Yes to life, no to death projects (In Spanish and in English)
To local, national and international Civil Society
To human rights organizations
To the States and governments of Planet Earth
To the movements, worthy and rebellious struggles
To the local, national and international press
With 250 people present, members of 60 communities, organizations and networks, we met on July 25, 26 and 27, 2025 in the community of Ahlan Muc'ul Ha' (Below the Rio Grande), in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, with the objective of sharing organizational and community experiences in the resistances and in the defense of life, water, corn, territory and Mother Earth.
We are women, men, young people, older people, boys and girls, recognizing ourselves in our cultural, generational, spiritual and gender diversity.
We come from different territories of Mexico, such as Oaxaca, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Puebla, State of Mexico, Chiapas, as well as Colombia, Valencian Country and Germany.
We have come together to find ways to confront death projects by weaving together our alternatives that we are already building in every family, community, town, region, territory, organization and struggle.
After three days of sharing and analyzing what is happening in our regions and in the world, WE DECLARE AND REAFFIRM that:
Our territories possess a rich biocultural diversity inherited from our ancestors, which is now gravely endangered by an extractive development model that, driven by individualistic, capitalist, and patriarchal logic, is stripping us of everything that sustains our lives. We recognize that we face the same threats: a) the violation of our rights as women, children, youth, men, gender and sexual minorities, Indigenous peoples, and Mother Earth; b) the militarization of our territories by various local, regional, and national security forces; and c) the presence of organized crime and its complicity with governments and states.
We denounce the fact that, in all our territories, projects are being imposed upon us without the consent of the people, and that consultations are being manipulated to carry out and complete dispossession. We also denounce how, systematically, institutional and de facto powers instigate community division in favor of capitalist enterprises.
In a world that is exhausted, we know that our enemy is the same, and that is why we declare that we are not in favor of colonialist and patriarchal development because it has never worked for us.
THANKS TO THE SHARING WE MADE
We have learned firsthand about the struggle of the women and people of the municipalities that make up MODEVITE (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory), the Community Government of Chilón, as well as its Autonomous Communal Pluriversity Yutsilal Bahlumilal-Community Government Ch'ich'.
MODEVITE shared their experience of over 10 years of resistance against the San Cristóbal de Las Casas-Palenque Highway, misnamed the “Highway of Cultures.” This struggle resonated with the struggles of communities and civil society organizations in Oaxaca against the Interoceanic Corridor, the Margarita Maza de Juárez Dam, and mining concessions. From southeastern Coahuila, they shared their resistance against the illegal and clandestine industrial toxic waste dump and their defense of the water in the San Miguel stream. Comrades from Hidalgo shared their struggle against the proposed solar park in Ciudad Sahagún and the water pollution in Tula caused by waste from the Mexico City metropolitan area. From northern Veracruz, they denounced the government's distribution of fertilizers and agrochemicals that are harming the land and the health of communities.
At the same time, we learned from Crianzas Mutuas Colombia about the defense of the rivers in the municipality of Suárez in the Cauca Valley. From that same country, we heard about the struggles of the Taganga Council in Santa Marta, carried out by the fishing communities of the Colombian Atlantic coast who are fighting to defend their maritime territories.
We have shared our pains, but also our hopes and strengths: our community organization woven through our normative systems, our spiritualities and ceremonies, as well as the collective community work that sustains the alternatives we walk in our daily lives.
We have woven our capacity to share and to dream amidst the violence and wars that run through us.
WE DENOUNCE
The strategies of governments, political parties, business elites, and local bosses who seek to destabilize our community organizations in order to dispossess us of our territories, in favor of their capitalist interests.
We demand respect for our rights and those of our Mother Earth, as well as respect for the lives of the defenders of the territory and human rights who are standing up in struggle throughout Latin America and Planet Earth.
We demand respect for the autonomy of indigenous, black, and Afro-descendant peoples, that the decisions they make within the exercise of their self-determination be respected, as well as all their collective rights recognized in national and international legislation.
We demand the immediate halt to the megaprojects in our territories, the megahighways and the concessions that allow the dispossession of Mother Earth and the extraction of natural resources, imposing a colonialist development model that does not come from our wisdom as native peoples.
