October 2011 – Geo-Mexico, the geography of Mexico

Uxpanapa, an example of forced migration

Oct 312011

Almost all internal migration in Mexico in recent history has been voluntary. Tens of thousands of rural Mexicans have decided that life might be better somewhere else and have left their farms for the bright lights of the nearest large city. Their motivation is usually economic, but sometimes may be based on educational opportunities or access to health care.

However, not all internal migration has been voluntary. There have been some cases of forced migration, where the inhabitants of a village or area have been made to move away in order to make way for large-scale infrastructure projects such as reservoirs, tourism resorts and hotel complexes.

Since most good dam sites are in remote highland areas, with sparse population, forced migrations due to new dams are relatively rare in Mexico. One good example is when the building of the Cerro de Oro dam in the 1970s in northern Oaxaca, on a tributary of the River Papaloapan, flooded 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) and meant the forced relocation of more than 5000 Chinantec Indians. [Aguilera Reyes] The resettlement plan was one of the most forward-looking of its time. Villagers received compensation for their existing homes, trees and crops, and were offered a choice of possible resettlement sites.

They chose an area of rainforest-covered ridges and valleys near the headwaters of the Rivers Coatzacoalcos and Uxpanapa in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. With government assistance they built a dozen new villages named, somewhat unimaginatively, Poblado Uno, Poblado Dos, etc. Extensive agricultural support was provided for several seasons, but the plan failed to live up to expectations, in part because its architect, the distinguished Mexican geographer Jorge Tamayo, was killed in a plane crash in 1978.

Many of the area’s young people have migrated (voluntarily) north. The remaining villagers grow ixtle, a fibrous cash crop produced from rainforest bromeliads that can be used for ropes and belts. They are also trying to introduce ecotourism to preserve what is left of their tropical jungle hideout, which has a rich biodiversity, including spider monkeys and jaguars. [Ginsberg]

References:

Aguilera Reyes, S. 2004 “Desarrollo, Población y Uso de los Recursos Naturales en el Valle de Uxpanapa.” Universidad Veracruzana Facultad de Sociología thesis. Xalapa,Veracruz. Marzo 2004.

Ginsberg, S. 2000 Report from Uxpanapa. Can bromeliads save Veracruz’s last rainforest? [6 September 2009]

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This post is an edited excerpt from chapter 25 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Food speculation fuels a tortilla crisis in Mexico

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Oct 292011

The Ecologist Film Unit has produced an excellent 8-minute video on how financial speculation on corn (maize) has led to a dramatic rise in the price of corn tortillas, with potentially disastrous effects for the health and well-being of the many of Mexico’s poorest. Reporter Tom Levitt’s video, accompanied by text, presents a compelling case, one which would be an excellent starting-point for class discussions.

Two short quotes set the scene:

“For many Mexicans, particularly the estimated 40 million living on less than $5 a day (£3), tortillas account for almost half of their average daily calorie intake. As a whole, the country consumes 23 times more maize than rice.”

“In 2000 there was $6 billion invested in commodities, by 2011 it was $340 billion, of which $126 billion, according to data from Barclays Capital, is reported to be invested in food. The vast majority of this new investment has been by speculators with no interest in the agricultural sector or in actually taking delivery of the commodity.”

The result? Higher prices for corn, greater unpredictability in prices, and adverse changes to the diet of tens of thousands, as corn becomes more expensive than meager household budgets permit.

The video is a powerful indictment of the harm being done to ordinary people in many parts of the developing world by rich-world market speculators and investment banks. Watch it now, or read the full article:

Mexico’s poor suffer as food speculation fuels tortilla crisis

Mexico adds three more Magic Towns to its list

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Oct 272011

Mexico’s Magic Town (Pueblo Mágico) program seeks to promote inland destinations that offer a complementary tourism based on historic and cultural attributes. The federal Tourism Secretariat has announced there will be 52 Magic Towns by 2012, when the promotional program is currently due to end. As many as 70 towns are reported to be seeking accreditation as Magic Towns. Some of these applicants are likely to join similar promotional groupings such as “Pueblos con Encanto” (Towns with Charm) and “Pueblos Señoriales” (Noble Towns).

Mexico currently has 44 Magic Towns:

The three latest towns to be added to the list are:

Magic Town #42: Mineral del Chico (Hidalgo)

Mineral del Chico is a small town (population 6700 in 2005; altitude 2351 m) at the entrance to the El Chico National Park in Hidalgo. The National Park, with its forests, mountains and waterfalls, is much better known than the town itself. This was the one of the earliest forested areas to be officially protected in Mexico. It was declared a Forest Reserve in 1898 and became a National Park in 1922.

Flickr photoset of El Chico National Park

Magic Town #43: Cadereyta (Querétaro)

The designation of Cadereyta as a Magic Town creates a great multi-day tourist trip including two other Magic Towns: Bernal and Jalpan de Serra. Cadereyta is known for its noisy and ebullient Holy Week (Semana Santa) processions, a tradition said to date back to the 18th century. The town has several interesting churches and two genuine colonial treasures. The gilded retable of the church of San Pedro and San Pablo has to be seen to be believed.

