COVID roundup: Mexico City among 20 green states on risk map

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October 15, 2021

The new coronavirus map takes effect on Monday.

Green once again dominates the federal government stoplight map. There are 20 states in the green, up from just nine two weeks ago. The new map has 11 yellow states, one orange and none in the red, and reflects the gradual recovery from the devastating third wave of COVID-19.

Mexico City and México state will switch to low risk green on the new map. The neighboring states, which rank first and second for coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths, will remain green until at least October 31. Both are medium risk yellow on the map currently in force.

Mexico City official Eduardo Clark said that case numbers and hospitalizations had decreased in the capital, although there are still more than 6,000 estimated active cases. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the greater Mexico City area declined to 1,450 from 1,705 a week ago, Clark said.

He said that bars, cantinas, nightclubs and other entertainment venues will be permitted to operate at 50% capacity until 1:00 a.m. starting Monday. There will be no limits on attendance at outdoor events.

Mexico City has been the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the start of the pandemic, and despite the imminent switch to green, still has more active cases than any other state in the country. However, the capital also has the nation’s highest vaccination rate, with more than 90% of adults inoculated against COVID-19.

Neighboring México state will also go green on Monday, Governor Alfredo del Mazo said. “In México state we’re making progress, … this has been possible thanks to the efforts of everyone,” he said in a video message.

The governor said that all economic and social activities that have not yet been permitted to resume will be able to do so starting Monday, albeit with restrictions. He noted that more than 80% of adult residents of the state are vaccinated with at least one shot, adding that all people aged 18 and over will have had the opportunity to get vaccinated by the end of the month.

The only orange state is Baja California. The yellow states are Chihuahua, Coahuila, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Morelos, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán.

In other COVID-19 news:

• The Health Ministry reported 5,825 new cases and 381 additional COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated tallies to 3.74 million and 283,574, respectively. There are 40,835 estimated active cases across Mexico.

One in four cases recorded during the pandemic was detected in Mexico City and almost one in five deaths occurred there.

• Almost 67.7 million Mexican adults are vaccinated with at least one shot, according to the most recent Health Ministry data. Of that number, about three-quarters are fully vaccinated.

Mexico’s single-dose vaccination rate among adults is about 75% but just 53% if minors are counted.

• The federal government will wait until the first quarter of next year to consider the possibility of offering booster shots to adults, Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said.

“It’s possible but we don’t yet know the dynamic of the virus … in order to know when to reinforce [protection] or for which patients or individuals it’s recommended,” he said in an interview.

• Face masks became an instrument of “egotistical” people during the pandemic, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said during an appearance this week at an event at the International Book Fair in Mexico City.

“The idea of face masks became an instrument in which egotistical people, egotistical social groups, tried to blame others: ‘Put your face mask on because you are going to contaminate me and my little universe,’” he said.

“… In technical terms, we would have gotten better results if we had thought of face masks as a means of social connection, to protect one another.”

López-Gatell, the federal government’s coronavirus point man, was a less than forceful advocate for face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, casting doubt on their capacity to stop the spread of the virus.

With reports from Expansión Política, Milenio, AP, Reforma and El Universal

Meet 2 of rural Mexico’s insects: creepy to some, dangerous to no one

By

John Pint

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October 15, 2021

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The harmless vinagrillo (vinegaroon) is found all over Mexico. The name comes from its defense mechanism: spraying a vinegar-like substance at predators.

If you live in rural Mexico or occasionally pass the night in a rustic cabin or campsite, you are bound to run into creeping creatures that you may never have seen back where you grew up.

Because, in a moment of panic, we might feel an impulse to squish that unfamiliar bug, I’d like to present here just a few creepers that may not be exactly glamorous (except to a biologist or an unspoiled baby) but present no danger to human beings and should be left to go on their way, or perhaps be given a little assistance in getting out of your house.

I’m a member of a rural community that has recently come closer together thanks to a WhatsApp chat group.

In the past, a neighbor of mine who found a bizarre-looking creature in his or her bed might have dispatched it without hesitation, but today he or she will first snap a picture of the invader and post it on the chat a few seconds later, usually adding, “OMG, look what I found hiding under my pillow!”

Within seconds, my naturalist friend Rodrigo Orozco will reply from wherever he may be, urging the sender to keep calm and explaining whether the intruder is harmful or harmless and what steps to take next.

Vinegaroons

Perhaps the most common Is this dangerous? image I see on our chat is a picture of a vinegaroon, known in Mexico as a vinagrillo and graced by scientists with the intimidating name of Mastigoproctus giganteus giganteus.

This creature, which may be black, gray or brown, could measure up to 15 centimeters (six inches) in length, including all its parts, with a pair of claws that look like they belong on a lobster. Its tail might just bring the words “dangerous stinger” to the lips of the beholder.

Don’t be fooled! Those fearsome claws are meant only to catch little bugs, and the vinegaroon is such a naive creature that it will probably never even think of misusing its claws to pinch someone like you.

As for that needle-like tail, it’s actually a flexible organ of touch used for investigative purposes and not a stinger at all. However, it definitely grabs the viewer’s eye, for which reason the vinegaroon is also called the whip scorpion in English.

