Environmental organizations filed a demand in Mexico with which they seek to stop the expansion of fossil gas megaprojects in the Gulf of California and recognize nature as a subject of rights.
The legal action, headed by the organization our future and backed by local groups, aims to stop the Saguaro GNL project, a liquefied natural gas plant in Puerto Libertad, in Sonora, which obtained federal authorization for export.
The demand alleges that this approval is unconstitutional because it puts at risk the biological integrity of the Gulf of California, particularly to the cetaceans, and does not consider the cumulative impacts of the fossil industry in the region.
Nora Cabrera, director of our future, said – in a statement – that this “is the beginning of a paradigm shift in law and in the way humanity is understood with nature.”
“The whales today demand their right to exist. With this lawsuit we seek that their song be heard in the courts and that the Gulf of California is protected in the face of the expansion of the gas industry,” said the activist.
The legal strategy raises four main demands: challenge permits to the project for lacking a complete environmental evaluation; denounce the lack of government protection, given the cumulative impacts of the project; request that the Gulf be declared critical habitat; and “promote the recognition of the intrinsic value of whales as a basis for ecocentric justice.”
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To prosper, the case could sit in Mexico, allowing species and ecosystems to be legally represented to defend its existence.
Carlos Mancilla, director of the BCSy’s organization, pointed out that this type of megaprojects only “seek to operate at the expense of our ecosystems, our communities and our own life.”
“Today whales have raised their voice in court and that is a reminder that nature also has the right to exist already,” Mancilla said.
Specialists from the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS) and the Energy and Environmental Research Associates (EERA), with support from Equal Routes, presented a technical report that alerts the project risks.
Among the findings, the researchers point out the levels of underwater noise of up to 192 decibels, which interfere with the communication of common blue and rorchal whales; more than six hundred annual scales of metaneous ships in areas of permanent presence of these cetaceans and the introduction of invasive species by ballast water discharges.
These impacts, the specialists argue, represent a direct threat to marine biodiversity and could be irreversible.
“The Gulf of California is in danger. They are deceiving us with this natural gas project; it will not resolve the energy demand they promise, nor will it bring jobs to our communities,” said Nancy García Fregoso, a close member.
The Gulf of California, recognized by UNESCO as a natural heritage of humanity, houses more than a third of the planet’s cetacean species and is one of the most biodiverse marine regions in the world.
Environmental organizations warn that allowing gas industrialization in the area would compromise the conservation of emblematic species and aggravate the global climatic crisis.
With EFE information.
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