Tourism attractions of Cadereyta
Two colonial treasures of Cadereyta

Magic Town #44: Tula (Tamaulipas)

Close to the northern border, Tula, founded in 1617, is the oldest still-inhabited settlement in the state of Tamaulipas. The town has several colonial buildings but is best known for making elaborate leather jackets (cuera tamaulipeca), first designed in the 1950s.

These three latest newcomers all have their attractions, but, at least in my humble opinion, are not in the same league in terms of their historical and tourist interest as most previously-designated Magic Towns.

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Gulf of Mexico energy reserves: updates in Mexico’s oil and gas sector

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Oct 252011

PEMEX awards first-ever contracts for the operation of oil fields.

In a move welcomed by international oil analysts, Pemex has awarded British company Petrofac Facilities Management Ltd. a contract to operate the Santuario oil fields in Tabasco. Prior to this contract, all oil field operations in Mexico since 1938 had been directly managed by Pemex.

Operations in two other areas – Magallanes and Carrizo – are also being contracted out. The areas cover 312 square kilometers between them, and have 3P (proven, probable, possible) reserves totaling 207 million barrels of crude oil equivalent. The contractual changes should attract considerable foreign investment in coming years, and are expected to play an important role in boosting national oil production from its current level of 2.5 million barrels a day.

Major natural gas discovery in the Gulf of Mexico

Pemex has announced that its Piklis 1 offshore well, located 150 km northwest of Coatzacoalcos in the Lakach field, has found a massive deposit of natural gas 5,431 meters below the water surface. The deposit holds more than 400 billion cubic feet of gas and, when production begins in 2014, it should yield 700-800 million cubic feet/day, reducing Mexico’s natural gas imports by up to 80% over the next 15 years. Compared to 2009, Pemex’s total revenues in 2010 rose 20.3% to 115 billion dollars, mainly due to high prices for petroleum and related products; export sales were 21.4% higher. Pemex is currently producing about 2.6 billion barrels of crude oil/day.

How much does it cost to produce a barrel of oil?

According to Mexico City daily La Jornada, Pemex has maintained its enviable low costs per barrel of oil obtained (all figures in dollars):

2006 $4.40
2007 $4.90
2008 $6.10
2009 $4.90
2010 $5.20

These costs per barrel are very competitive, and well below the costs recorded for other major firms as Total, BP, Exxon, Statoil, Chevron and Petrobras, who have production costs of between $6.10 and $10.00 a barrel.

Transborder oil fields

Several major oil and gas fields are known to straddle the international border in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater wells on the US side have already found massive deposits of oil, but, until recently, Pemex has not had the technology to drill in such deep waters. That is now changing. Pemex has begun drilling from the deepwater “Bicentenario” semi-submersible platform. The first well, Talipau-1, will descend 940 meters to the sea floor and then a further 5,000 meters into oil-bearing strata in the region known as the Cinturón Plegado de Perdido.

Pemex believes that deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico will eventually yield several billion barrels of oil.

The Bicentenario, built in South Korea, is capable of operating in water up to 3,000 meters deep; it is 100 meters in length, 78 meters wide and rises 138 meters above the surface, with a total weight of 58,000 metric tons. It will house up to 160 workers at a time.

In related news, bilateral talks were held in Washington DC at the end of August relating to offshore oil fields that straddle the Mexico-USA maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico. The talks will set the parameters for efficient and safe exploitation of these hydrocarbon reserves in the future. A formal agreement is expected to be completed before the end of this year.

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Veracruz: one of Mexico’s most diverse states

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Oct 242011

Veracruz, one of Mexico’s most important and interesting states, is a narrow strip of land stretching for 650 kilometers (over 400 miles) along the Gulf of Mexico. The topography ranges from a narrow coastal plain to very high mountains on its western border including Mt. Orizaba, Mexico’s highest peak at 5,610 meters (18,406 ft.).

Mexico’s highest volcanoes

The relief helps to funnel migrating birds into a narrow band across the state:

Mexico’s importance for trans-continental migrations of birds of prey

Veracruz which is one of the rainiest states has three of Mexico’s five largest rivers: the Panuco in the north and the Papaloapan and Coatzacoalcos rivers in the south. Its varied climate and ecosystems mean enormous biodiversity, including species of insects, birds and plants that exist nowhere else on earth. These species are protected in 31 protected areas including three national parks. Previous posts describe the fabulously beautiful Las Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve and the mysterious Laguna Encantada.

With over 7.6 million residents, Veracruz trails only the State of Mexico and the Federal District in population. While the state is over one-third rural, it has several major metropolitan areas. The state capital is Xalapa (809,000). Other major cities include the industrial twin cities of Coatzacoalcos (234,000) and Minatitlán (356,000) in the extreme south, and the port city of Veracruz (703,000) in the center. The north of the state is served by the port city of Tampico (803,000) on the north bank of the Panuco River in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas.

