«The Jaguar People» Produced by Maria Dencker-Rasmussen 2003

The Lacandon forest people also known as “The Jaguar People” are descendants of the Mayan indigenous peoples in Chiapas, threatened by the Meso-American joint electrical project (part of the PPP which was a multi-billion dollar development plan formally initiated in 2001 now obsolete). Around 2,580 hectares of virgin rain forest and Mayan archaeological sites, were at risk of being flooded by the electrical sector to provide electricity to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama. Chiapas is home to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak and Chinkultic. It is also home to one of the largest indigenous populations in the country with twelve federally recognized ethnicities. The Lacandon people joined the Zapatista rebels movement against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), part of the PPP development project, a treaty intended to strengthen Mexico’s economic ties with the United States and Canada by eliminating trade tariffs. Yet the reality was forcing them to compete with cheap US imports and also revoked the Mexican indigenous farmers constitutional right to communal land. The last official news from in 2003 was that the hydroelectrical project had been cancelled a few years ago and there were no plans to develop the programme through the Federal Electrical Commission. Just before 2004 the European Commision approved a grant of 15 million euros for conservation projects in Lacandona. © Copyright R.Maria Dencker-Rasmussen