- In the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, Mario Luna Romero faces constant threats to his life for fighting to protect his community’s rights to its water in the region.
- Within the Yaqui Territory are the remnants of the Yaqui River, which is sacred to the Indigenous tribe and has been drained of all its water after decades of overexploitation, unequal water distribution and droughts.
- Luna was arrested in 2014 and spent a year and 11 days in a maximum-security prison; meanwhile, other colleagues have been harassed by government officials or killed by criminals.
- Mexico, including the Yaqui Valley, is experiencing a deadly heat wave, drought and water shortages.
YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — On Sept. 11, 2014, Mario Luna Romero was arrested by state judicial police in Obregón, a city on the periphery of his tribe’s territory in Sonora, and transported to a maximum-security prison. They accused him of being involved in the kidnapping of a man with links to the state government and car theft. Despite presenting little evidence to back up those claims, they kept him in an isolated cell for one year and 11 days.
A few months before his arrest, Luna had led a ferocious campaign against the construction of the Independencia Aqueduct that would drastically decrease the Yaqui River’s waters from reaching his tribe’s land, known as the Yaqui Territory. The 172-kilometer (107-mile) aqueduct was approved by the Mexican government to satisfy the water needs of Hermosillo, the state’s capital and largest city. This was done without the consent (or the free, prior and informed consent — FPIC) of the affected Yaqui tribe, as later confirmed by a Supreme Court ruling. The Yaquis, along with other affected groups, organized protests and legal actions to halt its construction.
When Mongabay met Luna outside his white-painted brick house, he was wearing a navy blue long-sleeved shirt and white wide-brimmed hat. The northwestern Mexican state of Sonora was experiencing one of its first deadly heat waves of the season. It was the late afternoon; the sun had hit its peak and we gathered around his kitchen table.
“In the first days [in prison], what worried me least was my health and my situation,” he explained. “I was more worried about the helplessness of my sons and daughters because I was not financially prepared for them to survive without me.”
Days after his arrest, Amnesty International released an Urgent Action Campaign that called for the safety of Luna in custody and urged authorities to “ensure his right to a fair trial.” This included the impartiality of the criminal investigation and the need to make sure he would not be subjected to politically motivated criminal charges.
Besides Luna, according to reports by Amnesty International, three other community members from the Yaqui Territory were arrested and others were harassed by government officials or killed by criminals. Luna faced a lot of psychological stress during this time. While he was in prison, officials from the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples launched a smear campaign against the tribe over social media to make others believe they wanted to deprive those in Hermosillo of needed water, he said.
“There was a time when we couldn’t go out,” he said. “They knew you were Yaqui so they would yell things at you. Our children were afraid to say that they were from the Yaqui Territory because they were scared that people would do things to them when they went to their schools.”
For Luna, prison was a test of his ideological and physical resistance. “We Yaquis are prepared to sacrifice ourselves for our territory, but this time I faced the real test,” he said. While locked away, the government continued the construction of the aqueduct — a battle that is still being fought today, especially as Mexico experiences a serious water shortage.
One year and 11 days after his arrest, Luna was released from prison after a 10th district judge ordered the reexamination of his case. According to the state attorney general’s office manager at the time, Rodolfo Montes de Oca Mena, after reviewing the records, it was verified that “no crime had been committed.”
Today, the Yaquis’ fears have been realized. The section of the Yaqui River that stretches across the Yaqui Territory has now dried up due to the unequal distribution of water resources farther upstream, drought and its overexploitation. Meanwhile, the little water that does exist is contaminated due to agrochemical abuse, mining waste and poor waste management.
From flowing to dammed
As we drove down the Pan-American Highway, which stretches from the tip of Argentina in Ushuaia, across the Yaqui Territory and to Alaska in the U.S., it was made clear why people have fought over water on these lands for such a long time. Much of the Yaqui Valley is semidesert, covered with scrub, mesquites and cacti, such as the giant sauwo, or saguaro, cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). And yet, the area is considered one of the country’s most productive breadbaskets.
For the Yaquis, the river represents much more than production and profits. It is not just a resource needed during such a time of drought; it is sacred. “It has always been a connection with the spiritual,” Luna told Mongabay. “Water, due to its ability to evaporate, could then be a conduit to communicate with the gods or with your loved ones who died.”
The Yaqui tribe has long struggled to preserve the Yaqui River. Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the river was navigable for most of the year. It ran from the Sierra Madre Occidental and flowed without interruption for 320 kilometers (200 miles), across the Yaqui Valley to the Gulf of California, where it empties. At that time, Yaquis were able to swim in its streams and fish from its banks.