Scorpion, it is not, but the tail does resemble a whip antenna.

vinagrillo compared with emperor scorpion — At first glance, they may look the same, but the tail of the vinagrillo, top, is just a feeler, while the tail of the emperor scorpion, bottom, ends in a stinger.

With all that said, I must admit that the vinegaroon does possess its own special weapon and will not hesitate to use it if you mistreat the little guy in the slightest way.

Tickle a vinegarroon and it will retaliate by spraying you with something that smells just like vinegar.

This is a harmless mix of acetic plus caprylic acid and will not hurt you, but when sprayed into the eyes of a cat or dog, will definitely surprise the potential predator and send it running.

This trick has a certain useful effect on human beings too since the first thing you will do with the smelly vinegaroon is put it outside the house — which is exactly what it wants!

I once had a friend who kept a vinegaroon as a pet and would play with it when he was bored. Vinegaroons, in fact, are well-known to make good pets and will stop spraying the vinegar once they get to know you.

Best of all, they will keep your home free from scorpions and cockroaches. So, instead of chucking them out, maybe you’d like to invite a few in!

Aphonopelma tarantula discovered in a living room. Harmless to humans, they eat crickets, cockroaches and beetles.

Tarantulas

Mexico is home to 92 species of tarantula. So, if you live in rural Mexico, it would not be the least bit unusual for you to eventually discover one of these large hairy arachnids creeping about under your coffee table.

Please don’t step on it because not one of Mexico’s tarantulas is dangerous to human beings, despite the never-ending avalanche of popular movies portraying them as deadly.

Fortunately, the Tarántulas de México Wildlife Management Unit (UMA) happens to be located in my community (Pinar de La Venta, just outside Guadalajara). Thus, many people on our local WhatsApp chat have had the privilege of holding a large tarantula in their hand and finding out for themselves that they are ever-so gentle and in no way harmful or dangerous.

People all around the world who want a tarantula as a pet inevitably seek out Mexican redknees (Brachypelma smithi), which are renowned for their gentleness as well as their beauty.

If you do discover a tarantula in your living room, it will most certainly be a male, as it is their mission to wander about looking for females — who habitually stay put inside their burrows.

To help that male get back outside where it can continue its romantic quest, place a capture jar or bowl over it and very gently slide a stiff piece of cardboard underneath.

Mexican Redknee tarantula — The Mexican redknee tarantula is famed for its beauty and docility.

Are you worried that the tarantula might jump on you as you are attempting to capture him?

Relax. Mexican tarantulas don’t jump upward, only forward, and for a grand distance of about three centimeters, or one inch! Tarantulas are not given to leaping because they are both heavy and delicate, so delicate that Rodrigo the tarantula expert reckons that a fall of only 30 centimeters — a foot — could be fatal to this gentle giant.

Remember this when you are carrying the creature outside and letting it go!

Just like the vinegaroon, the tarantula does possess its own unique defense weapon. Instead of spraying vinegar, the provoked tarantula turns around and, using its back legs, flicks a cloud of short, nearly invisible, urticating hairs right into the nose of, say, a curious tlacuache (possum) or mapache (raccoon) that was contemplating a quick meal.

While these urticating hairs will send the possum running, they won’t cause much of a problem to a human being. In fact, for many years the famous “itching powder” sold at novelty shops was made of tarantula hairs.

If there is a reason to be concerned about tarantulas, it is not because they pose a threat but because they are themselves threatened.

Many years ago, Rodrigo realized that some species of Mexican tarantulas were in danger of going extinct because poachers would allow hundreds of them to die in a clumsy effort to sell a dozen or so to traffickers, who would then supply them to customers in the United States.

He reckoned that the only way to stop this process was to flood the black market with Mexican tarantulas raised in captivity. Nearly 20 years later, Tarántulas de México is carrying out this mission, and the black market in illegal Mexican tarantulas is practically out of business.

So, if a vinegaroon or a tarantula should stop by for a visit, recognize them for the innocent creatures they are and treat them kindly!

More creepy but harmless creatures coming up next time: the millipede, the amblypygid and the ever-so-scary cara de niño (Jerusalem cricket).

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.

A Magnacarina primaverensis tarantula explores the surface of a camping knife. This tarantula is native to Guadalajara’s Primavera Forest.

Mexico City initiates marigold tour route in time for Day of the Dead

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2021

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Mexico City residents looking to buy marigolds to decorate their Day of the Dead altars will find plenty on offer on the capital’s south side.

For a second consecutive year, cempasúchil (Mexican marigold) producers will sell their flowers along the “Agro-touristic Flowers of Mictlán Route” in the borough of Xochimilco. Mictlán is the name of the underworld in Aztec, or Mexica, mythology.

Along this year’s route, which runs through the chinampas (floating gardens) of San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, the town of San Greogorio Atlapulco and the San Juan Acuexcomatl Plants and Flowers Market, a grand total of 231 producers will be selling some 2.8 million marigolds, which are said to lure souls back from the dead with their bright color and powerful perfume.