One of the most interesting towns is Yanga, which was established around 1570 by escaped slaves lead by Gaspar Yanga. The town, the first African-ruled settlement in the New World, successfully resisted efforts by the colonial government to recapture it and its residents. Today, Gaspar Yanga is considered a national hero. It is interesting to note that Negroid features are apparent on the ancient 3,500 year old Olmec carved stone heads found in southern Veracruz. The state is home to numerous indigenous groups including the Nahuas, Huastecos, Otomis, Totonacs.

Map of Veracruz state, Mexico; all rights reserved.

There are two UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites in Veracruz: the Pre-Hispanic city of El Tajin and the Historic Monuments of the Zone of Tlacotalpan.

Veracruz is one of Mexico’s poorer states. Mostly as a result of its very large rural, agricultural and indigenous populations, Veracruz ranks in the bottom third in most socioeconomic indicators such as production/person, percent living below the poverty level, human development index, literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy and marginalization. On the other hand, these indicators for the major cities are above the national averages.

Veracruz is second in total agricultural production behind only Jalisco. It produces more than half of the country’s sugar cane and oranges and also leads in mangoes and other citrus fruits. It is also a major producer of coffee, beef, pork, dairy, chicken, corn, beans, bananas, tobacco, coconuts, vegetables and vanilla.

Petroleum is extremely important. Most of the oil production is in northern Veracruz while the southern cities of Coatzacoalcos and Minatitlán are noted for their chemical and petrochemical industries.

Veracruz is also famous historically and culturally. Cortés and his men landed in Veracruz on their way to conquering and subduing all of Mexico. Veracruz city was the most important port for many centuries when it served as Mexico’s main link to the rest of the world. The state capital was eventually moved to Xalapa, which has a flourishing cultural life and an anthropology museum second only to the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The annual Carnival staged in Veracruz is one of the most spectacular in all of Mexico. The Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers) in Papantla is a major tourist attraction for Mexicans and foreigners alike. Veracruz also has its own distinctive music and cuisine, enhancing its regional identity.

Cultural diffusion: Thousands of students in Mexico receive classes by TV

Excerpts from Geo-Mexico, Updates to Geo-Mexico 2 Responses »

Oct 222011

Mexico’s pioneering “telesecundaria” or “television secondary school” system began back in 1968. It now provides junior high school classes in remote areas, serving about one million students in grades 7 to 9, 17% of the total nationwide enrollment in these grades. Many of the telesecundaria lessons are now available on the Internet, and before long, about 4,500 classes will also be available on a DVD collection.

The geographical network of telesecundarias is truly amazing. In the early 1980s, I came across one high in the mountains in a distant corner of the state of Hidalgo, in a remote Huastec village, beyond even Coca Cola’s delivery routes. A visitor was such a surprise that the entire village turned out to inspect me!

Telesecundaria in Ixcatepec, Hidalgo (1983) Photo: Tony Burton

It was that experience that made me realize that Mexicans take education very very seriously. The telesecundaria was perched on the hillside overlooking the village. I later discovered this was a fairly typical example, with three classrooms, rustic restrooms in an outhouse, and a small playground. Most telesecundarias also have a science laboratory and a small library.

The students in a telesecundaria do have a teacher, but this teacher teaches every subject, whereas in a regular junior high, each student will have up to twelve different subject specialists. Every telesecundaria classroom has a television set to receive lessons broadcast by the Education Ministry (SEP) in Mexico City.

Professional Programs

In the early days, lessons were very traditional, and the TV programs were little more than continuous shots of a “talking teacher”. Interestingly, almost all those early lessons were broadcast live. Nowadays, the entire process is much slicker and far more professional. The TV programs are 15 minutes long and feature all kinds of material, including animated graphics and video footage. Watching them, you are unlikely to see the “talking teacher” even for an instant! It takes about 20 days to produce each 15-minute module and costs up to 50,000 dollars. Most programs have a useful life of between five and ten years, depending on the timing of significant changes in subject content and teaching methods.

After students have seen the TV broadcast, the classroom teacher then uses the remaining 45 minutes of each hour to explain the lesson in more detail and to monitor students as they complete related tasks from their special telesecundaria textbooks.

Nationwide satellite transmission of programs began in 1994 (EDUSAT), enabling the coverage to spread far beyond those areas previously served by conventional TV stations. Programs are broadcast daily.

On-line samples

With the advent of the Internet, the telesecundarias are now being revamped as one part of SEP’s “On-line educational TV” (“Televisión educativa en línea“) project. That page has links to currently playing segments of material for various levels, including telesecundaria, and for teachers. (This is also a valuable resource for non-native speakers working to improve their Spanish and/or their knowledge of Mexico.)

Telesecundarias have proved to be an extraordinarily effective way of improving access to, and standards of, junior high education across Mexico. While the “costs of delivery” are estimated to be 16% higher in telesecundarias, on a per student basis, than in regular junior high schools, they are significantly cheaper on a per school basis. This means that some of the nation’s 13,000 or so telesecundarias can function cost-effectively even with only 10 or 12 students in each grade level.

