a third consecutive day on Thursday to trade well below 19 to the greenback.
The Bank of Mexico’s USD:MXN rate at the close of markets on Thursday was 18.65.
Bloomberg data shows that the peso strengthened on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after closing at 19.07 to the dollar on Monday. The gains for the peso over the three-day period amount to around 2.3%.
Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Banco Base, said on X Thursday afternoon that the Mexican peso was the currency that appreciated the second most on Thursday after the Russian ruble.
Foreign exchange news website FX Street reported that the peso rose on Thursday as the greenback “broadly softened.”
“U.S. retail sales [in July] firmly eclipsed forecasts, causing investors to shrug off recent economic slowdown concerns. Rate markets pulled back on their bets of a double cut from the Federal Reserve (Fed) in September,” FX Street said.
A double rate cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve is looking less likely. (Kurtis Garbutt/Flickr)
“… The jump in U.S. retail sales, a firm indication of good economic health, prompted a broad recovery in risk appetite, sending the greenback lower,” the news site said.
While the USD:MXN rate is now below 19, the peso has depreciated considerably since the comprehensive victories of Claudia Shienbaum and the ruling Morena party in the June 2 presidential and congressional elections. The peso closed at 17.01 to the dollar on the Friday before the election.
Concern over Morena’s legislative agenda, in particular a controversial judicial reform proposal, was the main driver of the decline in the post-election period.
As FX Street notes, “higher interest rates are generally positive for the Mexican peso as they lead to higher yields, making the country a more attractive place for investors,” while “lower interest rates tend to weaken the peso.”
Bolaños Mayor-elect Yuniur Vázquez Rosalío was found dead alongside his campaign manager in a wrecked vehicle, three days after he was reported missing. (Comisión de Búsqueda de Personas del Estado de Jalisco/Facebook)
The Indigenous Wixárika community in northern Jalisco is raising doubts about the official explanation that a vehicle accident killed Yuniur Vázquez Rosalío, the recently elected mayor of Bolaños, and his campaign manager, Antonio Carrillo González.
The two men were both prominent figures among the Wixárika (also known as the Huichol). They were found dead inside a wrecked pickup truck in a ravine off the Villa Guerrero–Bolaños highway on Aug. 13. The pair had already been reported missing, having not been seen since three days earlier.
Vázquez was a lawyer, activist and mayor-elect of his hometown, Bolaños, Jalisco. (Yuniur Vázquez Rosalío/FAcebook)
According to the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences, the deaths resulted from third-degree head trauma sustained in the crash.
Given Vázquez and Carrillo’s experience with the area’s risks, many have been questioning whether the deaths were truly accidental.
Vázquez, 35, had recently won the mayoral election as a candidate of the local Hagamos party, part of a multi-party coalition that also included Morena. He was the first to do so under a political banner other than the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) or the National Action Party (PAN).
Yuniur Vázquez Rosalío disappeared just after he returned from a meeting of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico City, held on Aug. 9. (Yuniur Vázquez Rosalío/Facebook)
A lawyer and longtime activist, Vázquez was deeply involved in defending Indigenous rights and promoting autonomy for Wixárika communities. On Saturday, he participated in a National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico City. He was to be sworn in as mayor on Oct. 1.
Currently, the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office continues to investigate the alleged accident, but Indigenous leaders are demanding a more thorough and transparent inquiry. They argue that the deaths are part of a larger pattern of violence against Indigenous leaders in Mexico.
“This tragedy highlights the cruel reality that our Indigenous peoples face in Mexico: a system that, instead of protecting us, abandons us to violence and insecurity,” it read.
In Jalisco, the Wixárika community mainly lives in remote, small mountain towns such as Bolaños. They are known for their vibrant culture, which includes shamanistic traditions, intricate beadwork and vibrant yarn paintings.
Apartment block under construction in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, the state in Mexico where the average housing price spiked the most from the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024. (Adriana Aceves/Shutterstock)
Buying a home in Mexico cost 9.5% more on average in the first half of 2024 than in the same period of last year, according to a federal government agency.
Data from the Federal Mortgage Society (SHF) shows that the average cost of a home in Mexico between January and June was 1.724 million pesos (US $92,500 at today’s exchange rate).
