Photos: Aldo Santiago
by Santiago Navarro F
It’s early in the morning, and the sun heralds yet another day—just like yesterday—with temperatures hot enough to fry an egg on the asphalt. It feels like at least 40 degrees Celsius. This is northern Sinaloa, on the coast of the municipality of Ahome, where the Gas y Petroquímica de Occidente (GPO) plant—a subsidiary of the Swiss-German company Proman Holding AG—has been in operation since 2014, poised to reap rewards for at least 30 years, the expected lifespan of this complex, which serves as the cornerstone of a larger-scale plan.
This plant aims to produce 2,200 metric tons per day (mtpd) of ammonia. It consists of various components, such as an ammonia pipeline, a gas pipeline, a desalination plant, and a filling station for tanker trucks, among others. The first phase is financed with $860 million in debt capital from a consortium of international banks led by the German bank KfW IPEX-Bank.
During her now-routine morning press conference on June 30—on the eve of the World Cup and amid various protests—Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum asserted that construction of this ammonia plant, considered the largest in Latin America, is “95 percent complete—perhaps many people didn’t know that. “In other words, it’s been under construction for a long time, and only 5 percent remains to be completed,” she stated emphatically.
Victoria Valenzuela, a Mayo-Yoreme indigenous woman from the community of Ohuira—the one closest to the industrial park—is staying in a makeshift camp that is part of a protest camp near the entrance to the industrial complex. As she carefully embroiders, she tells the Avispa Mídia team about the lack of information and the public’s lack of awareness regarding the megaproject. “We were just watching the construction. Until they brought in that machine—she points across the road to an ammonia synthesis reactor—more people started gathering, and that’s when the struggle intensified.”
The apparatus Victoria is referring to is a giant reactor that, due to its shape, has been sarcastically dubbed “the suppository”; it weighs 400 metric tons. This machine is the heart of the complex and is designed to produce 2,200 metric tons of pure ammonia per day (approximately 770,000 metric tons annually). This means that every 24 hours, the reactor produces five times its own weight in ammonia; the process involves converting natural gas into hydrogen, which is then combined with nitrogen under high pressure to produce ammonia.
Following the reactor’s arrival last May, various protests erupted, to the point where the Mayo-Yoreme indigenous people, along with activists from the ¡Aquí No! grassroots movement, decided to take decisive action. In the early morning hours of June 15, they blocked the road connecting to the ammonia plant—the Los Mochis–Topolobampo Highway (State Route 23)—where they declared an indefinite protest encampment and peacefully occupied the GPO facilities.
Since then, on that scorching asphalt at the entrance to the ammonia complex, more than twenty wooden spears painted in the colors of the Mayo-Yoreme peoples’ flag have been planted in the ground. It is a commitment the peoples have made to sustain their resistance; they are “on high alert,” says an indigenous man standing guard, better known as Yambo.
The circle formed by the spears symbolizes the assembly of the clans, the communities, and the region’s inhabitants. They declare that it is time for dialogue, but also to be prepared for the struggle. “The goal is to fight so they don’t build the ammonia plant here. And we’ll be here. For as long as it takes, we’ll be here,” warns Victoria.
Residents of Ohuira, Paredones, Lázaro Cárdenas, and Topolobampo maintain peaceful encampment to stop the construction of the ammonia plant. People from other nearby communities and from the city of Los Mochis are also participating in the protest activities.
Amid this war-like symbolism, Claudia Sheinbaum said at her press conference that “we are talking to everyone and will continue to talk to everyone, and we will listen.” It was a preview of the strategy that was in the works, as an attempt to channel the discontent. On the president’s instructions, in coordination with the government of Sinaloa, five roundtable discussions with local communities and activists were convened between July 17 and 22, 2026, at the Autonomous University of the West (UAdeO) in Los Mochis.
This initiative began with a press conference in which the federal government’s commissioner, Mauricio Rodríguez Alonso, stated that “our objective is clear: to listen to the diverse demands of the various sectors and review them in a serious and reasoned manner.” These roundtables addressed critical issues such as environmental monitoring, productive projects, agricultural benefits, and the condition of the bay.
All of this led to an official resolution, presented on August 4, aimed at resolving the conflict and thus allowing construction of the GPO plant to continue.
This new government initiative was publicly presented as the “Comprehensive Plan for Environmental Conservation, Community Well-being, and Sustainable Development of Ohuira Bay,” promising the restoration and cleanup of the bay, as well as immediate response to leaks or spills. But the response from the communities in resistance was internal consultation.