The success of telesecundarias

Are telesecundarias successful? It certainly seems so. An estimated 79.4% of telesecundaria students complete grade 9, compared with an equivalent figure of 78.8% for regular junior highs. In addition, one study has shown that telesecundaria students may start Grade 7 significantly behind other students but generally catch up completely in math and reduce the deficit in language.

The program has been adopted by most Central American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama—and pilot projects are underway in the USA in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Florida.

So next time you’re traveling in the wilds of Mexico or Central America, play “I spy” and see how many telesecundarias you can find. Bonus marks should be awarded for any that are outside the normal delivery range of Coca-Cola or Sabritas!

The geography of road transport in Mexico

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Oct 202011

Mexico’s road network is heavily used, accounting for over 95% of all domestic travel. On a per person basis, Mexicans travel an average of 4500 km (2800 mi) by road each year.

In this post, we try to answer several general questions relating to the geography of road transport in Mexico.

How many cars are there?

On average there are about seven people per car in Mexico, compared to about six in Argentina, ten in Chile and less than two in the USA and Canada. There are far more cars in urban areas with their many businesses, taxis and wealthy residents. In poor rural parts of southern Mexico, private car ownership is quite rare.

Is there an efficient bus system?

Mexico also has an inter-city bus system that is one of the finest in the world. The nation’s fleet of more than 70,000 inter-city buses enables passengers to amass almost half a trillion passenger-km per year.

Where are Mexico’s vehicles made?

Almost all the vehicles on Mexico’s roads were built in Mexico. Mexico’s automobile-manufacturing sector produces about 2.2 million vehicles a year but the majority of production (about 1.8 million vehicles each year) is for export markets. Mexico is the world’s 9th largest vehicle maker and 6th largest vehicle exporter. In recent years, the relaxation of strict import regulations has resulted in more vehicles being imported into Mexico; many of them are luxury models not currently made in Mexico.

The major international vehicle manufacturers with plants in Mexico include Volkswagen, Ford, Nissan, GM, Renault, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz. Mexican companies include Mastretta, which specializes in sports cars, and DINA, a manufacturer of trucks, buses and coaches.

For more information about vehicle manufacturing in Mexico:

Where are Mexico’s vehicles?

Mexico has about 20 million registered vehicles, about one for every five persons (2005). Which areas have the most and least vehicles? It turns out that the northernmost state, Baja California, has the most with 37 registered vehicles per 100 people. The southernmost states, Chiapas and Oaxaca, have about one sixth as many with 6.6 and 6.9 respectively. In fact there is a very strong statistical relationship between latitude and vehicles (see graph). How can this be?

We are not suggesting a direct causal relationship. Many factors are interrelated. First, the states in the north tend to be wealthier; the Spearman rank correlation for GDP/person and latitude is 0.58. Vehicle ownership is closely related to GDP/person (rs = 0.59). Both these correlations are significant at the 99% level.

In addition, northern states are close to the USA, a vehicle-oriented society. However, there are some anomalies to the general pattern. The very wealthy Federal District has 50% more vehicles than would be expected from its latitude alone. States with many migrants, such as Jalisco and Michoacán, also have more vehicles than expected given their latitude. An added complication is that more than a million foreign-plated cars in Mexico (imported temporarily by returning migrants or foreigners) are not included in these figures.

How many road accidents are there in Mexico?

Mexico’s National Council for Accident Prevention estimates that there are 4 million highway accidents each year in Mexico. The latest figures (for 2010) show that there were 24,000 fatalities as a result of these accidents, with 40,000 survivors suffering some lasting incapacity. These figures include some of the 5,000 pedestrians struck by vehicles each year. Traffic accidents are currently the leading cause of death for those aged 5-35 in Mexico, and the second cause of permanent injury for all ages.

Why are there so many accidents?

Driver education plays a major role in road safety. Part of Mexico’s problem is the low budget it allocates each year for road safety—just US$0.40 compared to more than $3.00/person in the USA, more than $7.00/person in Canada and up to $40.00/person in some European countries.

It is no surprise that a high percentage of drivers involved in traffic accidents in Mexico have alcohol in their system. This is one of the reasons why accidents are statistically more frequent in the evenings from Thursday to Saturday. One study reported that as many as 1 in 3 of drivers in Guadalajara was under the influence of alcohol while driving, and 1 in 5 of Mexico City drivers.

Driving without insurance is common in Mexico; according to insurance companies, only 26.5% of Mexico’s 30.9 million vehicles have any insurance.

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Mexico receives $280m in international funding to fight urban poverty

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Oct 172011

Today (17 October 2011) is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. A few weeks ago, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $280 million loan to help fight urban poverty in Mexico through a comprehensive approach that combines efforts targeting both physical needs — increased access to urban services and infrastructure — as well as social needs of people living in marginal areas.

Co-financed with counterpart funds from the Mexican government totaling $280 million, the program will improve urban infrastructure and access to basic services as well as strengthen social integration, benefiting at least 2.2 million homes a year. A special focus will be placed on populations suffering high poverty rates.