Inaugurated on Thursday at a ceremony attended by Mexico City officials and marigold growers, the route will remain open daily through November 2. Anyone interested in following the route can do so on bicycle or foot between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Environment Minister Marina Robles García said the sale of 2.8 million marigolds in Xochimilco will inject some 100 million pesos (US $4.9 million) into the local economy. She described the marigold route as “extremely important” for the area.

Columba López Gutiérrez, general director of the Natural Resources and Rural Development Commission, said that Xochimilco marigold producers not only sell locally but also send flowers to 20 states across the country. She noted that production and sales have increased significantly in recent years, generating additional jobs.

López highlighted the support the Mexico City government has provided to growers via the Altepetl program, which seeks to conserve agricultural land and boost production in a sustainable way.

“The economic, social and environmental impact the Altepetl program has had is quite big and we can now reap results, not just with the cempasúchil,” she said.

With reports from Milenio

AMLO to discuss tree-planting program with with Biden climate advisor

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2021

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President López Obrador visits a Sembrando Vida project nursery. — President López Obrador visits a Sembrando Vida project nursery in Balancán, Tabasco. Official website of Andrés Manuel López Obrador

The United States government’s top climate official will accompany President López Obrador on a trip to Tabasco next week to learn about the federal government’s tree-planting employment program.

López Obrador said Friday he will travel to the municipality of Balancán on Monday with John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate.

“On Monday we’re going on a tour of the border of our country with Guatemala. We’re going to the municipality of Balancán, near Guatemala, and John Kerry, the presidential envoy of President Biden is coming,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.

“He’s coming [to discuss] climate change matters and to see the Sembrando Vida [Sowing Life] program,” the president said.

The United States government agreed last month to collaborate with Mexico on Sembrando Vida and the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme in the southern region of the country and in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

López Obrador asserts that the former program, which pays participants 5,000 pesos (US $245) to plant fruit and timber-yielding trees, is not only beneficial to the environment but also helps to stem migration to the United States.

He has described the program as the most important reforestation initiative in the world, but it has been plagued by lack of planning and operational problems, according to some observers.

Mexico asked the United States to commit US $108.4 million a month for the implementation of Sembrando Vida and Youths Building the Future in Central America but the U.S. hasn’t publicly pledged to do so.

With reports from Milenio

How Latin America became tech’s next big frontier

By

Michael Stott

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October 15, 2021

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Rappi, founded in Colombia, aims to become the 'superapp”' of Latin America. — Rappi, founded in Colombia, aims to become the 'superapp' of Latin America.

Buying a used car, renting an apartment or opening a bank account: all recurring nightmares in Latin America, because of reams of paperwork, lethargic bureaucracy and legal pitfalls.

Start-ups created to tackle problems like these are propelling the region to the forefront of the emerging market tech boom. Last year US $4.1 billion of venture capital investment flowed into Latin America, exceeding southeast Asia’s $3.3 billion and beating Africa, the Middle East and central and eastern Europe combined, according to the Global Private Capital Association.

In the first half of this year, Latin America pulled in $6.5 billion of venture capital, not far short of India’s $8.3 billion.

“We started in this industry in 1999 when there was hardly any internet, almost all the connections were dial-up and internet penetration was 3%,” said Hernán Kazah, co-founder of Kaszek Ventures, Latin America’s largest early-stage fund with more than $2 billion of capital raised to date. “Today, Latin America finally has critical mass in almost every market.”

Nubank exemplifies the new breed of Latin American start-up. Co-founded in 2013 by Colombian entrepreneur David Vélez after it took him six months to open a bank account when he moved to São Paulo, it has grown exponentially and now has more customers than any other standalone digital bank in the world.

A forthcoming IPO could value the Brazilian fintech at more than $50 billion, according to recent reports. That compares with the $79 billion value of Mercado Libre, the region’s answer to Amazon and Latin America’s most valuable company, founded in 1999 in a first wave of tech activity.

The latest crop of Latin American start-ups has attracted the attention of some of the tech world’s deepest-pocketed investors. Marcelo Claure, the Bolivia-born chief operating officer of SoftBank, announced last month a second dedicated Latin America tech fund, committing $3 billion on top of $5 billion allocated to the first fund in 2019.

“We’ve been incredibly surprised by the quality and quantity of great companies that were capital starved, so we started making investments,” Claure told the Financial Times. “There is so much room to improve people’s lives in LatAm, because all systems are inefficient and plagued by bureaucracy . . . huge opportunities for tech to disrupt.”

Mexico’s first unicorn, Kavak, is one such disrupter. Valued at $8.7 billion in a funding round last month, the company aims to improve the often hazardous experience of buying a used car. It offers buyers a mechanical check, a three-month guarantee, rapid online credit and home delivery.

Brazil-based Quinto Andar is simplifying the challenge of renting an apartment by cutting out brokers and offering its own insurance to vetted tenants, eliminating the need for huge deposits, guarantors or costly insurance.

Chilean start-up NotCo has deployed innovative AI to develop unusual combinations of plants to mimic the taste and texture of milk, mayonnaise, ice cream and meat. Valued at $1.5 billion in a funding round in July, NotCo has now expanded into the U.S. and Canada.

Kavak, Quinto Andar and Nubank highlight how Latin America’s most successful start-ups are dedicated to tackling the problems of the region.