We demand respect for women, youth, children, sexual and gender diversity in general and, in particular, for those of native, ethnic, peasant, fishing, black and Afro-descendant peoples.
We, the youth, demand our right to flourish in our own communities, contributing our skills and knowledge.
We stand in solidarity with the Colombian social movements that are demonstrating against the transnational corporations that exploit gas and oil on the seabed, build dams damaging rivers, and develop large-scale mining.
We stand in solidarity with MODEVITE and all the collectives, communities, organizations and networks that fight against extractive and predatory megaprojects.
FROM THIS SACRED MAYAN TERRITORY WE MAKE A POWERFUL CALL:
We call upon the indigenous peoples and local, national, and international civil society to join, either in person or remotely, on August 9, 2025, the International Day of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the pilgrimage convened by the Believing People of the Jesuit Mission of Bachajón to demonstrate their rejection of the highway that will cross these indigenous Mayan territories. The implementation of this highway has not respected the rights of the indigenous peoples, and, along with the Interoceanic Corridor, the so-called Maya Train, and the privatization of water, it is part of the territorial reorganization of the Mexican South-Southeast in service of big capital.
We urge you to continue weaving together, through all the diverse means and forms we can, our ancestral wisdom and our spiritualities to strengthen what we have in common in the search for peace with justice and dignity and in the defense of life.
We invite you to revalue the lives of farmers and the communities that grow our food, as well as the defense of native seeds free of genetically modified organisms and the natural production of our food to recover the fertility of our lands.
We know that neither governments nor states will solve our problems, therefore, we must continue walking together, weaving our knowledge and spiritualities for the respect of LIFE, starting with our body, territory, land.
We call upon all peoples and local, national and international civil society to continue fighting with one heart.
WE GREET AND EMBRACE OUR COLLEAGUES FROM:
The community of Cherán K'eri. We say to you: You are not alone, and your struggle is our struggle! We support the struggle of Jlumaltik Candelaria for the recognition of their government and community autonomy.
We embrace the Zapatistas and the Encounter of Resistances and Rebellions “Some Parts of the Whole” convened by them in their territory to take place from August 2 to 17.
We support the struggle of the Las Abejas Civil Society Organization for justice, peace and dignity.
We embrace the organizers of the Regional Forum in Defense of Territory and Autonomy against megaprojects in the Chontal and Isthmus to be held on August 9.
To the International Congress of Communality to be held on August 7, 8 and 9.
To the struggle of the education workers of the CNTE
To the sisters of the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, as well as to the Democratic Modernity Academy and the entire Kurdish women's movement and the Democratic Confederalism of Kurdistan.
To our colleagues who are part of the Global Fabric of Alternatives (TGA): Mutual Parenting Colombia, Vikalp Sangam of India and the Movement of Alternatives and Solidarity of Southeast Asia (MASSA).
No to genocide in Gaza!
No to wars, yes to life!