The full list of year-on-year variation in average home costs between semester 1 of 2023 and semester 1 of 2024, by state. Although Mexico City was the most expensive place to buy a home in 2024, its year-on-year increase from 2023 to 2024 was the smallest. (SHF)
The average price encompasses both apartment and house prices and is calculated from data on homes purchased using a mortgage.
The year-over-year increase in housing prices was almost double the prevailing annual headline inflation rate at the end of June, which was 4.98%. It is the second-highest increase in housing prices during the first half of a year since 2015. The first-highest occurred in 2023, when the annual spike was 11.6%.
Rising home costs: where and why
SHF data shows that Mexico’s most expensive place to buy a home is Mexico City, while the cheapest is Durango. (See below)
Baja California Sur, which includes the popular resort city of Los Cabos, saw the biggest annual increase in housing prices, at 14.7%.
The 9.5% increase in residential property prices across Mexico in the first half of the year coincided with a 0.4% decline in the construction of new dwellings, according to public data. Among the factors behind the annual decline in new home construction was an increase in building costs.
A total of 60,451 dwellings were built between January and June of 2024.
New home construction was down nationally in the first half of 2024, but demand remained steady compared to 2023, putting pressure on prices. In Baja California Sur, a 34.4% decrease in the number of new homes built in the first half of 2024 coincided with a 14.4% spike in the average home price — the highest increase of all Mexico’s states. (Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro)
Analysts at BBVA México said that constant demand was a factor in the year-over-year increase in property prices.
Jorge Combe, director general of real estate sector company DD360, told the El Economista newspaper that margins for real estate developers have declined due to a range of factors, including inflation for construction materials and high interest rates.
Property prices in central Mexico
The average price of a Mexico City home was 3.933 million pesos (US $211,000) in the first half of the year, a 5.8% increase compared to the same period of 2023.
Mexico City is easily the most expensive place in the country to buy a home, with prices averaging much higher than those in Baja California Sur — the country’s second most expensive residential real estate market — and Querétaro, the third most expensive market.
There are significant variations in the prices of houses and apartments in the capital, depending on the location. Needless to say, prices in desirable, upscale and well-located neighborhoods such as Polanco and Condesa are far higher than prices in less-developed districts on the city’s periphery.
In neighboring México state, which includes many municipalities that are part of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area, the average house price is less than half that of the capital. Prices in México state increased 8% annually to 1.742 million pesos (US $93,400), just above the national average.
The average price of a home in Mexico City was 3.933 million pesos (US $211,000) in the first half of the year. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices for other states in central Mexico in the first half of the year.
Morelos: 2.058 million pesos (US $110,300), an annual increase of 9.6%.
Puebla: 1.688 million pesos (US $90,500), an annual increase of 11.3%.
Hidalgo: 1.205 million pesos (US $64,600), an annual increase of 8.4%.
Tlaxcala: 1.076 million pesos (US $57,700), an annual increase of 6.5%.
How much does a home cost in the Bajío?
The Bajío region of Mexico — an industrial hub — includes large cities such as León and San Luis Potosí city and popular tourism destinations such as San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato city. Average housing prices in those places are considerably higher than in rural parts of the region.
The Bajio region of Mexico includes a mix of both industrial and picturesque historical cities — like Guanajuato city, seen here. (Richie Chan/Shutterstock)
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices in the first half of the year for states that are wholly or partially located within the Bajío region.
Querétaro: 2.199 million pesos (US $113,600), an annual increase of 10.5%.
Jalisco: 1.861 million pesos (US $99,700), an annual increase of 9.2%.
San Luis Potosí: 1.513 million pesos (US $81,100), an annual increase of 10.6%
Guanajuato: 1.379 million pesos (US $73,900), an annual increase of 10.6%.
Aguascalientes: 1.344 million pesos (US $72,000), an annual increase of 9.2%.
Zacatecas: 1.134 million pesos (US $60,800), an annual increase of 6.7%.
Housing costs in Mexico’s southeast
Tourism hotspots such as Cancún and Playa del Carmen and the growing city of Mérida, the capital of Yucatán, are among the places in southeastern Mexico where housing prices are above the average. The newly-built Maya Train railroad runs through this region, which is known for white sand beaches, pretty colonial cities, awe-inspiring archaeological sites and the long-established Indigenous Maya culture.
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices in the first half of the year for Mexico’s southeastern states.
Yucatán: 2.026 million pesos (US $108,700), an annual increase of 9.6%.