“This story of bringing over Silicon Valley and trying to tropicalize it didn’t work,” said Ivonne Cuello, former chief executive of the region’s private capital association LAVCA. “The role models which started to be successful were the ones which said: ‘There are structural problems in the region which can be solved by new enterprises . . . designed exclusively for the needs of the region’.”

Kaszek’s Kazah said that Latin America’s innovators were now inspiring envy. “You see companies outside the region saying ‘I want to be the Nubank of Germany.’ That did not used to happen.”

Financial services have dominated Latin America’s start-up scene, with about 40% of the private funding to last year going to fintechs, according to LAVCA data.

Before the pandemic, more than half of the region’s citizens did not use a bank. In just a few months from May to September last year, 40 million people opened a bank account, according to research from Mastercard.

Fintech start-ups such as Nubank and Argentina’s Ualá played a key role in facilitating the expansion. In Brazil, the central bank has launched Pix, a fast money transfer system over mobile phones which has 110 million registered users.

“You have some of the world’s most profitable banks sitting in Brazil and Mexico so it’s an obvious first hit,” said SoftBank’s Claure. “These banks are highly inefficient, lots of branches, long queues and all that . . . so we started with fintech.”

As in other regions, the pandemic has accelerated digital change. Latin America has some of the world’s highest per capita coronavirus death rates and some of its worst recessions, but COVID-19 also forced much more economic activity online.

“For many years Latin America, a region which is large as a percentage of global GDP because these are middle-income countries, had been underinvested in technology,” said Pierpaolo Barbieri, who founded Ualá in 2017. “What we’re seeing now is a general catch-up where everyone is rushing to see what the opportunities are.”

In some areas, the region is still trailing. “Seventy percent of commerce in China is done online, almost 50% in the United States and . . . it’s still 20% in Latin America, so the process of economic digitization still has a long way to go,” Barbieri added.

Julio Vasconcellos, co-founder of Atlantico, a Latin American venture capital fund, has compared the total market capitalization of tech companies in the region as a proportion of GDP with the same ratio in Asia.

“When you look at the evolution of the U.S. market, the evolution of the Chinese market and now Latin America, the curve tends to look very similar over time,” he said. “It’s slow and gradual until it eventually hits an inflection point and it really starts to accelerate.

“Latin America is going through this inflection point roughly 10 years after the U.S. and around seven to eight years after China.”

Latin America’s total tech market capitalization stands at 3.4% of GDP, he said, compared with 30% in China and 14% in India. Were Latin America to reach Chinese levels of tech participation in the economy “we’re talking about the equivalent of over a trillion dollars of market value being created.”

How long that could take is unclear. Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, co-founder of U.S.-based Riverwood Capital, has been investing in Latin American tech since 2008. While he agrees that the region is experiencing “a lot of excitement” and that revenue growth in the tech sector is likely to be strong, he notes that funding ebbs and flows.

“There’s a significant increase in capital availability in the region, which accelerated in the past few years at a very rapid pace,” he said. “Where we are in the cycle is difficult to say [ . . .] we should be ready for volatility on that front.”

The region faces other challenges. As a major exporter of commodities, it is prone to economic booms and busts and its politics are volatile. An electoral cycle currently under way is throwing up a wave of anti-establishment candidates and demands for greater state intervention in the economy.

There are practical problems, too. Except in Brazil, software engineers are in short supply and universities are not producing enough tech-literate graduates. Fixed broadband connections are lacking in many areas.

SoftBank’s Claure, meanwhile, is comfortable increasing his tech bets. “Today the Latin American fund has over 100% IRR [internal rate of return] in local currency and it’s probably the best-performing fund that we have today from an IRR perspective.”

Three Latin American start-up successes

Nubank has a claim to be the greatest success story of Brazil’s start-up scene. Since launching a credit card with no annual fees in 2014, the fintech has amassed more than 40 million customers across its homeland, Mexico and Colombia.

A funding round this year gave the unicorn a valuation of $30 billion and it is now eyeing an initial public offering in the U.S. With a focus on technology and customer service, the São Paulo-headquartered group has challenged a Brazilian banking industry notorious for high charges and bureaucracy.

Through its smartphone app, Nubank also offers personal and business accounts, loans, insurance and investment products.

The online used-car platform Kavak was founded in Mexico in 2016 by Venezuelan entrepreneurs. The company recently raised $700 million in a funding round that valued it at $8.7 billion, one of the highest in Latin America. Investors include General Catalyst, SoftBank and others.

Clients can either buy or sell their used cars on the site, with the company acting as an intermediary and carrying out inspections of the vehicles as well as offering financing, guarantees and home delivery. The company now operates in Brazil and Argentina and has its sights on further expansion.

Rappi is Colombia’s outstanding start-up success. Local entrepreneurs started the company in 2015 to deliver groceries but it has since branched out into areas such as financial services. Having expanded into nine countries and more than 200 cities, it aims to become the “superapp” of Latin America.

Among Rappi’s innovations is the Turbo Fresh service, which aims to deliver the most requested products to customers within 10 minutes, using sophisticated “last kilometer” logistics. The company’s name is a word play on rápido, Spanish for “fast.”

Is the massive government tree-planting program doing more harm than good?