Planet Earth, Ahlan Muc'ul Ha ́' Community. Chilon, Chiapas
Sunday July 27, 2025
Collective signatures:
- Mutual Parenting Mexico is part of the Global Fabric of Alternatives (TGA)
- Mutual Breeding Colombia is part of the Global Alternatives Network (TGA)
- Movement in Defense of Life and Territory (MODEVITE), Chiapas, Mexico
- Association of Community Councils of the Municipality of Suárez, Cauca, Colombia
- Community Government of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Indigenous Council of Taganga, Santa Marta, Colombia
- Ahlan Muc'ul Ha' Community, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Autonomous Pluriversity of the Yutsilal Bahlumilal Communal Government
Ch'ich', Chiapas, Mexico - Living Rivers Movement of Colombia
- Corporation of Chinchorreros of Taganga, Colombia
- Alternative Education Project (PEA), Ocosingo Jungle Region, Section VII of
CNTE Chiapas, Mexico - Water Guardians of Southeast Coahuila, Mexico
- Bachajón Mission, Chiapas, Mexico
- Indigenous Rights Center AC (CEDIAC), Chiapas, Mexico
- Indigenous Videographers Project Collective of the Southern Border (PVIFS), Chiapas,
Mexico - Oaxaca Water Forum, Oaxaca, Mexico
- Working Group “Bodies, Territories, Resistances” – GT CUTER CLACSO
- Yes to Life Collective of Jalpa, Coahuila, Mexico
- Community of Critical Pedagogues and Popular Educators of Chiapas,
Mexico - University of the Earth Huitzo Yelao, Oaxaca, Mexico
- Guelatao Community University Center of the Autonomous Community University
from Oaxaca, Mexico - Observatory of Social Participation and Democratic Quality of the University
Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico - Citizen/Community Observatory for Water and the Environment of the Valleys
Central stations in Oaxaca, Mexico - Observatory of Democracies: Southern Mexico and Central America – ODEMCA
- Tsijilba Bij Collective of Agua Clara, Chiapas, Mexico
- Healing Fabrics of Oaxaca/Mexico City
- Community Services of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Kokopelli Collective from Northern Veracruz, Mexico
- San Pedro Comitancillo Community University Center of the University
Autonomous Communal Community of Oaxaca, Mexico - Editorial Cooperative of the Transnational Network Other Knowledges, Chiapas, Mexico
(CHALLENGES). - Machtia Collective (Free Learning Spaces) from Hidalgo, Mexico
- Silvestra Project: Composting Toilets in Oaxaca, Mexico
- Satil Film, Chiapas, Mexico
- Savi Network of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Nichimal Cuxlejalil Collectives (Life Flourishing), Chiapas, Mexico
- Main Musicians, Ch'ich' Region, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Ach'ix Querem Ec' Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Network of Collectives University of the Earth Caldas and Southwestern Colombia
English Version
DECLARATION YES TO LIFE, NO TO DEATH PROJECTS
To local, national, and international civil society
To human rights organizations
To the States and governments of Planet Earth
To movements, dignified struggles, and rebellions
To the local, national, and international press
With 250 people present, members of 60 communities, organizations, and networks, we gathered on July 25, 26, and 27, 2025, in the community of Ahlan Muc'ul Ha' (below the Rio Grande), in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico, with the aim of sharing organizational and community experiences in resistance and in the defense of life, water, corn, territory, and Mother Earth.
We are women, men, young people, elders, children, recognizing our cultural, generational, spiritual, and gender diversity.
We come from different territories of Mexico, such as Oaxaca, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Puebla, the State of Mexico, Chiapas, as well as Colombia, the Valencian Country, and Germany.
We have come together to seek ways to confront these deadly projects by weaving together with greater strength the alternatives we are already building in each family, community, town, region, territory, organization, and struggle.
After three days of sharing and analyzing what is happening in our regions and in the world, WE DECLARE AND REAFFIRM that:
Our territories have a great biocultural diversity that we have inherited from our ancestors, which is seriously endangered by an extractive development model that, under an individualistic, capitalist, and patriarchal logic, is stripping us of everything that gives us life.
We recognize that we suffer the same threats: a) the violation of our rights as women, children, youth, young people, men, gender diversities, peoples, and Mother Earth; b) the militarization of our territories by different local, regional, and national security forces; and c) the presence of organized crime and its complicity with governments and states.
We denounce that, in all our territories, projects are imposed on us without the consent of the people, and consultations are used as a tool to carry out and consummate the dispossession.
We also denounce how institutional power and the powers that be systematically instigate community division in favor of capitalist companies.
In a world that is exhausted, we know that our enemy is the same, and that is why we declare that we are not in favor of colonialist and patriarchal development because it has never worked for us.
THANKS TO THE SHARING WE HAVE DONE
we have heard firsthand about the struggle of the women and peoples of the municipalities that make up MODEVITE (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory), the Community Government of Chilón, as well as their Autonomous Communal Pluriversity Yutsilal Bahlumilal-Ch'ich' Community Government.
MODEVITE has shared with us their experience of more than 10 years of resistance against the San Cristóbal de Las Casas-Palenque Highway, misnamed “the Highway of Cultures.”
