| Montreal, 9/03/2007 – On 2 March 2007, the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) received a revised citizen submission in which the Asociación Fuerza Unida Emiliano Zapata en Pro de las Áreas Verdes, A.C. (the “Submitter”) asserts that Mexico is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law with respect to the protected nature area (área natural protegida—ANP) known as “Los Remedios” National Park in Naucalpan, in the state of Mexico.
Submission SEM-06-006 (Los Remedios National Park) was filed with the CEC Secretariat on 9 November 2006. On 19 January 2007, the Secretariat determined that the submission did not satisfy all requirements of Article 14 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and provided the Submitter a period of 30 days to file a submission meeting such requirements.
In the revised submission, the Submitter asserts that with respect to the Los Remedios National Park, the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) is failing to effectively enforce the Organic Law of Federal Public Administration (Ley Orgánica de la Administración Pública Federal), the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection (Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente—LGEEPA), and the LGEEPA regulations on protected nature areas, by not overseeing the conservation, protection and surveillance of the Park, the management of which is the responsibility of the State of Mexico government under an agreement with the federal government. The Submitter asserts that the authorities have failed to enforce the provisions of the laws cited by allowing the environmental deterioration of the site, which is now used to justify the repeal of the federal protection decree for the Los Remedios National Park. It provides as an example the alleged decision in 2006 of the Naucalpan municipal authorities to issue permits for the cutting of 120 trees, in violation of LGEEPA Article 50.
The Secretariat of the CEC will now analyze the revised submission to determine whether it meets the requirements of Article 14 of the NAAEC.
The CEC citizen submission mechanism allows citizens to play an active "whistleblower" role in matters relating to environmental law enforcement. Pursuant to NAAEC Article 14, any citizen or nongovernmental organization may file a submission where it believes that a NAFTA partner is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law. After reviewing the submission, the CEC may investigate the matter and publish a factual record of its findings.
For more information, please visit the CEC's Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters page. |