By

Rose Egelhoff

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October 15, 2021

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Sembrando Vida in Tabasco — Plantings at a Sembrando Vida-funded nursery in Tabasco.

Joselino Álvarez wanted to keep the young chalum trees he had planted on his half-hectare parcel of land in the Lacondona jungle in Chiapas. But the employees of the federal government’s Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) tree-planting program had other ideas.

“They said no, that it has to start from zero, that there can’t be any plants,” Álvarez said. “I showed [the chalum trees] to the engineer, but they did not allow me to keep them.”

Álvarez, a native Mayan speaker from the La Cañada ejido (land ownership cooperative), an hour from the Guatemalan border, knew from decades of experience that the 12-meter chalum trees were perfect for protecting smaller coffee and cacao plants from the harsh tropical sun. But he could not argue with bureaucracy. The money from the program would make a big difference for his family.

Álvarez’s story, told by Nadia Sanders in the magazine Gatopardo, highlights a key problem with the Sembrando Vida campaign, one of the current administration’s most important social programs: due to the lack of planning and organization issues, the initiative’s core goal of reforestation is not being accomplished. In fact, the requirement that only unforested plots of land qualify for the program appears to have contributed to deforestation.

Through Sembrando Vida, which began in 2019, farmers are paid 5,000 pesos a month to cultivate timber and certain crops on small parcels of previously bare land. The money is significant for many campesinos, much more than some make selling their produce.

President Lopez Obrador visits a Sembrando Vida nursery in Perote, Veracruz.

As a result, there is a strong incentive to clear land in order to qualify for the program. And some participants, like Álvarez, report being told by Sembrando Vida employees to clear their land if they wanted to receive money.

The program received 15 billion pesos (US $750 million) in funding in 2019 to set up an operational structure with 3,000 employees that would enroll and train 230,000 farmers. Each farmer would be responsible for a 2.5-hectare plot of land. Farmers would provide the land.

The rollout was fast, set to a political timeframe rather than an agricultural one, Sanders wrote. Some farmers were even required to plant crops in the dry season, when they were sure to die, because of government-mandated goals for progress.

Other requirements presented similar mismatches with the reality on the ground: few farmers could scrape together 2.5 hectares of open land. So the decision was made to allow groups of people to join under one name.

Many, like Álvarez, used this route to enroll. His group has 2.5 hectares between all of them and shares the program’s payments depending on the size of each person’s parcel.

This small administrative change created a huge logistical challenge for Sembrando Vida employees, who operate in two-person teams assisted by 12 interns from the Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro (Youth Building the Future) job training program. Each team is responsible for inspecting 100 of the 2.5-hectare parcels every month to make sure that they are, in fact, planting trees and cultivating crops.

Sembrando Vida worker — Two employees plus 12 interns must monitor 100 2.5-hectare parcels of land per month. Sometimes applicants pool separate parcels to meet the size requirement.

But with each parcel split into many smaller parcels and dispersed through extremely remote communities, the amount of work to complete the inspections increased exponentially. Employees also were not well prepared for the challenges they faced.

They received minimal training, and some entered their positions without prior experience in reforestation or agricultural production. The regional coordinator for Palenque, Chiapas — a well-paid position — previously taught communications to high school students. The coordinator for the La Huasteca region was formerly a hotel manager with a background in tourism studies. The regional coordinator for San Luis Potosí was a former member of Servants of the Nation, a group to enroll new members in government social programs. She was also a Morena party legislative candidate.

“They sent them to war without weapons … they did not receive any training. They came from another state, recently graduated from university,” one person interviewed by Gatopardo commented.

Charges of deforestation stem from anecdotal accounts by forest rangers and reports of illegal logging that streamed in after the project began operations in Mexico’s southeast. These claims are backed up by a World Resources Institute report, which says Sembrando Vida may have accidentally caused the deforestation of 73,000 hectares of land just in 2019, its first year of operation.

David Hernández, a farmer from the Agua Perla ejido near the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve who also enrolled in Sembrando Vida, is happy with the sizable increase in income it provided. Understanding that it would likely end when President López Obrador left office, Hernández invested in rambutan trees, whose fruit fetches a decent market price, so that he could continue providing for his family after the program shuts down.

It was not Hernández’s first time engaging with a government program. He recalled when members of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor program, led by the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio), came to his community to teach residents about environmental conservation and soil regeneration.

He said the Conabio program was a turning point for resource conservation in Agua Perla.

“We really see the difference from how it was before. We were using up almost everything,” Hernández said. “We had many animals and were eroding the mountains. We were losing birds; even the macaws left. [That program] has helped us maintain the natural springs. We are rich because we have one that still flows.”

But Conabio is one of many government environmental departments that have faced steep budget cuts in recent years, and the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor program ended in 2018. Meanwhile, the current administration has proposed expanding Sembrando Vida to Central America as a means to create jobs and decrease illegal immigration.

Back in La Cañada, Álvarez continued to care for his plants to the best of his ability, though the conditions were not ideal. He had 475 plants through the program: pineapples, cedar and cacao trees. But the cacao, without shade, grew slowly and did not thrive.

