First the good news:

Via El Economista comes a rare victory for environmental protection… FONATUR (the tourism development agency) was seeking to turn one of the remaining coastal mangrove forests in Cancun into a “diversifed real estate development… increase in the influx of domestic and foreign tourists, and increase consumption of tourist services in the area of ​​influence”.

That was before 113 children asked the court for an injunction to stop the project, citing irrepreprable damage to their right to grow up in a healthy enviroment.  Pish, said FONATUR:   they were already sold off some lots  (who would buy swampland anyway?) and besides, the decided to ignore their own environmental impact statement for the usual reason … it would create jobs (for plumbers and swampland real estate salesmen?).   And besides, children are to be seen, not heard.

Not quite.  The children were heard… by the Mexican Supreme Court.  They dismissed FONATUR’s argument that there was no way to confirm that the 113 kids actually were residents of Cancun by noting that it was easy enough to check… ask their parents.  The court further ruled that the kids were right… and do have the right to a healthy enviroment.  At least for now.

And, the bad news… via the indespensible for anyone interested in Latin America, especially those who invests money, or lives here, or somehow uses Latin America resources (i.e., everybody), the mining investor site, Inka Kola News (Peru):

First Majestic (AG) (FR.to) decides not to tell us about its cyanide spillage…

…at its newly acquired San Dimas mine in Mexico (ex-Primero), so it falls to this pissant blog. According to the Mexican environment people, on March 11th (six freakin’ days ago) First Majestic was trucking Cyanide Solution out of the mine when the truck ran out of fuel (weird in itself). The truck stopped on a hill and it turns out that one of the taps was either faulty (service dept?) or had been badly closed by the company. The result was the loss of 245l of cyanide solution, which then ran down 245 metres to the local river and proceeded to kill no end of fish when it entered the river.

Another Canadian mining company, winning friends and influencing people in Mexico.