Four hundred years later, the Mexican government began to take greater control of the Yaqui River by constructing an extensive system of imposing concrete dams that stopped this flow, consisting of the Lázaro Cárdenas (La Angostura), Plutarco Elías Calles (El Novillo) and Álvaro Obregón (El Oviáchic) dams in the upper Yaqui River. To try to settle qualms, President Lázaro Cardenas issued a decree in 1940 to restore parts of the Yaquis’ territory that had been taken from the tribe and granted them the right to 50% of the water in the La Angostura reservoir. To this day, however, this right has not been respected.
“None of the dams that were built were done with the consent of the tribe,” Luna said with a serious intensity. He rolled down the truck window and let a blast of wind inside. The heat was oppressive. “There came a time when the water no longer began to flow through the river and only began to flow in times of rain or when the dam was too full.”
On top of the dams, two aqueducts were later announced: The Rio Yaqui-Guaymas Aqueduct, which has been in operation for more than 20 years, and the Independencia Aqueduct, which has been under construction since 2010. The Independencia Aqueduct was one of several projects approved by the government that year, known as the Sonora Sistema Integral project (Sonora Sí), to supply water to several cities in the state. It aimed to transfer around 60 million cubic meters (2.1billion cubic feet) of water from the El Novillo Dam in the Yaqui River Basin to the Sonora River Basin, for the city of Hermosillo.
“We began to investigate, and we realized that [Hermosillo] would be a user much more superior to us, with rights much more superior to us, both to the Yaquis and to the settlers down here,” Luna said. “Why? Because they would be closer to the water source. The water reaches them first.”
In 2011, some Yaquis created a pact with other affected settlers — non-Indigenous farmers, cattle ranchers, researchers and others who were once considered enemies — to prevent the aqueduct from being built. They demanded a full environmental impact assessment and a legitimate consultation process to obtain the community’s FPIC. The groups formed a movement and organized roadblocks to stop traffic on the highway that runs through their territory — an important transport route for those who wish to move goods from Mexico to the U.S.
Given the violation of their right to giving consent (FPIC), they decided to file a claim for protection and received a favorable ruling in May 2012 from the fourth district judge. One year later, after a long period of litigation, the Supreme Court found that the aqueduct was in fact a violation of the tribe’s rights. But the court did not order the immediate suspension of the project. It instead ruled that it would be stopped subject to evidence that it would cause irreparable damage to the community.
“They put the burden on us to prove that it affects us,” Luna said. “We decided that the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the INAH, would do an expert report to see if there was any impact on the tribe due to the operation of the aqueduct.”
In 2015, anthropologists concluded that “the massive extraction of water from the Yaqui River and the drying out of a large part of its historical channel will affect important aspects of tradition, rituality and daily life.” The study, which was seen by Mongabay, recommended the “elimination, cancellation or closure of the aqueduct,” and to instead “[look] for other options to address the water needs.”
José Luis Moctezuma, one of the anthropologists who was involved in the study, told Mongabay that when they presented the study to the federal authorities, including the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), they ignored it.
The lack of water “is evident to all of us,” he said. “But according to the data [CONAGUA] had, the Yaqui River did flow. Even when there are issues in favor of Indigenous peoples, there are mechanisms to make them invalid.”
For hours, as we drove across the rugged landscape, Luna pointed out areas where the river previously flowed abundantly. In Vícam Pueblo, we stopped on a bridge that once crossed over a large body of water that was historically considered sacred to the tribe. They would gather around to celebrate the festival of San Juan Bautista and a special ceremony would take place using water from the river. Today, it is completely dry, and many people have stopped gathering for the festival, Luna said.
Moctezuma told Mongabay that in recent years, some Yaquis have redirected water from an irrigation canal nearby just to be able to carry out the ceremony in June when the festival of San Juan Bautista is celebrated. But Luna said it doesn’t have the same sacred nature as before because the agrochemicals that farmers spray on agricultural fields contaminate the water, and the Yaquis know it is dirty.
Little clean water during a heat wave
At midday, we pulled off the highway, drove several kilometers east and stopped at several large, outlandish pools filled with cloudy water. These, he said, were shrimp farms. Farther east was Guasimas Bay, where the Yaqui River once poured out into the Gulf of California. Luna said the shrimp farms have become a problem because they release contamination in the bay. In the past, Yaquis could fish and collect clams and put them straight on a plate. Now, the shells come out dirty because of all the pollution.
Later, while driving toward Potam Pueblo, one of the eight Yaqui villages, Luna explained that many of the roads in the territory used to be lined with alamo (Ficus continifolia). The species is important for the Yaquis, as the wood is used to build traditional structures in their villages. One of his first jobs was harvesting alamo trees on this exact road, but now there are none left.