“If the engineer had let me … the cacao trees would now be this tall, greener and prettier,” Álvarez told Gatopardo, indicating above his head. “But we had to comply with their rules of operation.”

With reports from Gatopardo

Students and schools feel the strain in Mexico’s pandemic

By

Jude Webber

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October 15, 2021

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The government's Learn From Home classes, broadcast via internet and television, were difficult to access for families lacking a television, internet access or electricity.

From the kitchen comes the whine of a blender. Then, in a corner of the living room, another starts whirring. Rosa María Ramírez Ramos grimaces. “With this noise, it’s hard to talk. Just imagine studying.”

Yet her 16-year-old daughter, Yolanda, has had to do just that. Since February, Rosa’s eldest daughter, Andrea, has moved back into the 60-square-meter apartment with her partner, five-year-old son and the family’s food-delivery business after they were forced to close their Mexico City restaurant because of the pandemic.

As well as the five people, there is a dog and noise from the busy road outside. Yolanda’s bedroom is so chock full of her sister’s furniture that she barely has room to sit at her desk. She has to sleep in her mother’s bed.

Yolanda is in the final three years of school, known as preparatoria, but has felt tempted to give up. Mexico’s schools shut down in March 2020 as COVID-19 spread and most, like hers, which is affiliated with the National Autonomous University (UNAM), and barely opened since, before resuming at the end of August.

“It’s been very difficult to learn anything,” says Yolanda, who struggled to focus during “tedious” 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. online classes. She had not met her teachers or her classmates in person because when she started prepa in August last year, schools were shut. “I’d like to stop studying till things get back to normal, but then I’d lose the year,” she says.

Yolanda used to be a determined, independent student, accustomed to getting on with her tasks on her own from an early age, while Rosa, a lawyer and single mother, worked late. “We called her Matilda,” Rosa laughs, referring to the Roald Dahl heroine who loved to read and learn.

But over the past few months, “I’d find her in bed with the quilt over her head — she just wasn’t interested,” Rosa says. “Sometimes she’d take the [food] orders down and I’d realize, ‘What about your lesson?’, and I’d go in and find the teacher on the computer talking to himself.”

Rosa’s frustration is familiar to many, yet she is lucky. Tania Esquivel, head teacher at the state-run Escuela Secundaria Técnica 19 Diego Rivera, located in a poor southern district of Mexico City, says on average only 40% of students in the country have access to a computer, phone or tablet plus internet.

The government broadcasts lessons on television and via an internet stream under a scheme called Aprende en Casa (Learn From Home). But while the transmissions reached most parts of the country, they did not necessarily reach most homes, with many families lacking a TV, internet access or even an electricity supply. The administration defended the scheme in July, saying that the website had received more than 600 million visits.

“The government keeps reiterating that Learn From Home has been successful . . . and reached every single student,” says Alexandra Zapata, a private-sector researcher into education. “I’m scared that this narrative is really jeopardizing what we’ll see in future.”

For Esquivel, trying to keep students engaged has been exhausting. “The most important thing for us was that the students didn’t drop out,” she says. “We managed to ensure that 94% of the students handed in something, one way or another, to show there was some learning. But what they did learn was a long, long way from what we’d have hoped for.” The other 6% proved impossible to contact. “We’ll see if they come back,” she says.

Some schools suffered from vandalism during the pandemic, adding to pre-existing infrastructure problems.

David Calderón, executive president of Mexicanos Primero, an education-focused non-profit, says COVID has piled pressure on an education system that was already struggling. “You could summarize these past [pandemic] months as: never have so many children learned so little with such dire consequences,” he says.

Even before COVID-19, students in Mexico scored well below the OECD average in reading, math and science, according to Pisa (the Program for International Student Assessment) evaluations carried out every three years.

But the situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse during the pandemic. According to a recent study by Mexicanos Primero, 91% of students in the fourth year of primary school could not solve a routine problem of how much change was left after buying items from a shop.

Worse still, only a quarter of students in the third year of secondary school, the last before preparatoria, could manage it. Still, the education ministry ruled that no student in primary or secondary education would fail the 2020-21 academic year. “The fact is that learning is not at the center of education policy in Mexico,” Zapata says.

Initiatives to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) have largely been left to non-profits, rather than being made a core thrust of the curriculum. “We’re a long way behind and we’re falling further back,” says Alicia Lebrija, executive president of the Televisa foundation, which fosters STEM initiatives, including the Cuantrix and Tecnolochicas programs. “STEM is not just nice to have, it’s a necessity now, for all students.”

Iván Meza, a professor of computer science at UNAM who helped set up a pioneering Mexico City government project to teach adolescents and adults to code, describes COVID as an “area of opportunity.” “We have to rethink how our education system will be in future,” he adds.

But President López Obrador has scrapped his predecessor’s education reforms, restoring the clout of powerful teachers’ unions, which resisted the reopening of schools until all teachers were vaccinated and the COVID risk was at a minimum.

Many schools have been vandalized and have had desks and chairs stolen during the closure. Even before the pandemic, thousands had no running water. “Zero money has been budgeted to provide soap and gel,” says Zapata.

