The plant is especially in demand in Asian and Latin American markets.
Indigenous groups and communal landowners have complained of exploitative poaching of the sage plant in Baja California, where it is considered sacred.
Sage, or salvia apiana, is in demand by so-called “yoguis” (yogis) in search of spirituality, according to the newspaper Reforma. It is sold without restriction on Asian and Latin American websites and is advertised in countries like Venezuela and Colombia on social media platforms.
News website EcoWatch has reported that poaching is widespread north of the border, inspired by the demand for dietary supplements and medicinal herbs.
Those most affected in Mexico are from the Yumano ethnolinguistic group in northeastern Baja California.
Anthropologist Alejandra Velasco Pegueros said that for Yumano groups, the plant has an important spiritual dimension.
Indigenous Kumiai people from the Baja California community of San Antonio Necua say they do daily patrols to try and protect the white sage on their land.
“In the communities, it is still used in ceremonies. Apiana, or white sage, is burned to purify the space, to cleanse the spirit,” she said.
According to Reforma, environmental protection agency Profepa has not kept reliable data on the practice of sage poaching. In 2015, only 50 kilograms of the plant were seized. However, in 2019, in a single event, 7.5 tonnes of the plant were confiscated.
Keneth Reza Albañez, a Pai Pai, one of the indigenous groups considered part of the Yumano, said that over a period of a year he saw illegal extraction of between two and three tonnes a week.
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for a boom in demand. “In the pandemic, a lot of people began to use it for teas, for bronchitis, and for that purpose. It is also sold in the United States,” he said.
“It is sad. This plant is native … As an ethnic group, we use it to clean bad energies and bad vibes. It became very fashionable since they discovered that it cleans the environment, that it brings peace. When they saw this product, they demanded more: it’s wrong; we don’t use it by the tonne,” he added.
Gilberto González Arce, a Kumiai — another people considered part of the Yumano ethnolinguistic group — said the poaching was a matter of cultural appropriation and stealing.
“More than a fashion, it is a usurpation of the knowledge of the original indigenous peoples of Baja California. I am not aware that other peoples use it in a traditional way other than the Cucapá, Pai Pai, Kumiai, Kiliwa and Cochimí peoples,” he said.
Lorena Esparza, a leader for communal lands between Mexicali and Ensenada, said vendors were ill-informed and causing damage. “They really do not know what they are doing … selling it for rituals. They don’t have any control. We are destroying our own nature, biodiversity, fauna. It is everything … They are exploiting it in an exaggerated way,” she said.
The deputy health minister speaks to reporters at Tuesday's press conference in Mexico City.
Mexico recorded more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths and over 15,000 new cases on Tuesday as the third wave of the pandemic continues to afflict much of the country.
The Health Ministry reported 1,071 additional fatalities, lifting the official death toll to 265,541. The accumulated case tally rose by 15,784 to just under 3.45 million.
There are 96,051 estimated active cases across Mexico, a 3.3% increase compared to Monday. Mexico City has the highest number of active cases followed by Tabasco, Nuevo León, México state, Jalisco and Guanajuato.
Just one state – Chihuahua – has fewer than 500 active cases, according to the Health Ministry, while only seven others have fewer than 1,000. They are Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Morelos, Sinaloa and Zacatecas.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Oaxaca is one of many states currently recording high case numbers amid the delta variant-driven third wave of the pandemic. State Health Minister Juan Carlos Márquez Heine said Monday that 13 hospitals were at capacity and 17 additional people had lost their lives to COVID-19.
The southern state has recorded more than 70,000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic including 204 on Monday. Its official death toll is 4,567.
• More than 87.7 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico after 525,667 shots were given on Monday. About two-thirds of Mexico’s adult population has received at least one shot, according to federal data.
However, only 46% of the entire population of Mexico (adults and children) has had at least one shot and just 28% is fully vaccinated, according to The New York Times vaccinations tracker.