For the Indigenous communities, this was nothing new, since whenever an event related to their territory arises, they consult with one another. “So, in each of the communities, the consultation was carried out according to their own customs and traditions,” says activist Enrique Ayala of the ¡Aquí No! collective in Los Mochis. Over the course of four assemblies, they reaffirmed that the project will remain on hold.
Commissioner Rodríguez assured with absolute certainty that financial support would also be provided to fishermen—in the form of boat motors and subsidies during the fishing ban—as well as logistical benefits for farmers. He emphasized that the plan already specifies “who does it, how it’s done, and when it’s done,” seeking to present it as a definitive and consensus-based solution.
Activist Ayala told the Avispa Mídia team that the Plan was never openly presented as a way to allow the ammonia project to continue: “Never—we never allowed it, nor was it ever proposed as a trade-off for [allowing the project]; we sensed it implicitly, which is something else entirely. “But the plan was never offered in exchange for allowing anything,” he insists. “The central objective is that we don’t want exploitation, we don’t want destruction, and we don’t want our communities to be trampled upon.”
Of the proposals put forward in this Plan, the communities never received anything in writing and, therefore, do not know the details of the government’s proposal.
The dialogue mentioned by the Mexican president was met with a rejection from the communities, which they expressed in a statement—released after their self-consultation—in which they highlight the mistrust generated by the state and federal governments, as their approach has been “nothing but evasion,” according to the Mayo-Yoreme. Meanwhile, they accused the company GPO of “financing division within the community” by attempting to buy people’s loyalty, falsifying technical information, disrupting ecosystems with unauthorized construction projects, and refusing, since its establishment in 2014, to engage in scientific debate.
“Given this background, the community’s stance remains the same: opposition to the Proman-GPO project—the ammonia plant,” the communities in resistance have stated. Meanwhile, Proman, in its various reports to investors, announces that commercial operations are scheduled to begin at the end of the first half of 2027.
Hell in Ohuira
Felipe de Jesús Montaño is the name of the kobanero—officially referred to as the governor of his community—who belongs to the ceremonial center of the Virgin of Carmen in Ohuira—a sacred site of the Mayo-Yoreme people—and who is also present daily at the protesters’ encampment, enduring the extreme heat and the rains. “GPO is a project that will produce ammonia and will use seawater; by drawing 2,000 cubic meters per hour, it would practically mean the death of the bay,” laments the kobanero, in a soft but determined voice, during an interview with Avispa Mídia.
The community spokesperson’s concern is well-founded, as the water the plant will use will serve not only to heat or power turbines but, more importantly, in the form of steam, to react with natural gas—primarily methane—at high temperatures to produce hydrogen. In other words, the steam breaks down the gas to produce hydrogen (H₂) and carbon monoxide (CO). The process continues by injecting air at 1,000 degrees Celsius (°C), and the residual methane is reduced to a mere 0.6%. After several more steps—and, once again, at temperatures of up to 510 °C—the hydrogen and nitrogen combine to form ammonia, chemical elements classified as “High Risk” according to the company’s own Environmental Impact Statement and Risk Assessment (EIS).
Furthermore, the risk does not lie in a single step of the process, but extends all the way to storage and distribution, where, in addition to extremely high temperatures and extreme pressures, toxic gases and explosive atmospheres are also present. That is why the EIS itself presents risk scenarios, such as ammonia leaks in the 18-inch-diameter pipeline that transports it over a distance of 3 kilometers and in the refrigerated storage tanks, each with a capacity of 25,000 metric tons; given that there are three of them, this amounts to a total of 75,000 metric tons.
In the case of the ammonia pipeline, according to the area designated by the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), the company has modeled three possible rupture scenarios: ranging from a blow by a backhoe, a vehicle impact, and even a complete rupture of the pipeline, in which case it is estimated that closing the emergency valves would take at least 5 minutes—enough time for a toxic cloud to spread rapidly, immediately affecting more than 400,000 people living within a 1.4-kilometer radius and reaching up to 45 kilometers under light wind conditions.
In the case of the containers, the document only identifies a tiny 0.5-inch hole in the weld at the very top of the tank roof as a risk, but what would happen if the crack were larger and occurred at the base, where the pressure is highest? Applying the EIS’s own modeling for the pipeline, hundreds of liters would be released in a matter of minutes. The impact would be catastrophic, since liquid ammonia at 33 degrees Celsius begins to boil violently and expand rapidly the moment it comes into contact with air, as the EIA states.