Schools reopened at the end of August. Teachers were vaccinated with the Chinese CanSino jab — billed as a one-shot dose but now found to be less effective than expected, meaning recipients will need boosters. But the president stopped short of making school attendance compulsory.

Rosa’s five-year-old grandson, Gustavo, had three 20-minute Zoom lessons a week and quickly became so fed up that he had no desire to go back.

Zapata fears COVID-era students will become a “lost generation” and the handling of the pandemic in schools “is a tragedy that Mexico will pay for, for years and years and years to come.”

US border reopens to nonessential travel on November 8; vaccination required

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2021

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The new policy will allow foreign nationals who are fully vaccinated to enter the US on non-essential business. — The new policy will allow foreign nationals who are fully vaccinated to enter the US on nonessential business.

The United States land border will reopen to nonessential travelers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on November 8, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Friday.

His announcement came two days after the United States announced it would reopen its land borders in early November for nonessential travel from Mexico and Canada.

Vehicular, rail, ferry and pedestrian border crossings from Mexico and Canada have been limited to essential travel since March 2020 as part of measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Mexico relaxed its border restrictions in April but didn’t strictly enforce the closure to nonessential travel before that.

Ebrard said on Twitter that the United States government had informed Mexico of the reopening date. “It will apply for vaccinated people,” he wrote.

People who have continued to cross the border for essential reasons during the pandemic, such as truck drivers and students, will have to show proof of vaccination starting in January.

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine and the Chinese CanSino vaccine do not count toward the requirement that travelers be fully vaccinated, since they are not World Health Organization approved. — The Russian Sputnik V vaccine (pictured) and the Chinese CanSino vaccine do not count toward the requirement that travelers be fully vaccinated, since neither is approved by the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, White House Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz announced Friday morning that the requirement for incoming air travelers to be fully vaccinated will also take effect on November 8.

“The US’ new travel policy that requires vaccination for foreign national travelers to the United States will begin on November 8. This announcement and date applies to both international air travel and land travel. This policy is guided by public health, stringent, and consistent,” he wrote on Twitter.

Air travelers will also have to present a negative result from a COVID test performed no more than 72 hours before traveling but people crossing the land border will be exempt from that requirement.

United States-bound travelers need to be vaccinated with World Health Organization-approved vaccines, a requirement that precludes the entry of millions of Mexicans vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik V and Chinese CanSino shots.

Nevertheless, the upcoming reopening is good news for residents of Mexican border communities, many of whom crossed the border frequently before the pandemic to go shopping, visit family and friends and carry out other activities deemed nonessential.

Manuel Lira Valenzuela, president of the Sonora branch of the national restaurant association Canirac, said that restaurants in the northern border state will be able to reduce their costs by once again purchasing supplies in the United States, while Julio César León, head of the Nogales branch of the National Chamber of Commerce, said the border reopening will provide a boost to the economy on both sides of the border.

“It’s the good news we were waiting for; this has to reactivate the economy because we’ll have more freedom of movement, both from the United States to here and vice versa,” León said.

However, some business owners in Sonora had misgivings about the reopening, asserting that their trade will in fact decline.

The Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco) said in July that Mexicans who would normally shop in the United States had spent an additional 45 billion pesos (US $2.2 billion) in Mexican border cities since the beginning of the pandemic.

The inability of many Mexicans to cross into the United States benefited businesses in Mexican border cities from Tijuana in the west to Matamoros in the east, said Julio Almanza, a Concanaco vice president in the northern border region.

With reports from Milenio and El Imparcial

Mexico City set to file homicide and other charges over Metro collapse

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MND Staff

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October 15, 2021

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An investigation by the attorney general's office determined there were flaws in the design of the line and the construction work was shoddy. — An investigation by the Attorney General's Office determined there were flaws in the design of the line and the construction work was shoddy.

Former Mexico City government officials and personnel of companies that built Line 12 of the capital’s Metro system will face homicide charges over the deaths of 26 train passengers who were killed when an elevated section of the line collapsed on May 3.

The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) said Thursday it was opening criminal cases for homicide, injury (almost 100 people were injured in the accident) and damage to property.

“This prosecutor’s office has the evidence to charge a number of people and companies who were in charge of ensuring there would never be cause for a collapse,” Attorney General Ernestina Godoy told a press conference.

“… The FGR will … present criminal accusations for homicide, injury and damage to property. … From that, a judge will notify and summon the probable culprits to begin their criminal process,” she said.

Godoy didn’t name ex-officials who are going to face charges, citing respect for due process. Line 12 of the Metro, the system’s newest, was built during the 2006-12 Mexico City government led by Marcelo Ebrard, who is now foreign minister.

A consortium that included Mexican firm Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA), Carso Infrastructure and Construction – owned by billionaire businessman Carlos Slim – and French rail company Alstom built the line, which includes an underground stretch and an elevated section.

Godoy said the companies could avoid legal processes if they reached agreements with the Mexico City government and provided compensation to victims of the tragedy, the capital’s worst ever Metro disaster.

“Some companies that participated in Line 12 showed from the very beginning their interest in participating in the mitigation and repair of effects from the collapse,” she said.

The FGR’s announcement that it will pursue criminal charges against those responsible for the collapse came after it concluded its own investigation into the accident.