That means millions of Mexicans remain vulnerable to infection and illness as the highly contagious delta strain circulates widely. Many of the new cases have been detected in young people, who are far less likely to be fully vaccinated, and children, who have been shown to be more susceptible to infection with delta than previous variants.
• However, vaccinating children now would mean taking taking vaccine doses away from people with a greater risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.
“The risk progressively declines for [people of] younger ages,” he told reporters at President López Obrador’s regular news conference.
“… For every dose that is diverted to a boy or girl … due to legal action or these injunction rulings, for example, you’re taking the opportunity [to get vaccinated] away from a person who has a greater risk,” the coronavirus point man said.
His remarks came just days after a 12-year-old with diabetes challenged him to tell her where and when she can get vaccinated against COVID-19 after being denied that opportunity despite having a federal court injunction ordering that she be given a shot.
Several other children have been granted injunctions ordering their vaccination. The federal government has not announced any plans to vaccinate children, although the health regulator Cofepris has approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine to inoculate those 12 and over.
López-Gatell said Tuesday that the government hasn’t ruled out the possibility of vaccinating children but emphasized the importance of offering shots to all adults first.
“On October 31 we’ll be finishing the vaccination of people 18 and over with at least one dose. Then we’ll be able to consider the possibility of extending [vaccination] to those aged 16 to 18,” he said.
• A man threw himself out of a fourth floor window of a hospital in Puebla after he was told he had COVID-19. The newspaper El Universal reported that the incident occurred at Hospital Puebla in the Angelópolis zone of the state capital. The senior citizen died as a result of his fall.
Becoming an expat in Mexico may demand some expectation adjustments, but no one complains about the gorgeous sunsets.
Throughout my long and tumultuous life, I have acquired a set of rules to govern my actions as I stumble into my uncertain future. For instance, early in life, I learned never to play pool or poker with anyone nicknamed after a city or state.
Another hard-and-fast rule for me (and for many women, I am reliably informed) is to never trust a man with a comb-over; right from the start, he is trying to fool you. Never pursue a relationship with someone whose personal baggage is greater than your own. Unless, of course, their baggage is a matched set Gucci and yours is simply a collection of plastic grocery sacks.
Well, you get the idea. So now I would like to share some of the rules I have adapted to make my life in Mexico muy simpático (very nice). These are admittedly unwritten but nonetheless clear and firm overall rules, rules for specific activities. Knowing and keeping within these rules helps to make your life in Mexico paradisiacal.
An extremely important overall rule for expats is to completely rid yourself of capricious expectations, which almost always lead to future disappointments. The most common question I hear from the uninitiated is “Why do they [Mexicans] do it that way?” First-world efficiency is sorely lacking here, which makes many interactions or encounters seem painfully cumbersome to gringos.
This rule — ridding oneself of capricious expectations — is important because a person’s mental health can be severely impacted by clinging to the typical expat assumption that many things can be accomplished in a single day.
COVID-19 vaccination was just one of the latest reasons Mexicans stood in long lines, but accomplishing anything bureaucratic here will likely involve one.
So, as an expat, I have learned that a person needs to develop a mindset where the accomplishment of only one thing a day is viewed as a resounding success. And in our household, such an achievement is appropriately recognized and is — generally by sundown, if not before — rewarded with a generous shot of tequila.
The activity of driving in Mexico has specific guidelines crucial to life and limb, such as if a vehicle swings to the right it means that it is about to make a left turn. Yes. And vice versa. This is because many drivers think they are towing an imaginary trailer. When you see a set of hazard lights blinking, it frequently means, “Watch out, I am about to do something really stupid.”
Now, here is where it gets tricky because if you see a right- or left-turn signal, you need to be aware that you could very well be looking at blinking hazard lights with one bulb out; proceed with caution.
It is very important to understand that all the vehicles on the road larger and heavier than yours have an implied right of way, especially the buses. Drive accordingly. Never let go of the knowledge that all intersections are ambush zones with calamitous probabilities descending from all sides. If you make a successful foray out and back through Mexican traffic, returning with neither bodily nor vehicular damage, you should reward your success with a shot of tequila.