Quintana Roo: 1.743 million pesos (US $93,500), an annual increase of 12.7%.
Campeche: 1.455 million pesos (US $78,100), an annual increase of 10.7%.
Tabasco: 1.408 million pesos (US $75,500), an annual increase of 10.6%.
Veracruz: 1.243 million pesos (US $66,700), an annual increase of 8.2%.
The real estate market in northern Mexico
Large cities such as Monterrey and Ciudad Juárez are located in northern Mexico, which is also home to a large number of export-oriented factories known as maquiladoras or maquilas. Also located in the region is the picturesque Baja California peninsula, divided into two separate states.
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices in the first half of the year for Mexico’s northern states.
Baja California Sur: 2.260 million pesos (US $121,200), an annual increase of 14.7%.
Baja California: 1.916 million pesos (US $102,700), an annual increase of 12.6%.
Sinaloa: 1.815 million pesos (US $97,300), an annual increase of 9.2%.
Nuevo León: 1.751 million pesos (US $93,900), an annual increase of 11.5%.
Sonora: 1.585 million pesos (US $85,000), an annual increase of 12.1%.
Chihuahua: 1.418 million pesos (US $76,000), an annual increase of 10.6%.
Coahuila: 1.273 million pesos (US $68,200), an annual increase of 8.8%.
Tamaulipas: 1.027 million pesos (US $55,000), an annual increase of 8.8%.
Durango: 978, 774 pesos (US $52,500), an annual increase of 10.3%.
Property prices in the southern states
Mexico’s most disadvantaged states are located in the south. The region is also home to popular tourism destinations, including Oaxaca city, Acapulco and San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Although Chiapas came in No. 7 nationally among Mexico’s states for average home price variation from 2023 to 2024, it tied the state of Oaxaca for the highest increase in Mexico’s southern states, with an 11.5% increase. (Rubi Rodriguez Martinez/Shutterstock)
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices in the first half of the year for Mexico’s southern states.
Oaxaca: 1.618 million pesos (US $86,700), an annual increase of 11.5%.
Michoacán: 1.578 million pesos (US $84,600), an annual increase of 6.4%.
Guerrero: 1.518 million pesos (US $81,400), an annual increase of 7.3%.
Chiapas: 1.339 million pesos (US $71,800), an annual increase of 11.5%.
How much does a home cost in western Mexico?
Listed below (from most expensive to cheapest) are the average housing prices in the first half of the year for two states in western Mexico.
Nayarit: 1.757 million pesos (US $94,200), an annual increase of 11.7%.
Colima: 1.349 million pesos (US $72,300), an annual increase of 10.6%.
Marylou Morton returned 31 pre-Columbian pieces and one more recent historical artifact. (SRE/X)
The Mexican Consulate in Portland, Oregon, will soon repatriate 32 pre-Columbian archaeological artifacts turned over by a U.S. citizen, according to a statement by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
Mexican Consul Carlos Quesnel Meléndez traveled to Eugene, Oregon, to officially receive the artifacts. (SRE/X)
“The reports by INAH specialists have confirmed that the 32 pieces are movable works owned by the Mexican nation,” the statement says. “Thirty-one pieces are archaeological works manufactured between 300 B.C. and A.D. 1521, while the remaining one is a historical asset.”
The consulate will send the Mexican archaeological artifacts home from Oregon in a diplomatic pouch so that INAH specialists can issue their professional opinion based on the physical inspection of the pieces.
In the statement, the Mexican Government thanked Morton for the voluntary restitution of the heritage assets. It has also called on the population to restrain from participating in the plundering of archaeological objects to preserve Mexico’s cultural heritage.
The artifacts will add to the more than 14,000 items recovered by Mexico as part of the #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende initiative (My Heritage is Not for Sale). This strategy is part of the current administration’s mission to reclaim, safeguard and promote cultural heritage unlawfully taken from Mexico. The U.S. has been the top source of reclaimed artifacts, followed by Spain and Italy.
The current administration has worked to repatriate Mexican artifacts from around the world through the #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende initiative. (SRE/X)
Mexico has also recovered cultural heritage from the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, among other countries.
Ternium operates nine industrial centers in Mexico, six of which are located in Nuevo León.(Ternium México)
Ternium, one of Latin America’s leading steel companies, has announced a major investment in Mexico as part of an ambitious expansion plan to be completed in 2026.
