Environmentalism gaining traction in Mexico

Last week was environment day celebration in Mexico, there was a big organic fair placed at "El Zocalo" which is the main plaza in the center of Mexico City. It was full of national organic farmers' crops and the idea was to induce people into buying organic grown food. There were also many stands made for kids to understand the importance of eating vegetables and information to explain all about recycling. Mexico is one of the biggest garbage makers, especially Mexico City, and there's a big campaign in Mexico at the moment about recycling old batteries, cell phones and electronics which will make a big difference in terms of waste and garbage.

There were also photographic expositions and different conferences talking about global warming. The event was organized by a company named "The green Corner" which is a Mexican company focused on selling organic national products.

Also with the celebration of environment day a new book was promoted, this book talks about CO2 and how to reduce the carbon footprint with small changes. For example, use a mechanic alarm clock instead of an electric one, less use of the dryer machine and instead hang up clothes (anytime the weather lets you), do not use electric toothbrush since there's no need to have one or carry a lighter luggage, if everyone reduced it to a maximum of 20kg it will reduce 2 million of tons of CO2 in a year! This book is out on sale now in Mexico.

‘No Corn, No country’ campaign

Another topic that was discussed on this day, especially by the Mexican president, was the food shortage and mainly the corn situation, which I already discuss on a past blog but it's still very interesting, and after doing some research I've found a website from an organization called "No corn, no country" (it rhymes in Spanish though). This was made by farmers and other different organizations and people interested on the subject with all the important issues around it. It has news and all the information Mexicans should read to be more aware of this problem. I really like it, not only because they update it very often, but because it also has pictures, videos, events and art related to it. It helped me understand better what's going on and what's going to happen with the food that's made all over my country.

The main subject of this organization is to eliminate corn and beans from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between USA, Canada and Mexico. It is asking to make new regulations on importation and exportation and the prohibition of transgenic cultivation. They issued a petition with 438,000 signatures from people supporting this changes and they sent it to the Senate Chamber. This was delivered in March of this year and they are still waiting for a response from the government.

There's pictures on the website of the day that was delivered and they were taken by people from Greenpeace, one of the organizations that also support the letter.