Shopping is an activity we do on almost a daily basis, and it has its own criterion. A strong and important rule is that if you see something you might want to buy, do it now; it may never be available again.
The cost for similar or even identical items at different stores can possess disparities in price that are mind-numbing. I can purchase a liter of a decent vanilla at a discount store for 37 pesos. The exact same vanilla can be as much as 250 pesos in the tourist areas. And this is just a simple liter of vanilla.
You can’t give everyone a handout, so it pays to set your personal criteria for generosity before finding yourself at that intersection.
Such issues may be irrelevant to the tourists, but for those of us who are viviendo la buena vida (living the good life), shop carefully. Gringo prices can impinge upon all aspects of shopping and can do so the minute an Anglo steps across the threshold.
After a day of shopping, if you feel triumphant in the deals you have made, feel proud of your prowess in your retail quest, you may celebrate with a shot of tequila.
With the numerous number of people in this culture who will proffer an impoverished hand, you need to have some idea upon whom to bestow the benevolence of your largess. I have learned that you cannot help everyone who asks. My rule of thumb is to give blind people and anyone missing a limb 10 to 15 pesos.
However, I think the legless guys on the wheeled platforms should always get more than someone missing a hand or arm. We have a local platform panhandler who always has a smile and shows serious gratitude for the pesos placed into his sweat-stained baseball cap.
Amputees and those who display the effects of debilitating diseases obviously need the kindness of others to survive, and even a few pesos will momentarily brighten their day. However, there are some who have perfected the persona of the woefully downtrodden, complete with bandaged legs and arms, so tactical discretion is advised.
Again, if your judgment was good and you feel virtuous because you have done a kindness for someone less fortunate than yourself, your reward is a shot of tequila.
The driver of this truck in Xalapa learned one of the writer’s rules the hard way: whether they’re entitled to it or not, always give buses the right of way.
The last and most important rule of life in México is to never miss the sunset.
The perfect sunset can be viewed across the mighty waters of the oceans and bays, from the ridges and peaks of the numerous mountains, or just in your back patio with friends and your potted plants.
A good sunset viewing requires enough time to reflect on how fortuitous we are to be here at this place and time — even with COVID — and not in the frozen wastelands of the far north. This is also the perfect time to count up how many shots of tequila you have earned and savor your rewards of the day.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
Editor and co-author Lozano with a copy of the new book.
All 152 of the paintings completed by Frida Kahlo between 1924 and 1954 have been compiled in a new book launched in Mexico City on Monday.
Published by German art book publisher Taschen, Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings doesn’t just feature all of the renowned Mexican artist’s best known and lesser known works but also provides painstaking detail about them, the context in which they were made and their ownership history.
Available in English, Spanish, German and French, the 624-page tome also includes interviews, newspaper articles, photographs, notes, diary pages and letters handwritten by Kahlo, who was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City, in 1907 and died in the same district in 1954.
“It’s the most complete and detailed study that has been done about the origin and fate of the 152 paintings Frida Kahlo made,” said art historian Luis-Martín Lozano, the book’s editor and one of its three co-authors.
However, it doesn’t aim to be an exhaustive account of her artwork, he told the newspaper Milenio at the launch of the book at La Casa Azul (The Blue House), Kahlo’s former home that is now a museum.
“What we try to do is summarize what we know about Frida Kahlo,” Lozano said.
In an interview with the BBC, he said that the book provides information about some Kahlo paintings that “amazingly” have never been written about previously.
In turn, the United Kingdom’s national broadcaster said the book “offers for the first time a comprehensive survey of her entire oeuvre.”
Co-written by Lozano and the art historians Andrea Kettenman and Marina Vázquez Ramos, Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings is available on Taschen’s website for US $200.
Protester calls for the federal government to solve the case of the missing 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students, who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014.
A group of independent experts will continue to investigate the disappearance of 43 students in 2014 after the federal government agreed to its ongoing participation in the case.
