Oliveria Montès Lazcano
Oliveria Montes Lazcano is the Coordinator of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples in the region of Huachinango Puebla.
Member of the Nahua nation, she was born on March 29, 1990 in the indigenous community of Zoyatla de Guerrero, Pahuatlán (Puebla state) in the bosom of a family of coffee growers. At the age of 18, she moved to the city of Pachuca (Hidalgo state) to study the first years of her bachelor’s degree in International Commerce.
Since 2016 she participated in the defense of her community territory against the Tuxpan-Tula gas pipeline (part of the gas pipeline network TC Energy Pipeline) approved by the Federal Electricity Commission and the Secretary of Energy during the six-year term of President Enrique Peña Nieto and was supposed to be build by TransCanada to transport gas from Texas, United States to the city of Tula (Hidalgo state) in the central region of Mexico. This fight concluded with a change in the pipeline’s route, which favors the preservation of the way of life of the communities of Zoyatla, San Pabalgo, Tula, Hidalgo, San Nicolás and Cuautepec, among other communities in the Sierra Norte de Puebla.
In 2020, after being threatened by gangs linked to the gas pipeline construction company, she accepted an invitation from the Carlos III University of Madrid to participate in a residency program to get the University Expert Degree in Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights and International Cooperation. After the commitment of the President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that the gas pipeline will not pass through the defended territory, Oliveria Montes participed in various processes of social struggle, attending forums, debates, congresses, etc. Her commitment led her to study law since 2021.
TransCanada is supported by Credit Suisse and received financing once by HSBC.
Bekah Hinojosa
Bekah Hinojosa is an artist & organizer from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and is currently working part time with the Sierra Club. She contributed to the report released on 18 October 2022 on worldwide finance supporting the gas industry in Texas.
Bekah Hinojosa works with her community and others along the Texas coastline to stop oil & gas export projects that would harm people of color and Indigenous populations. She is inspired by building art with people of all ages.
Bekah is fighting against the projects: Rio Grande LNG (NextDecade), Rio Bravo Pipeline (Enbridge), Valley Crossing Pipeline (Enbridge), Texas LNG (Glenfame Group, Texas LNG, Samsung Engineering Co.). The Valley Crossing Pipeline is also called Nueces-Brownville pipeline.
The Rio Grande LNG Contracts: ENGIE SA, Exxon Mobil LNG Asia Pacific, Shell NA LNG LLC, China Gas Hongda Energy Trading Co Ldt, ENN LNG (Singapore) Pte Ldt, Guangdong Energy Group Natural Gas Co Ldt. and Guangdong Energy Group Co., Ldt.
Main Banks who are backing the Rio Grande Valley LNG export projects: Macquarie Capital, Société Générale, Credit Suisse
Find out more :
Bekah Hinojosa: ‘Fed up with toxic industries using us’ – Reckon
Report co-written by Bekah Hinojosa :
Rio Grande Valley in Texas at risk from LNG export terminals | Sierra Club
Christopher Basaldú
Dr. Basaldú is Esto’k Gna, a member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, lives in Brownsville, Texas, and volunteers with the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. He earned the degree of Arts Baccalaureate from Harvard University in the Study of Religion, the degree of Master of Arts in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona, and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology from the University of Arizona.
Dr. Basaldú has lived and worked in Japan and various states in the USA, has worked and lived in the Navajo Nation and several other Native reservations, as well as served on the faculties of Native American Studies at the University of North Dakota and the University of Oklahoma. He has participate in several indigenous movements to resist extractivism, against the oil & gas industries, and against the dehumanizing drive of militarization by the white supremacist governments of the United States of America and the State of Texas.
Christopher Basaldú grew up in Brownsville and Corpus Christi region where the fracking industry is responsible for immense damages. He is fighting against the same projects as Bekah.
« The Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas is one of the Original Peoples of the Land that is now colonized at “Texas”. We call ourselves Esto’k Gna in our own language, which means, Human Beings. Today we struggle to protect and restore our sacred homelands which are under threat of ongoing colonization and resource extraction from colonization and white supremacist capitalism through the oil & gas industry and from the destructive space tourism industry. »
« We oppose the vanity project called SpaceX which is damaging sacred lands and restricting our people’s access to Boca Chica Beach, the coastline and the mouth of the sacred river known as the Rio Grande or the Rio Bravo. We are also opposing two fracked gas export terminals proposed for the Port of Brownsville. All of these projects would destroy a sacred area that is also environmentally unique, beautiful, and very delicate. One particular site known as Garcia Pasture was named as a highly threatened cultural site by the World Monument Fund this year. We oppose ongoing border militarization in our lands that harms our human relatives seeking to migrate across the lands of their ancestors which white supremacist colonization has carved up with eurocentric “borders” through violence, walls, and concentration camps. We cannot allow any more of our sacred homelands to be sacrificed. We are the people of the land. We know that we are the land. »
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