Amounting to US $4 billion, the announced investment will go towards building additional steel manufacturing plants in the northern municipality of Pesquería in Nuevo León. The new facilities will produce cold-rolled, raw and galvanized steel for the automotive, appliance, construction, electric motor, plumbing and train equipment industries, among others.
Ternium’s plant in Pesquería, which received US $4 billion in investment earlier this year. (Ternium México)
Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya said he has already shared the investment plan with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum.
“We have already invested more than US $4 billion in certain plants [in Pesquería] and we’re now going to invest another 4 billion dollars in carrying out different processes,” Vedoya said in a press conference. He added that this investment will strengthen the value chain in North America, with the USMCA as its main driving force.
The move follows the ongoing construction of a Ternium steel mill in Pesquería which the company announced in March. This facility, once built, will have the capacity to generate 2.6 million tonnes of cast steel annually.
Ternium’s investment in Mexico seeks to add value to the country, Vedoya said.
“I’m convinced that in the North American region we have to work together, because the enemy is not the United States, not Mexico,” he stressed. “The enemy of Mexico and the United States are subsidies, and the aggressive policy of taking good jobs to Asia, mainly China and other satellite countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia.”
“Mexico is not going to supplant all those imports from China,” Alberto Villarreal, director of Nepanoa, a Chicago-based company that helps foreign companies expand to Latin America, told the newspaper El País. He added that Mexico is competing “at a global level for those exports with other economies in Asia such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, which is a much more developed country, and with India.”
For Vedoya, the USMCA is “a great treaty” for Mexico as it has helped the country increase its exports to the U.S. “This is what we need to continue to encourage,” he concluded.
Ternium, which employs 20,000 people, operates nine industrial centers in Mexico, six of which are located in Nuevo León. Founded in Argentina, the company has had a presence in Mexico since 2007.
Mexico News Daily writer Louisa Rogers was tasked with bringing U.S. customer service to a Mexican hotel. Here's what she learned abut Mexico in the process. (Shutterstock)
A few years ago, the manager of a boutique hotel in Guanajuato asked me to lead a customer service training for the hotel’s reception, restaurant and cleaning staff. As a business trainer in the United States, I’d led customer service training many times. But never a Mexican customer service training session! I was probably more nervous than the participants, especially with the language, even though I spoke advanced Spanish.
The manager wanted to empower his staff to make decisions without always consulting him. That’s a tall order in Mexico, where employees are typically expected to show respect for authority and defer decisions to the manager. He was also concerned that the staff didn’t always understand what international guests expected, leading to frustration for guests and employees alike.
Even in high end establishments, Mexico’s business culture is quite different from that of the United States. (Booking)
What was more, he told me, they sometimes came across as overly formal, responding to questions with just a brief yes or no without any explanation. I had experienced this myself in different settings and knew that it wasn’t a helpful response to the mostly international hotel guests, visiting from the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany.
I prepared for weeks, customizing my English-language customer service training material for a Mexican group and going over the resources and exercises I planned with my Spanish tutor. At the seminar, I began the first session by introducing myself and then telling the participants that I believed focusing on customer service would help them gain success.
The universal elevator speech
We started with self-introductions, which are an important part of any business interaction. One by one, each person stood up and told us their name and role. They were nervous at first, but gradually warmed up. I usually asked them to do it again, suggesting that they slow down, pause frequently and speak up.
For foreigners, Mexican names can be a mouthful, consisting of a first name (or two), the father’s last name, followed by the mother’s. These sometimes sound like a blur and are hard to remember for those with little exposure to Mexico. By the end of the circuit, everyone seemed more comfortable with their self-introduction.
Responding to complaints
Then we made a list of the main complaints they heard from guests:
“The air conditioning doesn’t work.”
“There’s no hot water.”
“This meal wasn’t what I expected.”
“It’s nighttime. I have this problem, and the maintenance crew isn’t around.”
We role-played how to respond. I was delighted when a participant pointed out that just answering with one word wasn’t helpful; what was important, he said, was to offer a solution.
From busboys to management, staff talked and laughed about common problems they faced running the hotel. (American Green Travel)
Everyone cracked up when one of the cleaners shared that a customer complained when a wheeled bed kept escaping from its usual spot and rolled all the way to the door.
