Declaration Yes to Life! No to Projects of Death
International Encounter in Defense of Life: Maíz, Water, Territory and Mother Earth
To the local, national and international Civil Society
To the human rights organizations
To the States and governments of Planet Earth
To the movements, dignified and rebellious struggles
To the local, national and international press
With 250 people present, members of 60 communities, organizations and networks gathered on July 25, 26 and 27, 2025 in the community Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ (Abajo del Río Grande), in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, 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, youth, elders, boys and girls, recognizing each other 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, Valencia, and Germany.
We have met to seek together how to confront the projects of death by weaving with greater strength the alternatives that 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 our ancestors and ancestresses have inherited from us, which are put in grave danger because of an extractivist development model that, under the 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 the different local, regional and national security forces, as well as, c) the presence of organized crime and its complicity with governments and States.
We denounce that, in all of our territories, projects are being imposed on us without the consent of the peoples and manipulating the consultations to carry out and consummate the dispossession. We also denounce the systemic instigation, from the institutional and de facto powers, of 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 DO we have learned about the struggle of the women and people of the municipalities that make up the 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 has shared with us its 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 Inter-Oceanic Corridor, the Margarita Maza de Juárez dam and mining concessions. From the southeast of Coahuila they shared the resistance against the illegal and clandestine industrial toxic waste dump and the defense of the water of the San Miguel stream. The compañeras from Hidalgo shared the struggle against the solar park to be established in Ciudad Sahagún and the water contamination in Tula, coming from the waste from the metropolitan area of Mexico City. From the north of Veracruz they denounced the government’s distribution of fertilizers and toxic agro-chemicals that bring sickness to the land and the health of the communities.
At the same time we learned from Crianzas Mutuas Colombia about the defense of the rivers in the municipality of Suarez in the Cauca Valley. From the same country, they brought us the words of the struggles of the Cabildo of Taganga, Santa Marta, carried out by the fishing communities of the Colombian Atlantic coast who fight to defend their marine territories.
We have shared our sorrows, but also our hopes and strengths: our community organization woven through our traditional normative systems, our spiritualities and ceremonies, as well as the collective community work that sustains the alternatives that we walk in our daily lives.
We have woven our capacity to share and to dream in the midst of the violence and wars that are affecting us.
WE DENOUNCE the strategies of governments, political parties, business elites and local caciques 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 territorial and human rights defenders who are in struggle throughout Latin America and Planet Earth.
We demand respect for the autonomy of indigenous, black and Afro-descendant peoples, that the decisions made within the exercise of their self-determination be respected, as well as all their collective rights recognized in national and international legislation.
We demand an immediate halt to the mega-projects that are in our territories, of the mega-highways and 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, gender diversity in general and, in particular, those of indigenous, 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 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 collectives, communities, organizations and networks fighting against extractive and predatory megaprojects.
FROM THIS SACRED MAYAN TERRITORY WE MAKE A RESOUNDING CALL:
To the original peoples and to the local, national and international civil society to accompany in person or from a distance, next August 9 of this 2025, International Day for 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 the original peoples, and which, together with the Inter-Oceanic Corridor, the Train, wrongly called the Mayan Train, and the privatization of water, are part of the territorial reordering of the Mexican South-Southeast at the service of big capital.
We urge you to continue weaving, by all the diverse means and forms that 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 campesino life and the communities that grow our food, as well as the defense of native seeds free of transgenics and the natural production of our food to recover the fertility of our lands.
We know that neither the governments nor the States are going to 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 on all peoples and local, national and international civil society to continue fighting with one heart.
We SALUTE AND EMBRACE the compañeros and compañeras of:
the community of Cherán K’eri. We tell them: 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 Resistance and Rebellion “Some Parts of the Whole” called by them in their territory to be held from August 2 to 17.
We support the struggle of the Civil Society Organization Las Abejas 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 Congreso Internacional de Comunalidad (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 comrades of the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, as well as the Democratic Modernity Academy and the entire Kurdish women’s movement and the Democratic Confederalism of Kurdistan.
To our partners from the Global Fabric of Alternatives (TGA): Crianzas Mutuas Colombia, Vikalp Sangam from India and the Movement for 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. Chilón, Chiapas
Sunday July 27, 2025
Collective Signatures:
* Crianza Mutua México parte del Tejido Global de Alternativas (TGA)
* Crianzas Mutuas Colombia parte del Tejido Global de Alternativas (TGA)
* Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y el Territorio (MODEVITE), Chiapas, México
* Asociación de Consejos Comunitarios del Municipio de Suárez, Cauca, Colombia
* Gobierno Comunitario Chilón, Chiapas, México
* Cabildo Indígena de Taganga, Santa Marta, Colombia
* Comunidad Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’, Chilón, Chiapas, México
* Pluriversidad Autónoma Comunal Yutsilal Bahlumilal de Gobierno Comunitario Ch’ich’, Chiapas, México
* Movimiento de Ríos Vivos de Colombia
* Corporación de Chinchorreros de Taganga de Colombia
* Proyecto de Educación Alternativa (PEA), Región Selva Ocosingo, Sección VII de la CNTE Chiapas, México
* Custodios del Agua del Sureste de Coahuila, México
* Misión de Bachajón, Chiapas, México
* Centro de Derechos Indígenas A.C (CEDIAC), Chiapas, México
* Colectivo Proyecto Videoastas Indígenas de la Frontera Sur (PVIFS), Chiapas, México
* Foro Oaxaqueño del Agua, Oaxaca, México
* Grupo de Trabajo “Cuerpos, Territorios, Resistencias” – GT CUTER CLACSO
* Colectivo Sí a la Vida de Jalpa, Coahuila, México
* Comunidad de Pedagogas(os) Críticas(os) y Educadoras(es) Populares de Chiapas, México
* Universidad de la Tierra Huitzo Yelao, Oaxaca, México
* Centro Universitario Comunal de Guelatao de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca, México
* Observatorio de Participación Social y Calidad Democrática de la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, México
* Observatorio Ciudadano/Comunitario del Agua y Medio Ambiente de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, México
* Observatorio de las democracias: sur de México y Centroamérica – ODEMCA
* Colectivo Tsijilba Bij de Agua Clara de Chiapas, México
* Tejidos de Sanación de Oaxaca/Ciudad de México
* Servicios Comunitarios de Oaxaca, México
* Colectivo Kokopelli del Norte de Veracruz, México
* Centro Universitario Comunal de San Pedro Comitancillo de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca, México
* Cooperativa Editorial de la Red Transnacional Otros Saberes, Chiapas, México (RETOS).
* Colectivo Machtia (Espacios de Aprendizajes Libres) de Hidalgo, México
* Proyecto Silvestra: Baños Composteros de Oaxaca, México
* Satil Film, Chiapas, México
* Red Savi de la Mixteca de Oaxaca, México
* Colectivos Nichimal Cuxlejalil (Floreciendo la vida), Chiapas, México
* Medios Libres, Autónomos y Alternativos. A.C.
* Musiqueros Principales, Región Ch’ich’, Chilón, Chiapas, México
* Ach’ix Querem Ec’ Chilón, Chiapas, México
* Tejido de Colectivos Universidad de la Tierra Caldas y Suroccidente Colombiano
Declaration by the International Encounter in Defense of Life: Maíz, Water, Territory and Mother Earth.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.