This would create a toxic cloud extending far beyond the proposed 45 kilometers under normal wind conditions, according to the company’s own document. Just one liter of liquid ammonia turns into approximately 850 liters of toxic gas. Multiplying that amount by hundreds of liters would be fatal, as it would affect several communities around Ohuira Bay.
Civil engineer Angélica Reyes, who worked for 27 years in the United Kingdom and specializes in environmental regulations and standards—particularly for the construction of power plants—warns the Avispa Mídia team that the only scenario the company models is a minor leak in the roof of the containers, but it does not consider a more significant impact, which “poses a massive risk that no insurer would cover.”
Furthermore, the expert says, the containers already show some rust, and when they are cleaned, “the thickness of the metal will be reduced. I believe that as it thins out—and given the very high temperatures here in Topolobampo—any substance in those tanks is likely to expand.”
The engineer, who visits the encampment every afternoon and whose family lives in Los Mochis, believes that “zero accidents don’t exist, because humans are involved and this is in our DNA, and we can’t guarantee anything 100 percent in terms of safety.”
Reyes also adds that, “to begin with, there is no evacuation route for all the residents of Topolobampo—the community closest to the industrial complex. The only possible evacuation route for all of them is blocked, precisely, by the plant. All the residents—their health and their lives—are at risk in the event of a potential emergency,” the engineer told Avispa Mídia.
The UN Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups, who received information on the GPO project, also warn that an ammonia leak lasting just five minutes would turn the entire Ohuira Bay into a high-risk zone posing an “immediate danger to health or life.”
The rapporteurs have also expressed concern about the risk assessments, considering them limited because they only address the first ammonia plant. The cumulative risks of future phases of the project—including increased ammonia production in the second phase and the operation of a methanol plant in the third phase—were not taken into account. It is only in this final phase that crop fertilizer is mentioned—an argument used by the federal government to justify the project under the banner of “national sovereignty.”
Residents of Ohuira, Paredones, Lázaro Cárdenas, and Topolobampo are maintaining a peaceful encampment to stop the construction of the ammonia plant. People from other nearby communities and from the city of Los Mochis are also participating in the protest activities. Among the various activities, Engineer Reyes is sharing her community library initiative.
Engineer Reyes maintains that Mexico’s president is very misinformed, since the argument about 95% progress “is being used to claim that it is not possible to backtrack. But several elements are still missing,” she asserts, pointing out the lack of basic industrial safety mechanisms visible in aerial photographs of the plant.
The Valley of Death
It’s 5:00 a.m. on yet another hot day at the encampment. As has become customary for activist Enrique Ayala of the environmental collective ¡Aquí No!, he joins the sit-in’s security patrols every morning; these patrols make their rounds at various times along the perimeter of the GPO facilities to prevent any workers from entering, since the activists are not allowing any activity to take place. After taking a deep breath, he says bluntly, “We’re stuck in the Valley of Death,” referring to the municipality of Ahome, which leads Sinaloa in agricultural production, according to the Ministry of Economy.
“This municipality is purely agricultural, where transnational corporations monopolize production, mainly for export to Canada and the United States. So we say that, locally, there is an ‘agro-power’ whose only concern is production, regardless of the pollution it causes—with chemicals that end up in the bay. That is why researchers recognize it as the Valley of Death,” says activist Ayala.
In fact, GPO acknowledges and justifies in its EIS that its pollution is minimal because the bay is already being contaminated by fertilizer and pesticide residues (nitrogen and phosphate compounds), “carried and introduced into the coastal lagoon through land runoff, wind, and, primarily, via return flows from agricultural canals and drains that discharge their waters without prior treatment,” the company’s document states.
For Ayala, when the arrival of GPO is justified as supporting “energy and food sovereignty” through fertilizers and energy, “they forget that the capital is German and the gas comes from Texas. The food is produced to feed the American people—so where is national sovereignty?” he asks with visible anger.
The activist is certain that GPO is just the tip of the iceberg in the Valley of Death: “We’re not talking about a single company. We’re talking about a national project; we’re talking about a development hub. I say it’s a hub of environmental destruction and death,” he declares.