The loan will be used to pave roads, and improve water supply, sanitation, electrification and public lighting, waste collection and disposal, among other actions.

On the social side, the program will foster individual and collective skills and promote social inclusion and community participation and organization. This component includes services delivered in Community Development Centers (CDC), such as training workshops targeting different skills, spare time activities promoting civic integration, prevention of risk behaviors in adolescents, and assistance to female victims of violence and support for senior citizens.

This strategy is complemented by a pilot scheme which seeks to expand and improve interventions in selected districts in order to reduce vulnerability to violence with the help of community-based interventions.

The program includes paving or repaving of 17 million square meters of road surface and the laying of 1,000 km of water pipes, 1,350 km of drainage and sewer pipes, and 168 km of electrical wiring. It also provides for the installation of 57,000 street lights, construction and improvement of a total of 300 centers for victims of violence, construction and/or equipping of 840 Community Development Centers.

[This post is the text of a press release from the Inter-American Development Bank. ]

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Hurricane Jova smashes into Barra de Navidad and Melaque on Mexico’s Pacific Coast

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Oct 142011

The twin coastal towns of Melaque and Barra de Navidad in the state of Jalisco felt the full force of Hurricane Jova earlier this week. Barra de Navidad has great historical importance as one of the shipbuilding ports where the Spanish built the ships which traversed the Pacific Ocean to the islands of the Philippines.

Full details are only beginning to emerge of the damage done, but the following links show the storm’s path, and some of its immediate impacts:

Photos of damage in Barra de Navidad
Photos of damage in Melaque
YouTube videos related to Hurricane Jova

Fortunately, Hurricane Jova had lost some of its strength by the time it slammed into the coast as a Category 2 hurricane on 12 October. It had previously packed winds of up to 160 km/hr. Even so, it brought torrential rain to coastal areas between the major resorts of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, and heavy rain inland as far as Guadalajara (about 400 km from the coast). In Guadalajara, the flag-raising ceremony to mark the start of the 2011 Pan-American Games was postponed by a day because of continuous rainfall.

In Puerto Vallarta, where several Pan-American Games events are scheduled to be held, including sailing, triathlon, beach volleyball, and open water swimming, authorities secured boats and reinforced the beach volleyball courts with sandbags.

The catastrophe-modelling firm AIR Worldwide says Hurricane Jova will have caused less than $52m of damage as it hit a sparsely populated stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coast downgraded as a Category 2 hurricane.

Many smaller settlements, including Cihuatlán, La Huerta, Villa Purificacion, and Cuautitlán de García Barragán were temporarily cut off as floodwaters made the main coastal highway impassible. Streets in many towns were inundated.

Map of the beaches of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit, Mexico

Details of the storm’s track and intensity will (in due course) be available at the National Hurricane Center’s archive for 2011 Eastern Pacific Hurricanes.

Previous hurricane-related posts include:

Hurricanes and other climatological phenomena are analyzed in chapters 4 and 7 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today, so you have a handy reference guide available whenever you need it.

The maquiladora export landscape

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Oct 102011

InfraNet Lab is “a research collective probing the spatial byproducts of contemporary resource logistics.” Given its emphasis on spatial aspects, it includes many topics of interest to geographers.

InfraNet Lab was included on Planetizen’s 2009 list of the 10 best planning, design, and development websites. Planetizen describes InfraNet Lab as:

“An intense and directed blog focusing on the physical manifestations of controlling resources. It’s a fresh look at the impacts of modern world’s infrastructural needs and the intertwined networks between urbanism, architecture and landscape that result. With archives dating back to April 2008, InfraNet Lab offers a crash course in innovative ideas that reframe the infrastructure conversation around the impacts of human resource dependence and, ultimately, methods for making improvements. An insightful and inciting read for anyone feeling underwhelmed by the status quo of modern-day infrastructure.”

One post on InfraNet Lab of particular interest to us is the guest post by Juan Robles, following an InfraNet Lab seminar at Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Robles writes about the landscapes resulting from the growth of maquiladoras in Mexico. He looks at how the necessary infrastructures and networks for maquiladoras to succeed have developed, and how they have transformed the Mexico-US border area. The changes have certainly been profound:

“The ongoing processes of trade and communication that now integrate the 21st century regional economies have created numerous territories of abundance. Among these spaces the maquiladora landscape, in the northern border of Mexico, has seen the greatest change in the last 50 years.”

This is a well illustrated account of the spatial changes associated with maquiladoras, and includes a variety of useful maps and graphics.

Shanty towns support maquiladoras. Credit: Juan Robles/InfraNet Lab.

InfraNet Lab is a valuable resource for AP, A-level and IB. In InfraNet Lab’s words:

The globe’s networked ecologies of food, water, energy, and waste have established new infrastructures and forms of urbanism linking dispersed entities. These agglomerations evolve and shift as resources are uncovered or depleted. While these ecologies exist at the service of our contemporary lifestyles, they have typically remained hidden from view and from the public conscience. Yet as resources of food, fuel and water begin to run scarce, new resources are mined and new networks develop.