The decision came after a meeting Monday between Deputy Interior Minister for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas and Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, head of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It established the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) in November 2014 to conduct an investigation into the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa teaching students in Iguala, Guerrero, which had occurred a month earlier on September 26.
Encinas said President López Obrador is committed to the GIEI’s ongoing participation until there are conclusive results in the case. The previous government refused to renew the group’s mandate after it was critical of its investigation, but the current administration allowed it to resume its probe.
The current federal government rejected its predecessor’s “historical truth” about what happened on the night of September 26 — that corrupt municipal police intercepted and handed the students over to a crime gang that killed them and burned their bodies in a dump. López Obrador’s government launched a new investigation shortly after taking office in late 2018.
A representative of the Group of Independent Experts, right, meets with parents of the kidnapped Ayotzinapa students in 2015. The group was formed with parents’ approval. File photo
Arosemena acknowledged the federal government’s political will to resolve the case, noting that it created a truth commission to conduct a fresh investigation into the students’ disappearance. However, the government has not yet publicly given its own definitive version of events.
The IACHR chief renewed the commission’s commitment to contribute to the government’s investigation.
Meanwhile, a key suspect in the case was detained last weekend almost three years after he was released, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Patricio Reyes Landa, also known as “El Pato” (The Duck), was identified as a perpetrator of the crime and provided evidence to support the former government’s official version of events after his arrest in 2014. He even confessed to killing some of the Ayotzinapa students.
However, he was released in October 2018 after a judge ruled that 83 statements made by suspects in the case were obtained illegally via torture and other inhumane treatment. In addition, a judge ruled that there was a lack of evidence to prove “El Pato” was a member of the Guerreros Unidos, the crime gang that allegedly killed the 43 students.
Patricio “El Pato” Reyes Landa was arrested in 2014 and confessed to involvement in the 2014 kidnapping but was released in 2018.
But he was released again on Tuesday. His arrest, it turned out, had nothing to do with the Ayotzinapa case — he had been carrying an illegal weapon, a crime that doesn’t merit preventative custody.
Scores of people accused of involvement in the students’ disappearance, including municipal police and alleged gangsters, have been released from prison after judges ruled they were illegally detained or subjected to torture.
Outside cases of rape and those in which an expectant mother’s life is endangered, abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is currently only legal in four states: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz.
Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar declared Tuesday a historic day for all Mexican women, especially the most vulnerable.
From now on, no woman can be prosecuted for having an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy without violating the ruling of the SCJN and the Mexican constitution, he said.
“From now on, a new route of freedom, clarity, dignity and respect for all … women begins,” Zaldívar said.
“… Today is another step forward in the historic struggle for their equality, dignity and for the full exercise of their rights,” he said.
Justice Luis María Aguilar Morales, the proponent of the decriminalization of abortion in Coahuila, said that “never again” can a woman or a person with the capacity to give birth be criminally punished for having an abortion.
“Today the threat of prison and the stigma that weighs on people who freely decide to interrupt their pregnancy is banished,” he said.
Outside the court, pro-life activists condemned the court’s ruling, while feminist groups celebrated the decision online.
“Historic ruling!” reproductive rights group GIRE declared on Twitter.
Mexico, still a largely conservative nation with the second highest number of Catholics in the world after Brazil, is now the most populous country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion.
The court’s decision came after women’s groups in recent years ramped up pressure on authorities to legalize it across the country at numerous protests.
President López Obrador, a staunch advocate for participatory democracy, previously proposed holding a referendum on the subject but on Tuesday morning backed the SCJN’s capacity to rule on the issue.
“The best thing in this case is that if it’s already in the Supreme Court it should be resolved there,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t take a side because doing so would not be “the most prudent thing” to do.
Hospital workers evacuate a patient in a flooded hallway in Tula General Hospital No. 5 Tuesday morning.
Sixteen people died in an IMSS hospital in Tula, Hidalgo, Tuesday morning after heavy rains caused severe flooding and cut off electrical service to much of the municipality.