Ohuira Bay is already being impacted by industrial operations. The Topolobampo Thermal Power Plant, operated by the CFE, is clearly visible. “These projects are going to accumulate a host of pollutants. We already have agricultural pollution—are we going to add industrial pollution to that?” asks activist Enrique Ayala.
Ayala is certain that her company is not the only one affected and that the impending pollution heralds the disappearance of the fishing industry and the culture centered around the bay—considered the state’s largest fishing area, particularly known for its shrimp and crab production.
On March 11, a decree was issued, signed by Marcelo Ebrard in his capacity as Secretary of Economy, regarding the Topolobampo Economic Development Hub for Well-being in Sinaloa (PODECOBI TOPOLOBAMPO), a project promoted under the Plan México framework and located just a few meters from the GPO plant. Although the GPO plant is not located within the hub’s designated area, it receives the same tax benefits.
According to the decree, and based on the zone’s coordinates, the zone covers 277.5 hectares, which are already being offered to the highest bidder—along with 13 other industrial parks in the state of Sinaloa—by the official agency specializing in promoting and attracting domestic and foreign investment to the state of Sinaloa, CIT Sinaloa (Center for Investment & Trade). This entity operates as a public-private partnership between the Sinaloa Economic Development Council and the state’s Secretariat of Economy.
In addition to tax incentives, investors benefit from access to the Port of Topolobampo, rail connectivity, the Los Mochis Airport, and Federal Highway 14 to the U.S. Electricity and natural gas are also available. Among the requirements for investors, in addition to a social and environmental impact plan, their investment project must align with the priority sectors promoted by CIT Sinaloa.
Sectors open to investment include agro-industry; fertilizer production and sustainable petrochemicals; clean energy, energy storage, and green hydrogen; and manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.
Gas, extracted through a process known as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, is one of the central pillars on which GPO and the other companies depend. The pipeline that will supply these complexes is the 835-kilometer Sonora Gas Pipeline, operated by the U.S.-based company Sempra Energy, which connects at the U.S. border with the Sierrita Gas Pipeline, also operated by Sempra Energy. It is divided into two segments: Guaymas–Sásabe (505 km) and Guaymas–El Oro (300 km).
The Guaymas-El Oro section had to be rerouted after several years of resistance from one of the Yaqui Tribe’s communities, compounded by the fact that the company and the government ignored the community’s rejection of the project and decided to route the pipeline through their territory, which sparked a conflict. The company has currently allocated $260 million to reroute the gas pipeline and plans to begin commercial gas sales no later than July 2029.
However, the same gas is currently being delivered via alternative interconnections. The Guaymas–El Oro pipeline connects to the Encino–Topolobampo and El Oro–Mazatlán pipelines operated by the Canadian company TC Energy. In addition to supplying GPO, it will also supply gas to the U.S.-funded Mexinol project, which aims to produce 6,130 metric tons per day of blue and green methanol, for a total of 2.24 million metric tons per year.
The site where the ammonia plant is being built has devastated hectares of mangroves and wetlands belonging to the Santa María–Topolobampo–Ohuira lagoon system. The site is also crossed by a gas pipeline that transports methane from Texas, U.S.
With deep conviction, activist Ayala declares, “This gas is our greatest misfortune. They brought in the gas terminal to produce ‘green’ electricity—what ‘green’? These companies are going to cause massive pollution. They’re going to destroy the Ohuira Valley.”
For its operations, Mexinol will require at least 1.8 million of gas extracted through fracking. This complex is adjacent to the Development Hub near Ohuira Bay and the inland port.
“We’re talking about all these projects accumulating a host of pollutants (…). Mexinol will also emit its own pollutants. We already have agricultural pollution—are we going to add industrial pollution to that? Gentlemen! This company is going to cause massive pollution. Let’s not fool ourselves—it’s not just one company; there are several,” says the activist from ¡Aquí No!
Indeed, behind the companies that already have a presence here, there are a dozen more, each with its own impacts. “They’re trying to sugarcoat it by telling us they’re ‘green’ because they’re planting some mangroves. Oh how lovely! They’re going to destroy the area just to plant three little trees—is that ‘green’?” Ayala asks.
During the groundbreaking ceremony last April to kick off construction of Mexinol, the ¡Aquí No! movement showed up and prevented the event from taking place. The then-governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, was forced to cancel the event, publicly committing that “the plant will not move forward until the indigenous consultation is held,” extending this criterion to the Topolobampo Development Hub project.