Changing old habits isn’t easy
During the role-playing exercise, the staff told me that workers in Mexican hotels and restaurants are trained to keep their hands behind their backs as a sign of deference, a style that wouldn’t work well with most North American or European guests.
I brought this up later with the manager, who suggested I encourage them to use more visible body language, but also that I ask them how they felt trying a different nonverbal style, as it’s not easy to change deeply ingrained habits. I was impressed with his level of understanding and respect for his staff.
Alternatives to common responses
Later in the session, we discussed different options to statements often used in Mexico:
Instead of “no hay” — “There isn’t any” — try “We don’t have that currently, but would you like…?”
Instead of“no es posible,” offer something that is possible.
Instead of“no puedo” — “I can’t” — say something positive: “What I can do is…”
Instead of “se acabó” — “We’re out of it” — try “We don’t have that currently. Would you like this instead?”
Body language
As participants practised alternative responses, we also discussed the fact that nonverbal communication is very cultural, and what’s appropriate in one culture may not be in another. As the manager suggested, I encouraged them to experiment with keeping their hands visible and looking directly at the guest, even though it was different from their normal style, and to notice whatever feelings came up.
For homework between sessions, I gave the participants a list of questions about the hotel to increase their knowledge, so that they could better answer a question, even if it was outside their area of expertise, such as “List a couple of the services offered in the Day Spa” and “What the are the three types of suites called?”
Hotel employees needed to know about the services to provide a better experience. (Ashwini Chaudhary/Unsplash)
Following upon guests’ concerns
In the second session, we discussed how to let a client know they would get back to them with an answer. Guests from goal-oriented cultures like the United States and Germany are reassured by a precise time frame, not the “ahorita” — fairly soon — or “un ratito” — “a little while” — so commonly used in Mexico.
Making action statements
In the final exercise, the participants created action statements such as “I’ll promise only what I can deliver,” “I’ll offer solutions, not excuses,” “I will give specific, concrete responses to guests,” “I’ll focus on the guest instead of chatting with my coworker” and “I won’t look at my phone when guests are around.”
I also created action statements myself: “I’ll institute the ground rule I always use in the U.S. but forgot here: No side conversations!” There wasn’t a lot of chatter, but it doesn’t take much to be distracting. And “I’ll make it clear that no one has to ask my permission to go to the restroom!”
What we all learned
Based on their evaluations, the hotel staff learned why it was helpful to come across less passive and deferential, as well as the importance of cross-departmental knowledge.
And I learned that despite a highly egalitarian manager, they still found it difficult to let go of their hierarchical cultural training. I was also struck by the fact that, among themselves, they ignored differences in status and pay, had fun, teased each other and made jokes.
I was pleasantly surprised when they said Americans and Canadians were pretty forgiving when their expectations weren’t met. In their experience, it was Mexicans and Italians who were more likely to get irritated.
On further reflection, my only regret is that I didn’t schedule a follow up session a couple of months later to find out how well they were internalizing the insights they’d gained. Still, they were so positive at the end that I’m hopeful the training helped increase their success in their work lives.
Louisa Rogers and her husband Barry Evans divide their lives between Guanajuato and Eureka, on California’s North Coast. Louisa writes articles and essays about expat life, Mexico, travel, physical and psychological health, retirement and spirituality. Her recent articles are on her website, https://authory.com/LouisaRogers
Studies in the northern state of Sinaloa suggest wild jaguars are once again breeding in the state. (All photos by Yamel Rubio Rocha)
At the foot of Sinaloa’s Sierra Madre Occidental range lies the municipality of San Ignacio. Much has changed since San Ignacio’s founding in 1633. But one thing remains the same: despite years of being hunted and feared, jaguars still roam the forests that surround the town.
The same can’t be said in many other places. Jaguars’ range once stretched from what is now the United States down to Argentina. Since the arrival of the Spanish, however, they have disappeared from more than half of the areas they once lived. Many remaining populations are on the brink of disappearing. The destruction of their home forests, loss of the prey that live in those forests, and killings by cattle ranchers are just a few of the threats jaguars face.
While jaguar populations have disappeared in many areas of Latin America, the big cats still roam wild in the state of Sinaloa. (Eduardo Esparza)
Despite the challenges, Mexico’s jaguars are a rare success story in the world of conservation, thanks in part to the work of researchers like Dr. Yamel Rubio Rocha. Rubio is a biologist at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) and the force behind FUSCBIO, a conservation nonprofit.
