Indigenous Resistance to the Economic Exploitation of their Territories:

Nahua People in Mexico

in the Fight for their
Water against Bonafont
By Natalia & Natalie
 Bonafont

A multinational water company in

Mexico that’s owned by Danone, a
Paris-based food corporation

It has been illegally and excessively

extracting local water in the Indigenous
region of Puebla state, in order to bottle
it and sell it back to the locals for a profit

It has stolen and hyper-exploited the

aquifers in the region for three decades
 Groundwater Extraction

Groundwater is the water found underground in

the cracks and spaces in soil, sand, and rock,
which are called aquifers
Wells are drilled into the aquifers and
groundwater is brought to surface by a pump
Pumping too much water too fast draws down the
water in the aquifer
Can eventually cause a well and its nearby
wells to yield less and less water and even
run dry
 The Bigger Problem
Water laws in Mexico are not really enforced
No requirement in Mexico for companies to declare
what contaminants they are discharging into water
supplies or soil
Budget reductions have caused the number of
water monitoring centers in Mexico to decrease by
a half over the last few years
National Water Law and the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) opened Mexico to
foreign companies
Water licenses increased in Mexico by 3191%
between 1995 and 2019
Problem of over-licensing created
 An Ongoing Cycle

Companies like Danone make around 494 times

what they spend when they sell bottled water
Locals don’t benefit at all
After extracting the water putting it in plastic
bottles, used and contaminated water are dumped
back into water sources
Other industrial pollution also disposed into
Indigenous and poorer communities
Locals are not able to access clean drinking water
and end up buying from foreign corporations
 Puebla, Mexico
Puebla borders the states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala,
Mexico, Morelos, Guerrero, and Oaxaca
Currently headed by Governor Sergio Salomón Céspedes
Owing to the region’s rich volcanic soils and strategic
location, Náhuatl-speaking peoples developed a complex
civilization there

The Great Pyramid of Cholula, also

known as Tlachihualtepetl (
Nahuatl for "made-by-hand
mountain")
Foreign and local companies have industrialized
the area around Puebla, taking advantage of the
cheap labor and resources like water
Bonafont extracted 1,641,000 litres of water each
day for 29 years in the Juan C. Bonilla
municipality of Puebla alone
Approximately two-thirds of an Olympic-
sized swimming pool
 Nahua People
Indigenous group who are impacted by the water extraction
projects
A group of the Indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua
Descendants of the Aztecs
In response to the depletion of water in their wells, rivers and
streams, twenty Indigenous Nahua communities came together
in defence of their water and life
Nahua people from the Cholula Valley region and near
Mexico’s two famous volcanoes – Iztaccihuatl and
Popocatépetl, which are all located in the state of Puebla
Formed Pueblos Unidos – the United Peoples, to resist the
depletion of their waters by Bonafont
 Taking Action

On March 22nd, 2021, the United Peoples initially closed

one of the main water bottling plants that’s been running
for decades by Bonafont in the Juan C. Bonilla
municipality of Puebla
They then took the plant over and converted it into a
community space for various agro-ecological and social
projects
Since August 8th, it has been occupied by local
Indigenous communities and renamed Altepelmecalli,
meaning the House of the People
 However, 11 months later…

Around 300 Mexican National Guards and state

security forces violently evicted them from their
community center in Puebla on February 15, 2022
Dozens of members of the public forces blocked the
road in front of Altepelmecalli, threatened those inside,
and dismantled the encampment that had been set up
outside since March 2021
 After the incident

Puebla state governor called for dialogue between the activists,

Bonafont, and the state and federal governments
The United People had invited him, other authorities
and the company to dialogue on various occasions, but
no one ever showed up
Military seizure of the area was a breach of Indigenous self-
determination
Understood by many as a demonstration that the Mexican
government puts big business and private interests first
President of Mexico chose to coordinate with the state and
municipal governments to defend Bonafont and Danone
To Indigenous people, water is
the essence of life. Their
artesian wells are very
important in their
communities.
 Drying up of local wells

Local communities have become increasingly frustrated as

they witnessed their own wells running dry whilst truckloads
of water were leaving the bottling plant to be sold
In the last five years, the flow of surface currents in rivers
and streams has decreased by 40% in the volcanic region
where the Bonafont plant operated
If bottling plants continue to carry on as they are now, there
will be no water in the region by 2040
Communities that reside in the area are constantly under the
threat of running out of water
 Other problems

Environmental damages: pollution of

rivers, air and land
Indigenous activists also blamed
Bonafont for illnesses occurring in
their communities
 Unresolved Conflict

In November last year, activists from the United Peoples

and the organization SumOfUs protested in front of the
European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium
Demanding Bonafont to leave the Indigenous
territories in Puebla
They delivered nearly 50,000 petitions to the executives of
the Danone company so that Bonafont closes permanently
Indigenous Nahua people will not give up until Bonafont
has left their territory
They organized to continue with the legal fight in the
streets of Mexico and other parts of the world, for
the defense of their water and life
 Parallels between the United Peoples and Tahltan Nation

They both never stopped their resistance against the

industrial projects made by the large companies
Despite the government or police forces trying to stop
their protests, they managed to persist and remain
united in those situations
Government is always standing on the side of the
corporations
In both stories, the government allowed the eviction of
the Indigenous peoples without listening to the reason
for their protests
Private interests and big businesses are more likely to
be prioritized, instead of the Indigenous peoples’
traditional ways of life
 Sources
https://shado-mag.com/act/how-nahua-indigenous-communities-in-mexico-t
ook-on-danone-in-defence-of-water-and-life/
​
https://truthout.org/articles/mexican-forces-evict-indigenous-activists-who-to
ok-over-water-bottling-plant/
​
https://desinformemonos.org/pueblos-unidos-protesta-frente-al-parlamento-
europeo-para-exigir-salida-de-bonafont-en-puebla/
​
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/petition-platform-joins-fight-against-inter
national-water-distributor/
​
https://mronline.org/2022/04/13/the-horrific-scam-that-water-billionaires-are-
running-on-poor-countries/
​
Thank You for Listening