Fake Consultations
Victoria Valenzuela, an indigenous woman, states that neither the heat, the rain, nor the mosquitoes can stop them, “because we’ve been fighting for at least 13 years” to defend the territory of Ohuira Bay.
The conflict stemming from the Topolobampo ammonia plant began because, in 2014, Semarnat authorized the project but overlooked one small detail: it failed to consult with the communities.
The legal conflict unfolded on several fronts: between 2018 and 2019, at least five constitutional appeals (528/2018, 628/2018, 724/201, 350/2019, 358/2019) were filed by indigenous communities, fishermen, local residents, and a restaurant owner in the area. Notable among these are the lawsuits filed by the Mayo-Yoreme communities of Lázaro Cárdenas and Ohuira, as well as by the residents of the Paredones fishing village—all challenging the environmental permit granted by Semarnat in 2014.
One of these legal actions, filed by Martín García Cruz, a representative of the Mayo-Yoreme community of Paredones, cited not only the lack of an environmental permit but also the failure to conduct prior indigenous consultation. Although the case was initially dismissed—the judge closed the case without ruling on the merits due to an alleged withdrawal—members of the community challenged that decision. In 2020, a panel of judges ordered the proceedings to be reinstated because there was no evidence that the community had collectively agreed to withdraw the case.
It was then, in July 2021, that the federal judge finally granted the injunction: he ordered the 2014 environmental permit and any extensions derived from it to be revoked, and compelled the authorities to conduct a prior consultation that is culturally appropriate, informed, and conducted in good faith.
The case reached the Supreme Court, which, in 2022, ruled that the plant’s authorization was unconstitutional because Semarnat had not previously consulted with the potentially affected Indigenous communities. Thus, even before any consultation took place, the federal courts had already determined that the project could not be legally sustained on the basis of an authorization obtained without consulting the affected communities.
However, Semarnat then revoked the authorization and initiated the consultation process. The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) identified 15 Mayo-Yoreme communities within a 45-kilometer radius—the project’s area of influence. The government maintains that the process complied with constitutional standards and those of ILO Convention 169, through the use of interpreters, information provided in the Mayo-Yoreme language, and community assemblies and deliberations. However, this came too late, as the project was already underway and the consultation took place nearly a decade later.
“It was a completely rigged consultation because they bought people’s support. They didn’t consult us—those of us who live near the bay. The ones who said yes to the project are the ones who live far away. We always said ‘No!’ They wiped us off the map; they said there were no villages around the bay,” says Valenzuela, an indigenous woman.
Even though the Indigenous communities of Ohuira, Paredones, and Lázaro Cárdenas—those living around the bay—did not give their consent, the project continued to move forward.
The indigenous people involved in the resistance denounced that there were also irregularities in the registry of communities entitled to consultation, while those most affected were engaged in the resistance. “The plain truth is, those who sold out are indeed indigenous. But for two hundred pesos, for food packages, they made it seem like we were all in agreement. But that’s not true. We invited the president to come, and no one has come,” says Victoria.
In the case of the Mexinol site, which is located near GPO, according to its own documents, Semarnat’s General Directorate of Environmental Impact and Risk (DGIRA) originally issued an official exemption from the indigenous consultation requirement, arguing that “no collective entity with the right to consultation had been identified within the project’s environmental impact area.”
Recently, in the decree regarding the Topolobampo PODECOBI, the federal government stated verbatim that “it is unnecessary to implement an indigenous consultation process,” even though this area is also located on the bay’s shore. The document justifies this on the grounds that these territories have been impacted in the past.
“So when they held the consultation, it was no longer preliminary, in good faith, informed, or free, because everything was conditioned. Suddenly, traditional governors—kobaneros—from the villages with voting power appeared, doubling the number of people. It was practically a violation of international treaties,” says Felipe Montaño, a kobanero from Ohuira.
The World of the Sea
In the Yoreme language, the “world of the sea” or the “spirit of the sea” is called Baahue Ánia (also spelled Baáwe Ánia or Váwe Ánia). Sitting under a thatched shelter erected beside the road next to the camp—where ceremonies and rituals are held—Reyna Montaño, the Mayo-Yoreme of Ohuira, shares with us that “our culture identifies deeply with the natural world; we appreciate and care for nature—what we call Baahue Ánia.”
