Green spots in urban areas, a right for all.

ENVIRONMENT

It is essential to create a balance between urbanized areas with concret and green areas that provide us with environmental services that counteract againts the effects of human activity in urban areas. The heat island effect is becoming more and more noticeable as the temperature increases. It is enough to drive out the city to realize the difference in temperature with the countryside.

In the midst of the health crisis, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and in view of the analysis that everyone is making of what will come after it, we must recognize that we have experienced a phenomenon very similar to having a microscope in front of us, which would allow us to see the smallest details of another of the crises that San Miguel de Allende is going through: the environmental crisis. A crisis that, according to the experts, goes hand in hand with the crisis of human rights.

Above all, we must recognize the human right to the environment. As Dr. Leticia Merino Pérez explains in her book: “Environmental Crisis in Mexico, Route to Change”.

In the 1987 Brundtland Report, Annex I, the following was identified as a general legal principle:

“All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and well-being.

Within the national legal framework, the human right to the environment is recognized in the constitution in article 4, paragraph 5, which states

“Everyone has the right to a healthy environment for his development and well-being. The State shall guarantee respect for this right. Environmental damage and deterioration shall give rise to liability for whoever causes it in terms of the provisions of the law”.

Added paragraph DOF 28-06-1999. Reformed DOF 08- 02-2012.

It is mentioned in the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, in its first article, section I, which states

ARTICLE 1 – This law regulates the provisions of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States that refer to the preservation and restoration of the ecological balance, as well as the protection of the environment, in the national territory and the areas over which the nation exercises its sovereignty and jurisdiction. Its provisions are of public order and social interest and are intended to promote sustainable development and establish the basis for it:

I.- Guarantee the right of every person to live in a healthy environment for their development, health and well-being; Reformed section DOF 05-11-2013

Here are also judgements in different courts that have recognized the human right to the environment.

Having a healthy environment implies, among other things, maintaining the tree inventory of our state, of our municipality. Last May 2019, a proposal was presented to the Congress of the State of Guanajuato to approve the Law for the Protection of Urban Trees and Green Areas. This proposal has not yet been revised.

It seems that there is a lack of coordination between the directorates in charge of the environment and the one that executes public works. On the one hand, they reforest and when a modification to the urban environment is planned, from the desk des fortunately cannot be considered the existing trees.

However, this city, this planet; will be inherited to the youngest. What is the opinion of the young people, in whom we have all the hope, so that they command the changes that the world needs? Here is a space to listen to their opinion about it.

WE SHARE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER ATENCIÓN, FROM A YOUNG WOMAN WHO REFLECTS ON THIS

San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato

July 10, 2020

The privilege of green areas

To the editor of the Attention newspaper:

After reading information regarding citizen complaints about logging caused by public works workers and recent news about the plans to “remodel” the Almenas Walkway in the Malanquin neighborhood: Some months ago, during the development of the Save 41 Trees movement, a girl came to notify us that the municipality also wanted to remove the trees from the main street of Malanquín; today I learned that the news is real and now they are not removing them for “maintenance of the public road” but because they are not endemic. I regret that they take this argument to exercise their power and their desire to impose spaces without green areas on the people. I doubt very much that the municipality will take the same measures with the non-endemic vegetation that is found in the center and in gardens adjacent to nice areas generally inhabited by Americans or Mexicans with a high socioeconomic level. I doubt very much that they will “take the precautions” that they took when they removed the trees from the Salida a Celaya for doing their overpass project; the measures of covering the trees with high screens so that people would not see them being uprooted. I doubt that they do this only because the Malanquin is neither a central area not an area frequented by tourists. When we go to the outskirts of cities there is always one element in common, apart from the violence, the lack of green spaces. It seems to me that limiting the trees (of any kind), the vegetation and the community spaces that abound in them is an aggression that we have well neglected and internalized. As well as getting rid of existing vegetation as if it had no value. There are enough sources and studies that tell us about the benefits of a space with trees to reduce the levels of stress and delinquency, enough information we have to develop infrastructures that coexist with nature. These governments, beyond being …, are classist and violent. I am grateful for the space and time given to read this text. Sincerely

Victoria Delgado