InfraNet Lab takes the view that “Long accepted patterns of globalization are being called into question as transportation costs soar and resources run scare, transforming mobility and trading patterns. New local, regional and international networks of goods, movement and trade are beginning to emerge.”

This means that InfraNet Lab offers some very valuable resources for courses such as the IB Geography’s Paper 3 for Higher Level students which looks at the impacts of all kinds of international interactions.

The diffusion of the Africanized honey bee in North America: a bio-geographical case study

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Oct 082011

Africanized honey bees, sometimes popularly called “killer” bees, resulted from the crossing (hybridization) of European honey bees and African honey bees. They combine the best and the worst of both sets of relatives. Africanized honey bees are slightly smaller than European honey bees, but more aggressive and less inclined to remain in one place. They can swarm and attack even if unprovoked, even though they can sting only once before dying shortly afterward.

Their “killer bee” label is because they have killed 1,000 people in the Americas since their ancestors escaped from a laboratory in Brazil. Africanized bees react ten times faster to disturbances than European bees and can pursue a hapless human victim for 300-400 meters.

The mixing of genes that created Africanized honey bees occurred in the 1950s. In 1956, Dr. Warwick Kerr, a bee researcher in Brazil, hoped to develop a bee that would thrive in Brazil’s tropical climate. He decided to cross European bees with African bees. Unfortunately, in March of the following year, some of his experimental bees escaped into the wild. The Africanized bees soon began to multiply and expand their range. They proved to be very adaptable, and have since spread, at a rate of up to 350 km/year through most of South and Central America, as well as into Mexico and the USA. They arrived in Peru by 1985 and Panama by 1982. Their spread northwards continued, and they crossed from Guatemala into Mexico, near Tapachula, in October 1986.

The map shows the gradual northward spread of Africanized bees in Mexico. Up to 1987, the progression looks fairly regular, but in the following year, Africanized bees’ northward movement was restricted to a zone along Mexico’s Gulf Coast. This remained true even through 1989. By 1990, the “front” of the bees advance once again stretched right across the country.

Q. What factors may have caused the unusual (anomalous) geographic spread of Africanized bees in 1988 and 1989?

Map of africanized bees spread across Mexico

Africanized bees spread across Mexico (adapted from Kunzmann et al)

Why are Africanized bees more migratory than European bees?

Scientists believe that Africanized bees are uniquely equipped to cope with the unpredictability of suitable food sources in the tropics. They are more opportunistic, changing their foraging habits to suit local conditions, including short-term supplies of pollen, which they will collect and store to ensure their survival. When a new resource presents itself, Africanized bees will swarm rapidly to maximize their use of the new pollen source.

In bio-geographical terms, Africanized bees are an example of an opportunistic or r-species, perfectly equipped to move to new or changing habitats. They reproduce rapidly, and use available resources efficiently. This makes them far less stable than European bees which thrive in a more predictable environment and adapt to changing circumstances far less quickly.

Africanized bees can survive on limited food supplies, will explore and move to new locations frequently and are aggressive in defending their resources. When they come into contact with other less aggressive bees, such as Mexico’s native bees, Africanized bees may out-compete them for pollen and eventually replace them as that area’s dominant bees.

In Mexico, the speed of diffusion of Africanized bees slowed down

When Africanized bees were reported from southern Mexico, US beekeepers began to fret. The US honey industry is worth 150 million dollars a year. Fear spread that Africanized bees might jeopardize the entire industry, mainly because they are prone to migrate, and would be hard to control.

US experts helped finance a joint program in Mexico which aimed to slow down the bees’ progress northwards. The original idea was to stop bees from crossing the narrowest part of Mexico, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, preventing them from reaching central Mexico. However, by the time funding was approved, some bees had already crossed the Isthmus. The focus of the bee-control plan was changed to trying to slow down their seemingly inexorable progress north. Even if scientists could only delay the bees’ progress, it would give US farmers more time to plan for their eventual arrival.

The plan was relatively simple. Hang sufficient bee traps in trees throughout the region to attract wild swarms while banning Mexican beekeepers from moving any hives from southern Mexico into central or northern Mexico. Thousands of distinctive blue boxes appeared in orchards and forests across a broad belt of Mexico, from the Pacific to the Gulf.

The combined Mexico-US program is credited with having slowed the bees’ entry into the USA down by about two years. Even so, by 1990, Africanized bees were spotted in Texas; they reached Arizona by 1993 and California by 1995. By this time, they were also found throughout Mexico.

In a later post, we will look at honey production in Mexico and see whether or not it was permanently affected by the influx of Africanized bees.

Sources:

(a) “Africanized Bees in North America” by Michael R. Kunzmann et al, in Non-native Species by Hiram W. Li (biology.usgs.gov)

(b) Introduced Species Summary Project: Africanized Honey Bee by Christina Ojar, 2002.