With deep emotion, as if weaving together memories from the very depths of her being, Reyna explains that “the area we are protecting today is the world of the sea, which is sacred to us. Because it is our way of life. My grandparents and my parents were fishermen, and now they want to strip us of our land. But only those who feel this land is theirs are allowed to enter here; we haven’t ruined it, we haven’t polluted it. Today we are defending it.”
The place this Mayo-Yoreme woman refers to is of such importance that, since 2009, the Santa María–Topolobampo–Ohuira lagoon system has been recognized as a wetland of international importance under Ramsar Convention No. 1341, serving as a vast ecological “kidney” spanning 22,500 hectares. Its role in addressing the climate crisis is of vital importance, since in addition to purifying the water, it sequesters carbon on a massive scale through its dense mangrove forests and acts as a shield against the ravages of hurricanes along the coast.
The wildlife that converges in this area is of continental importance, as it serves as a resting spot for various species migrating across the Pacific. Various studies reveal that this complex of three bays and eight islands serves as a wintering ground and feeding area for more than 90 species of migratory waterfowl, connecting the ecosystems of Alaska and Canada with northern Mexico.
At the same time, its underwater ecosystem functions as a vast “marine nursery”—the primary spawning ground that sustains shrimp, crab, and sea bass populations throughout the Gulf of California. This ecosystem supports the livelihoods of nearly 3,000 small-scale fishermen, whose families have depended on this biodiversity for generations.
According to the GPO’s EIS, prepared by the consulting firm Corporativo CAPSA, various impacts on the Ramsar site are expected as a result of the project’s construction and operation; however, these are considered “low in magnitude or insignificant,” such as the increase in temperature in the discharge channel and the adjacent area due to the plant’s cooling water, which, incidentally, will use an existing channel belonging to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Contrary to its environmental study, and following the roundtable discussions, the government promised that the discharge of water would not take place in Ohuira Bay.
According to the EIS, an impact is also expected from the GPO desalination plant, which will require at least 890 cubic meters of seawater per hour and discharge 812 m³ of brine per hour. This will “cause a local increase in salinity,” the document states. Among other impacts, the company also anticipates the risk of discharges or leaks of process condensates containing ammonia, methanol, and amines (such as methylamines, dimethylamines, and trimethylamines) in low concentrations.
The dilemma facing Mexican authorities and international organizations reflects a global crossroads: on the one hand, the great promise of industrial development; on the other, the vulnerability of this natural “kidney”—the Ramsar site—which is home to endangered species such as the hawksbill turtle, the Pacific green turtle (also known as the black turtle), the olive ridley turtle, and the leatherback turtle. Also included are the ruddy heron, the roseate spoonbill, the brown pelican, and the osprey. Or the bottlenose dolphin and the California sea lion, among others.
In this context, the ammonia plant is being built in an ecosystem where indigenous peoples also live and from which their history—explaining why they settled in this place—originates. An independent technical report cited by the United Nations estimates that, without adequate filtration systems, a quantity of shrimp larvae equivalent to more than 500 metric tons could be destroyed in a single year—compared to an average annual catch of about 900 metric tons from coastal fishing, the document notes.
Juan Ricardo Martínez, a fisherman from Topolobampo, has no doubt that the GPO project is a danger—something they’ve already experienced with a Petroleros Mexicanos (PEMEX) plant, which is also located near the ammonia plant. “It’s already had leaks, and we had to flee the bay—what would happen if there were an ammonia leak?” the fisherman asks the Avispa Mídia team.
Residents of Ohuira, Paredones, Lázaro Cárdenas, and Topolobampo are maintaining a peaceful encampment to stop the construction of the ammonia plant. People from other nearby communities and from the city of Los Mochis are also participating in the protest activities. Reyna Montaño and Victoria Valenzuela during an interview at the encampment.
Victoria knows that the arrowheads and the circle they form—which belong to the Mayo-Yoreme communities—are crucial for finding solutions through dialogue or for continuing to sustain the resistance indefinitely. “We have no choice but to keep resisting; otherwise, we will disappear as peoples. Because we have lived off the sea—it is our livelihood. As a sacred place, we had our own site, Mapawe, where we gave thanks to the sea. But they destroyed it. Now we are here at the entrance to GPO demanding respect for the bay and for life,” concludes the Mayo-Yoreme indigenous woman.
Collaboration: Aldo Santiago
Original text Santiago Navarro F with photos by Aldo Santiago published by Avispa Midia on August 20th, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.