"Different Worlds, Same Planet"
By Kyle Hunter

In January, 20 students traveled to study environmental issues and influences on the migration patterns of humans and other species. Wendy Walker, assistant professor of environmental studies at Western, and her class of students from Western and other universities in Washington and Oregon corresponded with The Planet about their experiences. This is one of their stories.

Pollution from a different perspective

Having the opportunity to study abroad in a foreign university, I decided that Morelia would be the best choice because Mexico is an influential and important neighbor. Whatcom County and Michoacán — the state in which Morlia is located — have close connections to the migration of workers coming from Mexico to the United States, which only strengthens a bond between these two areas. I chose Wendy Walker’s Migration class partly because of this relational reason, and because it has allowed me to better understand the politics and environment of this area.

The journey began about 40 miles west of Havana, Cuba. I was riding my bicycle east, trying to make it to the capital before the end of the day. I had already covered about 30 miles that day, and I decided to try and hitch a ride to take a break from the heat and monotony of continuous pedaling. I heard an old tractor from less than a mile away, backfiring, billowing smoke from its exhaust pipe.

I waved as it passed me and the driver stopped, waiting while I closed the distance between us. With few words exchanged, we were on our way. I found myself sitting in a 30-year-old trailer a quarter full of potatoes while it bounced from pothole to pothole. With each one, the rusty side panels rattled so much I feared the whole contraption might fall apart.

Though the trailer stayed together, we did run out of gas. We were halfway up a gradual hill when we heard the last few sputters of the struggling engine. The driver, a handsome black man with fashionable yellow sunglasses, motioned for me to hop out and help him turn the tractor around so we could roll back down the hill. We coasted down a little ways and stopped at another farmer’s house he had seen on the way up. After a few minutes they came out of the house, walked across the street and proceeded to drain some fuel from another tractor into an old plastic water bottle.

My new friend returned a short while later with a liter of fuel. He jumped back on the tractor and I returned to the potato trailer. But when he turned the key, nothing happened. With a wrench in his hand he dismantled part of the engine. He removed the oil filter and, to my surprise, dumped its contents of oil and gas into the middle of the road. At this I mentally scoffed, but held my tongue. He replaced the filter, bled some fuel through the line, and dumped it out again.

All the environmental alarms ingrained in my mind went into full alert, and I found myself ready to defend the earth at all costs to stop the senseless spilling of oil on the road, to keep it from entering the groundwater and polluting the farms and streams. But again I held my tongue. Something about this calm fellow and his purpose for being in that place at that time with that load of potatoes made me think twice about his actions and my reaction.

I later came to realize that perhaps his entire livelihood depended on that meager load of potatoes. It appeared from the look of his tractor that he had little money to buy a new, more efficient tractor or even enough to fix the old one. In fact, the way he knew exactly where the problem was made me think this was not the first time it had happened.

I still have not been able to blame my Cuban friend for dumping oil in the road. My liberal environmental education I received in Northwest Washington has led me to understand the reasons why dumping oil in the road is hazardous to an ecosystem. But a lesson he unknowingly taught me was that Washington is very different from Cuba or Mexico.

Zabel Pineda is a lawyer who runs an environmental education program outside of Morelia, Mexico. He believes the lack of environmental protection in Latin America is the product of its slower growth. Over time it has developed into a region with seemingly terminal environmental problems. The characteristics that have shaped it in this way are the poverty found in its countries, the lack of stable democracies, the low levels of education, which includes little or no environmental awareness and the lack of enforcement of environmental laws.

In Morelia, a rapidly growing city of approximately 1 million inhabitants and the capital of the state Michoacán, a battle was being fought between the drivers and the state government over emissions testing and regulations. According to Pineda, the number of cars in this city has doubled in the past 10 years to about 600,000 vehicles. A recently enacted law called Verificación requires drivers to test their cars’ emissions twice yearly. The goal of the local government was to try and reduce emissions.

This law, introduced without warning, vote or education about its importance, seemed to be targeting the citizens more than the actual contamination problem.

"This is a reflection of how authoritarian the Mexican society still is," said Victor Vargas, a professor of International Relations who also co-owns an ink-jet recycling company. "They decided to do it; they never told the citizens what was going to happen. They decided you have to do it but weren’t able to explain their case."

Vargas says avenues for corruption are integrated into the government system of Mexico. If you don’t have verification of emissions they’ll take you into the police station and present you with a large fine.

The government lacks the ability to enforce traffic fines because, Vargas says, information systems are not as inclusive and available to all government agencies as they are in the United States. When people are pulled over, the violations can’t be entered into a computer with the assumption that they’ll pay it later. They must go to the police station to record the infractions, go to the treasury office to pay the fines and then return to the police station to prove they paid the fines. Only then will they be free to go. It’s not hard to see why so many opt to pay a bribe.

The belief that the government only wants money and doesn’t care about the environment is the main reason why so many Morelians believe the law was a scam.

"I’m not going to get my car verified until the majority gets their cars verified. All they want is money," said Adán Mendoza, who runs a small business that installs alarms and electric fences. "If they give me a fine, I won’t pay it because no one else will."

Each verification, or emissions test, costs about $11 and has to be done twice a year. With a federal minimum wage of roughly $4.10 a day, these funds could be hard to come by. Since the government is turning to the people and forcing them to pay to fix this problem, many Mexicans feel as though this is just another form of the politically motivated corruption.

"They tell you this is to protect the environment, but then you start asking, ‘Why two verifications a year, and not just one?’ And then you see what they want is more money," Vargas said.

The air contamination here is not as visible as it is in Mexico City, mainly because of winds that blow it elsewhere. Because of this, people like Mendoza simply believe it’s not a problem.

Coupled with a lack of knowledge about environmental problems in Mexican society, Morelians saw this as just another scam.

With strong opposition to and obvious problems with the Verificación, the state government decided not to sanction those who do not comply on Jan. 26. I saw Mendoza on that same day and he said with a smile on his face, "Did you hear? The Verificación, it is no longer obligatory!" He said the new decision was correct because the city still doesn’t have as much contamination as Mexico City, and that they must fix their cars so they don’t pollute, but on their own accord, not because the government tells them to.

Another local newspaper, El Cambio de Michoacán, reported that the government decided instead to reward those who follow through with the Verificación by offering a 25 percent refund on the cost. Since Mexico signed the international Kyoto Protocol Treaty to diminish global warming, the state government has decided to strengthen its support of other programs already in the region and implement a few new ones. In this same article, Johanna Muñoz wrote, "In Michoacán, with the participation of every citizen, it is time for us to guarantee the quality of the environment so that we construct a culture of responsibility and well-being that benefits both man and nature."

One of the new programs directly related to the emissions is the Programa de Renovación del Transporte Público, which will assist transportation drivers in the repair of the vehicles to run cleaner and diminish the byproduct of harmful gases. The government also will establish the Programa Atienda Mecánico for the training of mechanics who specialize in environmentally friendly repairs and who offer service at better prices. They also have given extended support to reforestation programs for the modernization of forest-industry resources and protection. Despite the good intentions of the Verificación in the first place, what ended up coming out of it looks much better to the public. Hopefully, this is the start of a new environmental consciousness in Morelia.

But what the government offers in terms of programs and support, and whether they follow through and are successful, remains to be seen. In the end, as it often does, the responsibility lies with citizens who have more power to change things.

"It has to be civil society, it has to be in the homes. It has to be taught from (when) you’re a kid," Vargas says of education. "It’s not only the government but schools, and it’s not only public schools but private schools."