The third jaguar census is currently wrapping up, with results expected in October. When I visited Rubio at Sinaloa’s Jaguar Biological Station in July, she and her team had just collected the camera traps they use to tally and study the big cats.
Yamel Rocha Rubio and her team prepare the camera traps to monitor wild jaguar populations. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
Yamel Rocha Rubio has seen signs of the animal’s presence and even heard its deep, hoarse roar nearby in the forest, though she’s never seen it with her own eyes in nature. That’s no surprise: jaguars are a “cryptic” species whose stealth and wariness of humans means that even people who live all their lives near the cats rarely see them.
Rubio, however, has seen hundreds of jaguars via the camera traps her team uses for the Cenjaguar count. This year in Sinaloa, the team worked from April to July. They braved sweltering heat to set up and later collect 40 camera traps from 30 stations, over a 200-square-kilometer area. On top of all that, they also monitor highways and roadkills to understand how traffic impacts jaguars and other large mammals.
Now that they’ve collected the camera traps, it’s time to analyze the thousands of photos and videos captured since April. By carefully comparing the rosette, or spot, patterns of the jaguars caught on camera, biologists can identify individuals. Tracking the movement patterns and reappearances of each jaguar allows them to estimate how many live in a given area.
“We’ve identified at least four different individuals in our San Ignacio research area [this year], but there’s more for us to do because we’re talking about examining hundreds and thousands of images,” Rubio said in late July.
Reason for hope
The camera traps are detecting more wild jaguars than initially expected. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
The team has even spotted a mother with two cubs, a promising sign for the local ecosystem.
“That also gives us a lot of hope because when you have territory with females and males, that’s fabulous,” Rubio said. “But when you have cubs, then we’re talking about a source site, about a site where there are conditions that allow individuals to reproduce.”
She hopes this year’s results will show that San Ignacio’s feline family is not an anomaly. Since Cenjaguar began in 2010, the population in Sinaloa has seen a small increase. Taking into account a margin of error, Rubio says that “at least at the moment, I can tell that the population is holding on.”
Dr. Gerardo Ceballos also expressed hope that this year’s census will show population increases. Ceballos is a national leader of the Cenjaguar project alongside “Mexican Bat Man” Rodrigo Medellín. He told Mexico News Daily in March that jaguar populations at the national level increased between the first and second censuses.
Dr. Gerardo Ceballos presenting the national plan for the conservation of jaguars in 2016. (Moisés Pablo/Cuartoscuro)
“In the first census there were 4,000 jaguars,” Ceballos said. “In 2018, we had increased to 4,800 jaguars despite the enormous problems the country has.” Ceballos predicted that this year’s survey would find even more specimens.
Globally, jaguar populations are near-threatened and decreasing, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But in Mexico, the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
Local initiatives to protect jaguars
In San Ignacio, Rubio says the community’s commitment to conservation gives her hope.
The project has become an important part of the local community. (Yamel Rubio Rocha)
Locals take part in reforestation projects and guide the scientists as they search the forest for likely jaguar hangouts. Two local women, Mónica Osuna and Rosa María Manjarrez, take care of the small but vibrant Jaguar Museum in the neighboring town of Cabazán. The museum is free, though donations to support its programming are welcome. Jaguar themes have also become a notable part of local patronal festivals, where the pre-Columbian dance of the jaguar is still sometimes performed.
Meanwhile, government programs reimburse ranchers for livestock lost to animal attacks, which are often blamed on jaguars. Rubio, however, says the station’s monitoring work points to other causes like feral dog packs and reimbursement fraud.
The biological station also hosts guests. It rents out rustic cabins in the forest near the station for nature lovers, students and academics who want to participate in and learn about the research. Rubio recommends visiting between November and March to avoid the hottest months of summer. Interested parties can reach out by email to her, FUSCBIO or the Jaguar Museum for more information.
The cabin rentals help raise money for the station’s research operations. They also help with another goal: spreading understanding of jaguars’ beauty and their cultural and ecological importance.
For the time being, Rubio and the biological station are focused on analyzing camera trap photos with the hope that come October, they will have good news to report.