Mexico’s geomorphosites: the volcanic spine of Tequila Volcano, Jalisco

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Oct 062011

The small town of Tequila, the center of production of Mexico’s national drink, lies in the shadow of an imposing 2700-meter (8860-ft) volcano. Most visitors to the town visit the National Tequila Museum, take a distillery tour, and then sample one or two of the many world-famous brands of tequila made in the area.

Tequila Volcano, which overlooks the rolling fields of blue agaves required to make the liquor, is the home of one of Mexico’s most distinctive geomorphosites. From the rim of its crater, the most arresting thing about the view is not the green, tree-covered crater itself but the giant monolith with almost vertical sides rising perpendicularly from the middle of the crater floor.

This well-preserved central spine, known locally as la tetilla (“the nipple”) is quite unusual. It represents the hardened lava which cooled in the central vent of the volcano and which, solid and unyielding, was later pushed upwards by tremendous subterranean pressure.

Few such good examples exist anywhere in the world. The example most often quoted in geography texts is the spine that was pushed up by Mont Pelée on the island of Martinique in the West Indies in October 1902, immediately prior to that volcano’s disastrous eruption which cost 32,000 lives.

How to get there

A cobblestone road begins near the railway station in the town of Tequila and winds up Tequila Volcano towards the short-wave communications tower on its rim. It is about 20 kilometers from the town to the rim. The hike or drive up to the rim affords glorious views over the surrounding countryside. As you gain altitude, so the vegetation changes, becoming luxuriant pine-oak forest well before you reach the rim. Looking across the crater, on a day when clouds slowly drift across and partially obscure the view, is like watching a silent movie of ancient Chinese landscape drawings.

Want to read more?

For a fuller description of a visit to Tequila Volcano and a climb up the volcanic spine, see John and Susy Pint’s Outdoors in Western Mexico (2nd edition 2011).

For a description of Tequila Volcano and the varied villages and sights in its vicinity, see chapters 9 and 10 of my “Western Mexico: A Traveler’s Treasury” (Sombrero Books, 2013), also available in a Kindle edition.

The re-opening of the giant El Boleo copper mine in Santa Rosalía, Baja California Sur

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Oct 042011

Santa Rosalía in Baja California Sur is one of my favorite places on the Baja California Peninsula. Geography and economics have conspired to change its fortunes more than most towns in the course of history. Originally founded in 1705, the town failed to prosper as its populace faced repeated epidemics, and its farmland was subject to a disastrous flood. The town was largely abandoned by 1828.

Map of Baja California Peninsula

A chance find of copper-bearing ore in the middle of the century reversed Santa Rosalía’s fate, and in 1885, a new lease of life was provided when the El Boleo mining company, backed by French capital, was granted a 99-year concession by President Díaz to begin mining for copper in exchange for building all the necessary infrastructure: port, town, mines, railway and foundry. It was judicious timing given that the world market for copper was taking off at precisely that time due to the rising demand for the metal from the fledgling electric companies in Europe and the USA.

El Boleo Mine, Santa Rosalía

Within a decade, the mining company had become responsible for more than 80% of Mexico’s exports of copper ingots. The local ore was rich, with up to 25% copper in some samples. Workers flocked in from far afield, including three thousand from China. Working conditions were atrocious, little better than slavery. The health conditions for the miners and foundry workers were appalling;.for example, 1400 deaths were recorded between 1901 and 1903. The company decided on an unusual solution. Rather than move the workers’ homes, it decided to move the smelter chimney. The new chimney was built a kilometer out of town, connected to the smelter by a large, ground-hugging flue. The flue can still be seen today, climbing the hillside immediately behind the Hotel Francés.

By 1900, Santa Rosalía had become a major world copper producer. The smelter relied on supplies of coking coal from Europe, principally from South Wales and Germany. The ships took from 120 to 200 days to reach Santa Rosalía from their home ports. Square-rigged vessels, flying the British or German flag, were constantly arriving in the harbor. When the First World War broke out, several German ships were unable to return to Europe and spent the next few years anchored offshore. The sailors were shocked when they heard that Germany had lost the war; their vessels were eventually distributed among the victors.

The copper deposits were eventually exhausted. The El Boleo mining company closed in 1954, but the state-run Compañía Minera Santa Rosalía continued to mine until 1985, when the smelter was finally shut down, on the eve of the town’s 100th anniversary.

The collapse of the copper mining industry may have caused Santa Rosalía to slip back temporarily into a somnolent slump, but it is now recovering. The mining boom of a hundred and twenty years ago has been replaced by a boom in nature and adventure tourism, which take advantage of the town’s proximity to Conception Bay and the islands in the Sea of Cortés. As we shall see in a future post, because Santa Rosalía has preserved much of its past, it has a massive advantage over its competitors in the region, in that its initial revival fueled by ecotourism can be amplified by cultural or heritage tourism. This beautiful old town and its inhabitants have plenty of reasons to be optimistic as they face up to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Paddling to an ecotourist future…

And now, the town has another reason for optimism. The massive El Boleo copper cobalt zinc-manganese deposit, which fueled the town’s first boom period, is now being re-developed with new technology. Baja Mining, based in Canada, owns 70% of El Boleo; a consortium of Korean companies owns the remaining 30%. The 1.2-billion-dollar, open-cast mine will add 3,800 jobs to the local economy. During its anticipated 23-year life span, El Boleo is expected to yield more than 2,000 metric tons of cobalt, 25,000 tons of zinc sulfate and 50,000 tons of copper annually.