Fourteen of the dead were COVID patients on assisted respiration who lost their lives when the system supplying oxygen ceased to function due to the loss of electricity.
Three rivers in the area burst their banks, including the River Tula which is only 210 meters from the hospital.
Water entering the hospital not only flooded patients’ wards but damaged a generator which would have provided an alternative power supply for the oxygen machines on which patients were dependent.
Videos uploaded to social media show people pushing their relatives out of a flooded room with water up to their knees.
Imágenes del #IMSS en #Tula#Hidalgo la madrugada de este Martes. personal Médico desaloja a pacientes en medio de la inundación provocada por las fuertes lluvias. pic.twitter.com/mCnz9UrCYj
Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad explained that nine colonias and 31,691 inhabitants had been affected by the flooding. He said five temporary shelters had been set up for people who had fled their homes.
The director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo, said there were 104 people working in the hospital attending to 56 patients when the flooding began early Tuesday. Around 20 patients were being evacuated and transferred to other hospitals, he said in a video on social media early Tuesday afternoon.
Early in the day emergency room Dr. Héctor Manuel Arias called for oxygen for his patients in a live transmission social media: “What is urgent is oxygen for these patients who still have hope to survive … The ones that concern me the most are the COVID patients, they are in a fight for their survival, they need their oxygen,” he said.
President López Obrador addressed the tragic events in Tula in a Twitter post Tuesday afternoon. “In this honorable assignment there are good days, very good, bad and very bad. Today is one of the latter. The deaths of 17 patients in the IMSS hospital due to the overflowing of the Tula River in Hidalgo has brought me much sorrow.
“A lot of water has fallen in the Valley of México and it will continue raining. To those who live in low-lying areas move quickly to shelters or to higher ground with family and friends.”
UPDATES: The number of fatalities was updated to reflect the final tally and the president’s comments were updated with his remarks on Twitter Tuesday afternoon.
Gas pipeline taps must be inside jobs, says Pemex official.
LP gas theft from pipelines in Puebla has increased significantly since the current federal government took office, according to Pemex data that contrasts sharply with statistics included in President López Obrador’s third annual report.
Presented last week, the president’s report stated that illegal taps on the state oil company’s LP gas lines in Puebla have declined by 40.1% due to a military crackdown on gas theft.
But Pemex data shows that illegal taps have increased every year since López Obrador took office in December 2018.
There were 64 taps on LP gas pipelines in Puebla in 2018, according to data provided by Pemex to the newspaper El Sol de Puebla. The figure rose dramatically to 916 the following year, an increase of 1,331%. Puebla consequently became the worst state in the country for the crime.
The incidence of gas pipeline theft rose again in 2020 with 1,639 illegal taps, a 79% increase compared to 2019.
There was an additional increase in the first six months of 2021 with 846 illegal taps compared to 717 in the same period of last year.
Almost 69% of all LP gas pipeline taps in the first half of the year in Mexico were detected in Puebla, making the state the clear epicenter for the crime.
Pemex data shows that Tepeaca, San Martín Texmelucan, Acatzingo, San Matías Tlalancaleca, Amozoc, Santa Rita Tlahuapan, Acajete, San Salvador El Verde and Palmar de Bravo have the highest incidence of gas theft among Puebla’s 217 municipalities.
The ubiquity of the crime in Puebla fueled a 28% increase in the number of illegal taps detected across Mexico in the first half of 2021. A total of 1,217 perforations were detected, up from 945 between January and June of last year.
Pemex sources told the newspaper Reforma that criminal groups have begun tapping gas lines in areas of Puebla where the crime was previously uncommon. In San Matías Tlalancaleca, a municipality about 50 kilometers northwest of the state capital, 71 illegal taps were detected in the first half of 2021 whereas the highest figure for the same period in recent years was just six.
A Pemex security official who spoke with Reforma accused state oil company employees of colluding with gas thieves.
In order to successfully extract LP gas, “criminals need to know when there is not so much pressure in the pipelines,” he said. “Who’s giving that information to gas traffickers?”