This struggle resonated with the struggles of communities and civil society organizations in Oaxaca against the Interoceanic Corridor, the Margarita Maza de Juárez dam, and mining concessions. From southeastern Coahuila, they shared their resistance against an illegal an illegal industrial toxic waste dump and their defense of the water of the San Miguel stream. Our sisters from Hidalgo shared their struggle against the solar park that is planned for the city of Sahagún and water contamination in Tula, coming from waste from the Mexico City metropolitan area. From northern Veracruz, participants denounced the government's distribution of fertilizers and agrotoxins that are poisoning the land and the health of communities.
At the same time, we learned from Crianzas Mutuas Colombia about the defense of rivers in the municipality of Suárez in the Cauca Valley. From the same country, we heard about the struggles of the Cabildo de Taganga, Santa Marta, carried out by fishing communities on the Colombian Atlantic coast who are fighting to defend their Maritorio (fishing grounds).
We have shared our pain, but also our hopes and strengths: our community organization woven through our normative systems, our spiritualities and ceremonies, as well as the collective community work that sustains the alternatives we pursue in our daily lives.
We have woven our capacity to share and dream in the midst of the violence and wars that surround us.
WE DENOUNCE
the strategies of governments, political parties, business elites, and local caciques who seek to destabilize our community organizations in order to strip us of our territories for their capitalist interests.
We demand respect for our rights and those of our Mother Earth, as well as respect for the lives of the defenders of the territory and human rights who are fighting throughout Latin America and Planet Earth.
We demand respect for the autonomy of indigenous peoples, Black people, and people of African descent, and that the decisions they make in the exercise of their self-determination be respected, as well as all their collective rights recognized in national and international law.
We demand the immediate halt of megaprojects in our territories, of mega-highways and concessions that allow the disposal of Mother Earth and the extraction of natural resources, imposing a colonialist model of development that does not come from our wisdom as indigenous peoples.
We demand respect for women, youth, children, and gender diversity in general, and in particular for those of indigenous, ethnic, peasant, fishing, Black, and Afro-descendant communities.
We, the youth, demand our right to flourish in our own communities, contributing our skills and knowledge.
We stand in solidarity with the Colombian social movements that are protesting against transnational corporations that exploit gas and oil on the seabed, build dams that damage rivers, and engage in large-scale mining.
We stand in solidarity with MODEVITE and all the collectives, communities, organizations, and networks fighting against extractive and predatory megaprojects.
FROM THIS SACRED MAYA TERRITORY, WE MAKE A STRONG CALL:
To the indigenous peoples and local, national, and international civil society to accompany, in person or from Afar, on August 9, 2025, International Day of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the pilgrimage called by the Believing People of the Jesuit Mission of Bachajón to show their rejection of the highway that will cross these indigenous Mayan territories, whose implementation has not respected the rights of indigenous peoples and which, together with the Interoceanic Corridor, the misnamed Maya Train, and the privatization of water, are part of the territorial reorganization of southeastern Mexico in the service of big capital.
We urge you to continue weaving together, through all the diverse means and forms available to us, our ancestral wisdom and our spiritualities to strengthen what we have in common in the search for peace with justice and dignity and in the defense of life.
We invite you to revalue the life of peasants and the communities that support our food, as well as the defense of native seeds free of GMOs and the natural production of our food to recover the fertility of our lands.
We know that neither governments nor states will solve our problems, which is why we must continue walking together, weaving our knowledge and spiritualities for the respect of LIFE, beginning with our bodies, our territory, and our land.
We call on all peoples and local, national, and international civil society to continue fighting with one heart.
WE SALUTE AND EMBRACE
TO OUR COMRADES OF:
The community of Cherán K'eri. We say to you: You are not alone, and your struggle is our struggle!
We support the struggle of Jlumaltik Candelaria for the recognition of her government and community autonomy.
We embrace the Zapatistas and the Encounter of Resistance and Rebellion “Some Parts of The Whole” agreed by them in their territory to take place from August 2 to 17.
We support the struggle of the Organization Sociedad Civil Las Abejas for justice, peace and dignity.
We support the organizers of the Regional Forum in Defense of Territory and Autonomy against Megaprojects in Chontal and Istmo, to be held on August 9.
To the International Congress on Communality in Oaxaca, to be held on August 7, 8, and 9.