Sources:

de Novelo, María Eugenia B. A History of Santa Rosalía in Baja California. The Journal of San Diego History: Winter 1989, vol 35 #1. Includes a link to some wonderful old photos.
Niemann, Greg. Baja Legends : The Historic Characters, Events, and Locations That Put Baja California on the Map. Sunbelt Cultural Heritage Books.
North of Loreto: Mulege and Santa Rosalía, sun, beaches, hotels and history (Original article on MexConnect).

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Mexico’s multinationals: Groupo Bimbo, one of the world’s largest food companies

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Oct 032011

The word “Bimbo” in common English usage refers to an inept person, an airhead or a “cheap” flirtatious “dumb blond”. In Spanish, “Bimbo” has no particular meaning, but is the name of Mexico’s predominant bread baker, a massive multinational company. It is so well-known that in many parts of Latin America, packaged, sliced white bread is often referred to simply as “pan bimbo”.

Grupo Bimbo is the world’s largest bread baker and fourth largest food company on the planet behind only Nestle, Kraft and Unilever. The firm has a presence in 17 countries, supplying consumers with more than 150 brands, via a network of 42 plants in Mexico (see map), 25 elsewhere in Latin America, 34 in the USA and 2 in China. It is currently the only bread company that has a national footprint throughout the USA.

While most people may not be familiar with Grupo Bimbo as a corporation, virtually everyone in the Americas at one time or another has consumed Bimbo products. The company makes over 7,000 different products using various brand names, including Sara Lee; Thomas’ English Muffins; Entenmann’s pastries; Arnold’s, Orowheat, Mrs. Baird’s, Wonder (in Mexico only); Freihofer’s; Stroehmann’s; Brownberry; Old Country; Milpa Real and Tia Rosa (tortillas and related products); Barcel (chips and salted snacks; Marinela (sweet snacks); Boboli (pizza crusts); Coronado (cajeta) and El Globo fancy pastry and coffee shops.

How did Grupo Bimbo get to be so big?

Grupo Bimbo was established in Mexico City in 1945, and has grown mainly through acquisitions. In 2008 it paid $2.4 billion for the US food operations of George Weston Foods Ltd of Canada. In 2010 it bought Sara Lee’s fresh bakery division for about a billion dollars. These acquisitions enabled Bimbo to double its total revenues in the last decade to almost $10 billion.

Grupo Bimbo plants, 2011

Grupo Bimbo has a worldwide network of more than 41,000 distribution routes serving an astounding 1.8 million points of sale, varying from tiny corner stores in remote villages to major supermarkets in big cities.

Bimbo product with biodegradable packaging

In recent years, Grupo Bimbo has been busy boosting its green credentials via a series of environmental initiatives. These include a 90-megawatt wind park in Unión Hidalgo in the state of Oaxaca, which will generate almost 100% of the power Grupo Bimbo requires to run its plants in Mexico, and will be the largest wind park in the global food industry. It will diminish Grupo Bimbo’s environmental footprint and mean that almost half of Grupo Bimbo’s total global electricity consumption will come from renewable sources.

Grupo Bimbo is one of only ten Mexican companies that have earned the Socially Responsible Company Award from the Mexican Center for Philanthropy (CEMEFI) for ten years in a row. The company is involved in numerous environmentally and socially-responsible initiatives, including Reforestamos Mexico, an NGO committed to protecting Mexico’s forests and rainforests. This has worked with young people from 40 rural communities to help restore forests and raise awareness about the need for certified forestry products and forestry carbon certificates.

So, next time you go shopping, keep your eyes open for Grupo Bimbo brands and see how many Grupo Bimbo products you can recognize…

The GINI index: is inequality in Mexico increasing?

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Oct 012011

The GINI index, used to quantify the degree of inequality within a population or country (the higher the value, the more inequality), was introduced in a previous post. In this post we report on the change in GINI index for the member countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). The OECD regularly publishes updated GINI coefficients. Society at a Glance 2011 – OECD Social Indicators includes the following graph which gives a great view of changes in inequality between the mid 1980s and the late 2000s.

: GINI coefficients for OECD members (OECD, 2011) Click image to enlarge

It is no surprise to see that Mexico’s inequality is almost the highest of any OECD member country. However, the right hand side of the graph shows that the increase in inequality in Mexico over the period was actually smaller than the OECD average, and well below the change in the USA, Canada and several European countries. This suggests that Mexico’s economy is becoming increasingly resilient and economic downturns do not necessarily result in raising inequality in Mexico as much as elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see how Mexico’s GINI index changes in coming years. High levels of economic inequality remain one of Mexico’s most-pressing issues, and one which will be central to the upcoming 2012 elections.

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