Opponents gather Monday outside the Supreme Court in Mexico City.
The Supreme Court (SCJN) appears to be on the verge of setting a precedent that will pave the way for the legalization of abortion across Mexico.
The court’s justices began debating challenges to abortion restrictions in Coahuila and Sinaloa on Monday, and eight of the 11 indicated they are in favor of revoking criminal penalties for the termination of a pregnancy in the former state. The other three justices didn’t participate in Monday’s session.
Voting on the challenges is to commence on Tuesday. If a qualified majority of eight justices vote in favor of invalidating the section of the Coahuila criminal code that punishes abortion at any stage of a pregnancy by one to three years imprisonment, the court would set a precedent that would oblige judges across Mexico to hand down similar rulings.
Outside cases of rape and those in which an expectant mother’s life is endangered, abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is currently only legal in four states: Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Veracruz. But a court ruling that decriminalizes abortion in Coahuila would in time open up access to early abortion for millions of women in the country’s other 28 states.
Justice Luis María Aguilar, the proponent of the decriminalization of abortion in Coahuila, said the aim is to give women the right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives without facing prosecution. The state has an obligation to provide an “environment of protection” in which that can occur, “not one of punishment,” the justice said.
Aguilar also said that his proposal acknowledges the changes that have taken place in Mexican society as well as fundamental principles such as democracy and the separation of church and state.
Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar said that all the SCJN justices are “in favor of life” but “some of us are in favor of women’s lives being lives in which their dignity is respected, in which they can fully exercise their rights, in which they are free from violence and can determine their own destiny.”
With regard to Sinaloa, Justice Alfredo Gutiérrez proposed a court ruling that declares the absolute prohibition of abortion in that state as unconstitutional. His proposal argues that a modification to the state’s charter that states that life begins at conception violates the Mexican constitution.
Gutiérrez also argues that states do not have the right to deny women access to sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion. In addition, his initiative seeks to invalidate a law that allows health personnel to refuse to carry out an abortion due to their own personal beliefs on the practice.
A qualified majority vote in favor of Gutiérrez’s proposal would also set a precedent for the legalization of abortion across Mexico.
As justices discussed the matters on Monday, conservative groups protested outside the Supreme Court building in Mexico City.
Holding signs with pro-life messages as well as religious imagery, the demonstrators exhorted the SCJN to not rule in favor of declaring abortion restrictions unconstitutional.
“We’re urging the Supreme Court justices to reject these [challenges to states’ efforts to limit abortions], … we trust that these justices are going to defend life,” said Leticia Gonzalez-Luna, president of the pro-life group Voz Pública.
In contrast, pro-choice activists were optimistic that the court would set a precedent that paves the way for legal abortion across Mexico.
“The SCJN will make the decriminalization of abortion a reality in all federal entities,” tweeted Estefanía Veloz, a feminist and lawyer.
Armed confrontations between criminal gangs and security forces have killed four suspected gang members and injured two police officers in Sonora. The officers were reported in stable condition.
A code red alertwas issued for the north of the state Monday and a federal highway was closed temporarily. Violence had begun to escalate August 3 in the municipalities of Caborca, Pitiquito and Altar where attacks were directed against several homes, and in one incident a grenade was thrown.
At least one police officer was injured in Pitiquito around 7:00 a.m. Monday after a 20-minute shootout in which an armed group was eventually neutralized. Security authorities published an alert at 11:00 a.m. the same day to confirm that the code red was still active and that citizens should take extra precautions.
“The operation in northern Sonora continues to be active in code red, where police forces …. are intensifying the operations against a criminal group in the area,” the statement read.
No further update had been provided since then as of noon Tuesday.
On videos uploaded to social media, a long series of gunshots by automatic weapons can be heard in Pitiquito. In another video in Altar, individuals are seen setting a police vehicle on fire.
Motorists reported that the Pitiquito-Caborca highway was closed after the clashes, but state authorities confirmed that traffic flow was restored at around 2:50 p.m. Monday.