Rose Egelhoff is a freelance writer based in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Follow her work at RoseEgelhoff.com
It's official: 240 legal complaints regarding the validity of Claudia Sheinbaum's election as president of Mexico on June 2 have been dismissed by the nation's Federal Electoral Tribunal, clearing the way for the president-elect to take office in October. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)
The Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) has validated Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory in the June 2 presidential election, meaning that she is now the official president-elect of Mexico.
The TEPJF said in a statement on Wednesday that its upper chamber dismissed 240 complaints against the election results as well as one request from a citizen for the election to be annulled.
Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal chief Mónica Soto Arali, center, makes the announcement Wednesday that the tribunal had dismissed all complaints filed over the nation’s June 2 presidential election of Claudia Sheinbaum. (Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro)
The court also dismissed a claim of election irregularities filed by Xóchitl Gálvez, the candidate for the main opposition parties at the June 2 election.
“Afterward, the final calculation of the presidential election was carried out, which concluded that the candidate Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo obtained the majority of votes,” the TEPJF said.
It said that Sheinbaum, the ruling Morena party’s presidential candidate, received more than 35.9 million votes or 59.76% of the total number of ballots cast.
The presidential election was found to be “valid because it was free, authentic and periodic,” the TEPJF said.
“Furthermore, it complied with the principles that govern the organization of elections: certainty, legality, independence, impartiality, maximum publicity and objectivity,” the court said.
Given that she “satisfies the requirements to be president of the United Mexican States” in accordance with the Mexican Constitution, the upper chamber of the Federal Electoral Tribunal “declared Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo the first presidenta electa,” or female president-elect, of Mexico, the TEPJF said.
Presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, Sheinbaum’s main opponent, filed a complaint with the Federal Electoral Tribunal soon after the election over what she believed were irregularities in the process. The tribunal ultimately dismissed her complaint. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
Sheinbaum, who will be sworn in on Oct. 1, will receive a certificate confirming her majority victory at the TEPJF headquarters in Mexico City on Thursday.
Her comprehensive victory on the first Sunday of June ensures the continuation of the so-called “fourth transformation” (4T) of Mexico, initiated by current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum said in June she would put forth two of her own constitutional reform proposals — one that would ensure that all women aged 60 to 64 receive government financial support and another that would guarantee educational scholarships for all public school students.
A protégé of López Obrador who served as environment minister in Mexico City when the current president was mayor there in the early 2000s, Sheinbaum will provide continuity in a range of areas, including by maintaining significant government support for Mexico’s most disadvantaged people.
An estimated tens of thousands of fish had died due to severe water depletion in three Chihuahua lakes, but the whole state is struggling with what one state official called "an ecological disaster." (Civil Protection Cuauhtémoc)
A long-running drought in the northern state of Chihuahua has caused three lakes to dry up, leaving tens of thousands of fish to die.
The Bustillos, Encinillas and Fiero lakes have gone from being “robust” bodies of water to “small puddles” surrounded by dying and rotten fish, according to a report published on Wednesday by the EFE news agency.
How Laguna de Bustillos looked in 2020, in better times. (Facebook)
Laguna de Bustillos is located in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc, Laguna de Encinillas is in the north of the municipality of Chihuahua (which includes the state capital) and Laguna Fierro is in Nuevo Casas Grandes.
Ernesto García Chánez, municipal director of ecology in Nuevos Casas Grandes, told EFE that extreme drought across Chihuahua has caused an “ecological disaster” in the state.
During a visit to Laguna Fierro, he told the news agency that drought has affected Chihuahua for around two years. As water levels in lakes decline, “contaminants concentrate and cause fish to die,” García said.
The estimate that tens of thousands of fish have perished comes from local campesinos, or farmers.
The Milenio newspaper reported in June that most dead fish in Laguna de Bustillos were carp and catfish, some weighing as much as 20 kilograms. Pedro Ortiz Franco, president of a local environmental group, said that rainfall in the area in 2023 was only about one-third of normal levels.
In a striking headline in June, El Heraldo de Chihuahua said that Laguna de Encinillas had gone from an “oasis” to a “desert” in just one year.
Beginning in June, drought meant Chihuahua’s Laguna de Bustillos had basically more dead fish than water. State and local personnel had to be called in to remove thousands of rotting fish. (Blanca Carmona/La Verdad Juárez)
“It’s sad to see that this lake is dry as a result of the drought and climate change,” Kamel Athie, a water expert and former National Water Commission (Conagua) official, told the newspaper.