To the struggle of the education workers of the CNTE.
To our sisters at the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, as well as the Modern Democratic Academy and the entire Kurdish women's movement and the Democratic Confederalism of Kurdistan.
To our comrades who are part of the Global Network of Alternatives (TGA): Crianzas Mutuas Colombia, Vikalp Sangam of India, and the Movement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (MASSA).
No to genocide in Gaza!
No to wars, Yes to life!
Planet Earth, Ahlan Muc'ul Ha' Community. Chilon, Chiapas
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Collective signatures:
- Crianza Mutua México part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
- Crianzas Mutuas Colombia part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
- Movement in Defense of Life and Territory, Chiapas, Mexico (Movement in
Defense of Life and Territory – MODEVITE) - Association of Community Councils of the Municipality of Suárez, Cauca,
Colombia - Chilón Community Government, Chiapas
- Indigenous Council of Taganga, Santa Marta, Colombia
- Ahlan Muc'ul Ha' Community, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Autonomous Pluriversity of the Yutsilal Bahlumilal Communal Government
Ch'ich', Chiapas, Mexico (Yutsilal Bahlumilal Autonomous Communal Pluriversity
of Ch'ich' Community Government) - Movement of Living Rivers of Colombia
- Corporation of Chinchorreros of Taganga, Colombia
- Alternative Education Project (PEA), Ocosingo Jungle Region, Section VII of
the CNTE Chiapas, Mexico (Alternative Education Project of the National
Coordinator of Education Workers) - Water Custodians of southeastern Coahuila, Mexico
- Bachajón Mission, Chiapas, Mexico
- Center for Indigenous Rights AC, Chiapas, Mexico
AC- CEDIAC) - Indigenous Videographers Project Collective of the Southern Border, Chiapas, Mexico
(Collective Project of Indigenous Videographers of the Southern Border – PVIFS). - Oaxacan Water Forum, Oaxaca, Mexico
- Working Group “Bodies, Territories, Resistances” – GT CUTER CLACSO
- Yes to Life Collective, Jalpa Coahuila
- Community of Critical Pedagogues and Popular Educators of Chiapas,
Mexico (Community of Critical Pedagogues and Popular Educators of Chiapas) - Huitzo Yelao University of the Earth, Oaxaca, Mexico
the Earth) - Guelatao Community University Center of the Autonomous Community University
of Oaxaca (Guelatao Community University Center of the Autonomous
Community University of Oaxaca, Mexico) - Observatory of Social Participation and Democratic Quality of the University
Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico (Observatory of Social Participation and
Democratic Quality of the University Iberoamericana Puebla) - Citizen/Community Observatory for Water and the Environment of the Valleys
Centrals of Oaxaca, Mexico (Observatory of Citizen/Community on Water and the
Environment in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca) - Observatory of Democracies: Southern Mexico and Central America – ODEMCA
(Observatory of Democracies: Southern Mexico and Central America) - Tsijilba Bij Collective of Agua Clara, Chiapas, Mexico
- Healing Networks of Oaxaca/Mexico City
- Community Services of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Kokopelli Collective of Northern Veracruz, Mexico
- San Pedro Comitancillo Community University Center of the University
Autonomous Communal Community of Oaxaca, Mexico (San Pedro Comitancillo Community)
University Center of the Autonomous Community University of Oaxaca) - Editorial Cooperative of the Transnational Network Other Knowledges (Transnational
Network of Other Knowledge RETOS Publishing Cooperative – RETOS). - Machtia Collective of Hidalgo, Mexico (Free Learning)
- Silvestra Project: Compost Toilets of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Satil Film, Chiapas, Mexico
- Savi Network of the Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Nichimal Cuxlejalil Collectives, Chiapas, Mexico (Flourishing life)
- Main Musicians, Ch'ich' Region, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico (Main
Musicians Collective) - Ach'ix Querem Ec' Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Network of Collectives University of the Earth Caldas and Southwestern Colombia
(Network of Collectives of the University of the Earth, Caldas and the Colombian
Southwest)
This text expresses the position of the Working Group on Bodies, Territories, Resistances and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