The Attorney General’s Office concluded there were flaws in the design of the line and that construction work was shoddy. Metal studs in the overpass that collapsed were poorly placed and welding was deficient, it determined.

The FGR’s findings aligned with those of a Norwegian company hired to conduct an independent investigation and with many of those outlined in a New York Times analysis.

Line 12, which runs from Mixcoac in the capital’s southwest to Tláhuac in the southeast, was plagued by problems since it opened in 2012.

FGJ spokesman Ulises Lara said Thursday that flaws in the construction were impossible to detect during routine maintenance because they were hidden within the structures that supported it.

“The grave construction error with respect to … the poor placement and bad welding of studs … could not have been detected in inspections because they’re not visible,” he said.

The Mexico City government said last month the line would undergo a range of repairs that would be completed in one year. President López Obrador announced in June that Carlos Slim would cover the repair costs.

“[Slim] came … to [the National Palace] to tell me that he’ll take charge of the reconstruction of the entire [elevated] section, taking care of all the necessary safety [measures] without it costing the people anything, without asking for anything from the [federal] budget. That’s his commitment,” he said.

With reports from Milenio and Reuters

Opponents of Oaxaca development plan claim harassment by governments

By

MND Staff

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October 15, 2021

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Dissidents blocked roads and railways to protest against the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor. Twitter

More than 70 organizations from eight states have condemned government harassment of opponents of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor – a major federal government infrastructure project – and people engaged in civil resistance against alleged abuses by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

A group of indigenous, farming, union, human rights and other non-governmental organizations said in a statement that community landowners and officials in the Isthmus region as well as members of organizations such as the Union of Indigenous Communities in the Northern Zone of the Isthmus have been harassed by federal and municipal authorities.

“We denounce that the federal government, municipal authorities and private individuals have violated the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec constantly, simulating consultations, hiding information and invading and dispossessing land,” said the organizations, based in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Morelos, México state, Tlaxcala and Mexico City.

“In addition, they’ve provoked division and confrontation in the communities. They’ve also harassed, threatened and jailed those who demand respect of their rights,” they said.

The organizations, among which are the Zapatista Indigenous Agrarian Movement, the National Union of Agricultural Workers and the Human Rights and Social Justice Action Group, outlined a range of “repressive acts” recently committed against opponents of the project, which includes modernization of the railroad linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and construction of a new highway across the isthmus.

In one case last month, the organizations said, a group of armed men directed by “the criminal Anastasio Gutiérrez,” an Institutional Revolutionary Party politician, invaded a property in Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, owned by Zapotec farmer Salvador Pinal Meléndez.

The statement said that Pinal and his two sons confronted the men, who were “causing damage,” but were detained. The farmer’s two sons were later released but he remains in custody and faces criminal charges, the organizations said.

“The criminal group has dedicated itself to dispossessing community landowners and owners of small properties near the railroad because great speculation of land related to the. … mega-project has been unleashed,” the organizations said.

They also outlined abuses, harassment, violence, unlawful arrests and near-confrontations in other parts of the Isthmus region.

On October 2, the leader of a group of 3,500 people refusing to pay their electricity bills due to CFE “abuses” was attacked on a highway in the municipality of Matías Romero, Oaxaca, the organizations said.

They said that three individuals blocked the vehicle of Teófilo García Sarabia, pointed a gun at him, pulled him out of his vehicle and demanded that he cease leading protests against the CFE. Two of the men subsequently broke his car’s windscreen and removed its side mirrors, the organizations said, adding that the incident has been reported to authorities.

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor.

On October 8, Micaela Valdivieso Joaquín, an indigenous Mixe woman and teacher, and her daughter were detained by police and the National Guard and held in Oaxaca city for more than 48 hours, according to the organizations. The woman’s only “crime,” they contended, was initiating legal action against the trade corridor project on the grounds it will cause environmental damage.

The organizations laid out four demands to state and federal authorities: the cessation of harassment against farmers, community officials and members of social organizations; the provision of “sufficient and culturally appropriate information” about the impacts of the trade corridor project; the immediate release of Salvador Pinal Meléndez; and the cessation of “repressive actions” by the CFE against members of civil resistance organizations.

To pressure authorities to meet the demands, members of the Civil Resistance Network, an umbrella group of non-governmental organizations, have carried out a range of actions including railroad and highway blockades in the Isthmus region. They also expelled a group of workers carrying out work to modernize the trans-isthmus railroad, according to a report by the news magazine Proceso.

The Civil Resistance Network members say they have sought meetings with federal and state authorities but their requests have been rejected.

Touted as a potential rival to the Panama Canal, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor is one of several major infrastructure projects the federal government is currently building. The 4.6-billion-peso (US $224.8 million) project also includes upgrades to the ports in Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos and the establishment of 10 new industrial parks. It is slated for completion in 2022.

President López Obrador said in May that the navy will be given control of the trade corridor once it is completed.

“It’s to the navy that we’re going to entrust all these public works when we finish them, for the good and for the progress of our country,” he said.

Opposition to the project began shortly after it was announced in late 2018. Many Isthmus residents reject government claims that they will benefit economically and assert that it will damage the environment and adversely affect their way of life.

With reports from El Universal and Proceso