“It used to be a paradise,” he said, but the loss of water has led to a decrease in alamo across the territory, which is a great loss for Yaqui culture. The dried-up rivers and contamination have also impacted their relationship with the water.
“You start to lose the love for your territory and the fight,” he said. “How can you fight for, love and defend something you can’t see? The children don’t know the river; they can’t see it. They think this is normal.”
Severe drought and extremely high temperatures have also put an additional strain on the already water-deprived territory. Water levels in each of the three dams are at a historic all-time low. According to data from the Yaqui River Irrigation District, the Yaqui River dam system is at 10.9% of its total capacity, with 1.95 billion cubic meters (about 69 billion cubic feet) less water than it did a year ago. In addition, in June, the National Meteorological Service (SMN) of CONAGUA reported that the state of Sonora reached 52° Celsius (125.6° Fahrenheit), which broke Mexico’s all-time heat record. The previous record was 51°C (123.8°F) in 1993.
“The drought has not stopped getting worse,” Luna said. “Unfortunately, the last pockets of water exist in Indigenous territories. The rest of the country is already without water, it has been completely looted. The owners of the money are desperate to take what’s left. They know it’s going to end too.”
Constant insecurity
Several years ago, the community elected Luna as the official spokesperson for the Yaqui tribe’s water rights. Originally, the position was shared with Tomás Rojo Valencia, former governor of Vícam and friend of Luna’s, before he disappeared on May 27, 2021. A neighbor found his body almost four weeks later on June 17, half-buried in a grave 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) from Vícam.
At his house, Luna showed us the cameras that were set up by the government as a “protective measure” and the GPS tracker on his car. But he thinks they also placed them there to keep an eye on him. They gave him an emergency alarm to carry with him in case he is ever threatened. He thought this was hilarious: “What would this do if someone pointed a gun at my head?”
Yaqui tribe members told Mongabay that disappearances and assassinations have become a regular occurrence. Two days before our visit, a 23-year-old woman was assassinated 80 meters (262 feet) away from Luna’s home. According to reports, she had just dropped off her two children at school and was on her way to the store when unidentified armed men shot her. When asked about what happened; Luna said he did not know but that he believed narcotraffickers, a common feature of the region in Sonora, were most likely responsible.
In some communities, such as those nearer the coast, where fentanyl and other drugs are smuggled into the U.S. via the Gulf of California, the narcos have infiltrated homes and torn apart families. During a visit to Sonora in August 2021, Mexico’s former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed the rise in violence in the region on clashes between organized crime gangs and an increase in fentanyl trafficking across the Sonora-Arizona border.
At times, Luna has suffered from high levels of stress and fatigue. He has watched people in his community get sick, both from stress and from the environmental risks of living near contamination. Others have gone missing or have been killed by criminals.
He destroyed his front teeth from being stressed and chewing at night. “Some acquired diabetes because of the high level of stress they were under.” And after he was released from prison, Luna noticed many people were scared. “They saw the true face of the government,” he said.
Today, Luna spends a lot of time promoting Yaqui culture and identity among the community’s youth. His face lights up when he talks about his students at the traditional Yaqui school. Ensuring the transfer of knowledge and Yaqui traditions, such as dance, is important to him. He is also the director and host of Namakasia Radio, an independent radio station that was created to share news and information about Yaqui affairs in the tribe’s language.
“We cannot abandon the fight,” Luna said. “We must continue to defend our primordial right to use and enjoy the water of the Yaqui River. The water is not ours. It also belongs to the mountains, the air, the forest and the animals. It has to provide us and feed us. And that’s more valuable to us than the profits they are fighting for.”
Banner image: Guasimas Bay has been contaminated by agrochemicals and waste that is released from shrimp farms not far from the coast. Image by Abimael Ochoa Hernández for Mongabay.
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Citations:
Padilla Ramos, R., & Moctezuma Zamarrón, J. L. (2017). The Yaquis, a historical struggle for water. Water Hist, 9:29-43. doi:10.1007/s12685-017-0194-1
National Institute of Anthropology and History, I. (2015). Anthropological expertise regarding the social and cultural impact of the operation of the Independence aqueduct. Country Routes, (8), 8–56. Recovered from https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/rutasdecampo/article/view/7440
Velázquez García, M. A. (2012). La construcción de espacios libres para la participación en las decisiones de política. El caso del acueducto Independencia en Sonora. Región y Sociedad, 3, 117-153. Recovered from http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=10223024004
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Correction (July 9, 2024): President Lázaro Cardenas issued a decree to restore parts of the Yaquis’ territory in 1940. A previous version of the article mentioned it was in 1938. We regret the error.
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