On Sunday, July 26, 2015, The Caravan for the “Buen Vivir” of Peoples in Resistance arrived to the community of Paso de la Reina on the southwestern coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. The intense sun had already begun to fade, but the hot air lingered in a thick and gray repose, hopeful for a twilight breeze. Windows wide open, the caravan’s mobile laboratory clunked down a rocky road, past lime trees and lush cattle pastures, until reaching a modest, yellow bridge.
It was at this site on the dawn of July 11, 2009 that residents of Paso de la Reina prevented the entrance of workers from Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE, Comisión Federal de Electricidad), initiating a years-long encampment in resistance to the damming of the Río Verde. The primary dam proposed within their territory would measure 162 meters and would flood 1,957 hectares of land, producing a total of 1,572 GWh per year. A second dam located near the community of San José del Progreso Tututepec would have a height of 20 meters.
Older residents of Paso de la Reina recall when CFE employees and university researchers first began to study the riverbed’s potential for energy exploitation in the 1960s. They tell of times in which campesinos took for granted the impunity of government agencies, and so they thought it best to keep their mouths shut. While the CFE renewed its studies of the geological, hydrological, environmental, and social properties of the Río Verde in 1996, then formalized its plan in 2006, it was not until 2009 that residents of Paso de la Reina established an organized resistance movement. Six years later, they stand at the forefront of a broad-based network in defense of the region’s natural resources and cultural heritage.
Communities United In Defense of the Río Verde
In June of 2007, affected communities opposed to the hydroelectric project created the Council of Peoples United in Defense of the Green River (COPUDEVER). Paso de la Reina joined COPUDEVER in 2009, after hosting a regional assembly in response to rumors that their community had already accepted the dams. Of the forty-seven communities invited, forty-three arrived, each recounting the same story: the CFE representatives came to their pueblo and told them that all of the other communities had already conceded to the proposal, leaving only their people on the other side. In reality, while several villages had permitted the CFE to conduct preliminary studies, not one had approved the project.
The communities of COPUDEVER—comprised of indigenous Chatina and Mixteca peoples as well as Afro-Mestiza groups—state that its construction would negatively impact the river’s ecosystem by disrupting its natural cycles and displacing native species. The inundation would also cause significant human displacement along with the concomitant rupture of social bonds. Moreover, the CFE has consistently failed to share information with affected communities, and has obfuscated the nature and status of the project, changing the reported height of the dam three times between 2009 and 2011. Finally, activists state that the project’s primary goal is to fuel the extensive extraction of natural resources in the region in order generate profit for foreign investment.
The Caravan in Paso de la Reina
From July 26 to August 2 of 2015, members of Collectives in Action and residents of Paso de la Reina engaged in a week of exchange and mutual aid focused on practical tools in defense of autonomous territories. Each morning caravaners activated their radio transmitter to broadcast diverse live programs with the participation of community members of all ages, including interviews with local activists, a showcase of regional music, and a round of exuberant storytelling with local youth. The caravan’s independent media team also collaborated with youth in the production of Paso de la Reina’s first community television program, while participants in photography workshops generated an impressive image gallery of their own community, with the aim of building capacity to document day-to-day realities in their territory. Youth participants in the theater workshop produced a short play about the defense of their natural resources in Paso de la Reina, while community members assisted in the creation of a colorful mural that expresses their relation with the Río Verde.
Participatory mapping workshops sought to express and deepen residents’ knowledge and visions of their own territory. 
Authorities and farmers mapped communal agricultural properties and identified the areas that would be inundated with the construction of the proposed dams. Men, women, and children helped create a map depicting the local uses of the river as well as risks to natural resources. Community elders identified 15 species of fish displaced by the Ricardo Flores Magón dam downriver, and they named numerous trees, plants, and fungi endangered by deforestation and the use of agrochemicals. Finally, community members and caravaners collected samples of forty-three medicinal and edible plants native to the shores and hillsides of the Río Verde. Youth filmed the outing and transcribed elders’ knowledge of the plants in a book that will remain with the community.
Workshops on socially appropriate technologies featured the collective construction of a large firewood-saving stove for the communal kitchen, using clay, sand, gravel, and stones collected from the Río Verde. Participants also took the initiative to transform their old pots and pans into twelve ecological stoves for domestic use. In workshops on pedal-powered machines, residents of Paso de la Reina built a bicycle blender that can turn the flavorful chiles of Oaxaca’s coast into salsa without the use of electricity. A second group worked with a local carpenter to build a pedal-powered corn grinder that combines a wooden base with recycled bicycle parts. Both machines will serve the community kitchen, with the aim of supporting the autonomy of a people who are in resistance to an energy project in an area that experiences frequent power outages.
Residents of Paso de la Reina also shared their knowledge with caravaners: one group milked cows at dawn and learned to make cheese, while others adventured on a nighttime excursion to hunt armadillos. Community members demonstrated the local methods for making adobe and toasting coffee beans. Finally, caravaners appreciated the riches of the Río Verde that much more after learning to catch shrimp and chowing down on dense shrimp stew and fluffy shrimp tamales.
Paso de la Reina and Collectives in Action plan to continue exchanging knowledge and experiences in the future, as residents keep organizing in defense of the Río Verde, and the caravan visits communities in resistance from Mexico to Panama.
1 “Ficha Técnica: Proyecto de Aprovechamiento Hidráulico de Usos Múltiples Paso de la Reina.” Observatorio de Derechos Territoriales y Servicios para una Educación Alternativa A.C., March 2015. http://www.educaoaxaca.org/observatorio/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/proyecto-paso-de-la-reina.pdf