The mass fish die-off at Laguna de Bustillos attracted international news media attention in June, and even the attention of the United States Geological Service, whose Landsat satellites captured images of the lakebed’s devastation.
The entire state of Chihuahua is in drought
In a drought monitor update published on August 5, Conagua reported that 100% of the territory of Chihuahua was affected by some level of drought. The only other state with all of its land affected by drought was Sinaloa.
Just over 54% of land in Chihuahua was affected by “extreme drought,” 27.6% by “severe drought” and 11.1% by “exceptional drought.”
Humberto Salazar, an agriculture official in Nuevos Casas Grandes, told EFE that farmers don’t have enough water or pasture on their properties for their livestock.
“The producers in the region have been taking feed up [to their animals] since March or April, and lately they’ve been taking water up to the fields as well because we don’t have the rain we need,” he said.
Rainfall during the current rainy season has been “very isolated, very limited,” Salazar said. “We hope that the situation improves in coming days.”
Mexico's Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco, left, and Carlos Cordera Frazen, right, the director of Mexico City's soon-to-open Mario Moreno Cantinflas Museum, ceremonially unveil a plaque commemorating the iconic Mexican actor's birthplace. In the center is a Cantinflas impersonator. (Alice Moritz/Cuartoscuro)
A museum dedicated to treasured Mexican comedic actor Cantinflas will open later this year in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, officials said Tuesday at the unveiling of a Cantinflas mural in another part of the capital.
The museum, which officials said will fully open by the end of the year, will pay homage to Cantinflas’ legacy in Mexican cinematic and cultural history. Currently referred to as the Mario Moreno Cantinflas Museum, it will include exhibition areas, modern technology, a cafeteria and a souvenir shop.
Officials announced the upcoming opening of the Mario Moreno Cantinflas museum at the unveiling of a street art mural dedicated to the iconic actor in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood. The artist responsible for the mural, known as Yuka, is second from right. (Alice Moritz/Cuartoscuro)
The museum dedicated to the Mexican film legend will be housed in a facility to be called “La Carpa Valentina,” in tribute to a popular vaudeville theater (which were called carpas, or tents) in Mexico City where a young Cantinflas honed his comedic skills before gaining wider recognition.
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes — known simply as Mario Moreno before his “Cantinflas” moniker took hold — was born 113 years ago this week, on Aug. 12, 1911. He died in 1993 at age 81.
The colorful, new Cantinflas mural unveiled Tuesday is located in the capital’s Guerrero neighborhood, at 182 Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas, the building where the Mexican icon grew up. The mural was painted by the prominent Mexican street artist known as “Yuka,” whose works also appear in Germany, Italy, Japan and Argentina. The site of the new mural also includes a Cantinflas plaque, which was affixed in 2013 to pay tribute to the actor’s birthplace.
Officials said the museum will initially open in late September and will display 777 pieces related to Cantinflas, such as clothes, scripts, letters, articles and film clips. That number was chosen in deference to the famous Cantinflas film “El patrullero 777,” or “Patrolman 777.”
Sporting a distinctive, whimsical mustache that was part of the Mexican actor’s overall comic persona, Cantinflas had a film career that spanned from his heyday in the 1940s and 1950s up through the early 1980s. Sometimes he is referred to as “the Mexican Charlie Chaplin.”
He mostly portrayed hapless but well-intentioned characters, such as a patrolman who wants to keep order but finds himself in increasingly absurd (and funny) situations. His best films are known for their witty dialogue, physical comedy and social commentary.
Un Día Común | El Barrendero (1982) | Now Español
A clip of Mexican actor Cantinflas in his final role, in 1982’s “El Barrendero” (The Sweeper).
The mural unveiled on Tuesday by the Tourism Ministry shows Cantinflas as four of his most famous characters: the aforementioned patrolman, the affable but perplexed Chato from “Ahí está el detalle” (“It’s All in the Details”), the rapid-speaking but nonsensical Professor Pancito López in “El profe,” and a lovable but woebegone street sweeper in “El barrendero.”
The legendary Mexican actor received perhaps an even bigger honor in 1992, when the Royal Spanish Academy added to its dictionary the verb cantinflear, alluding to someone who expresses himself by talking a lot but saying nothing — as Cantinflas regularly did in his movies.
Another honor will occur later this month, when a national lottery ticket dedicated to Cantinflas will be issued for the Aug. 25 drawing.
