In Oaxaca, southern Mexico, communities are organizing to resist the large-scale private extraction of sand and gravel from the Río Grande, which is wiping out local species and changing the course and current of the river which Indigenous and Afro-Mexican locals have lived beside for centuries. Juana García reports from Cuicatlán, Oaxaca. This piece, translated for LAB by Lizzy Sanders, is co-published with our partner Global Voices as part of the Environmental Defenders series.
The Río Grande, located in the Cuicatec region of Oaxaca, southern Mexico, is one of the many waterways contributing to the more than 50 billion tonnes of sand extracted annually. The absence of adequate monitoring here by Mexican authorities has left families as the only witnesses to over a decade of extraction. After water, sand is the most widely used resource globally.
In the town of San Pedro Chicozapote, a giant amate tree measuring at least 25 metres high has fallen across the river’s 300-metre-wide flow. On one side, where there is only sand and gravel, a backhoe removes this material every day without stopping, filling one dump truck after another. ‘These machines never stop working. Right now they are hurrying to extract the sand in order to store it for use over the rainy season. Then, when the rains end, they will return to the river again,’ says local defender Don Ismael, angrily.
Ismael is a pseudonym used to protect his identity, given the safety concerns and fear of reprisals in San Pedro Chicozapote. According to the Mexican Centre for Environmental Law (CEMDA), Oaxaca is the deadliest Mexican state for environmental defenders. Ismael is a 51-year-old man, originally from Chicozapote, a small community of Cuicatec and Afro-Mexican people, located in the north, 3.4 kilometres from the municipality of San Juan Bautista Cuicatlán.
Don Ismael recounts that, as a child, he would go with other children to swim in different parts of the Río Grande, where they would collect quelites (edible herbs), fish in certain zones of the river, play, and walk on the sand. He explains that since childhood, the river has been part of his home, just as it is for the families of a dozen communities that share land with the great river.
Among Ismael’s memories, he also recalls being able to swim anywhere in the river without considering the danger it posed, because in those times, there was no extraction creating risk zones. ‘We knew where the natural depths were and which parts were safe from the currents, so we got in and out without worry. But now it’s not safe because of the extraction of sand and gravel. The river is also more polluted and deforested; there are areas completely devoid of the trees and plants that we used to see 10 years ago. Before, any place among these trees was nice to lie down in; now you only see piles of stones,’ he says, pointing to the sections of the river with piles of rocks where the backhoe continues digging.
Sand is an essential material for economic development, given its role in the construction of homes and other infrastructure, ‘but its extraction from places where it plays an active role, such as rivers and coastal and marine ecosystems, leads to erosion, salinization of waterways, the loss of protection from storm surges, and the deterioration of biodiversity,’ according to a 2022 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Sand is an essential material for economic development, given its role in the construction of homes and other infrastructure, but its extraction from places where it plays an active role, such as rivers and coastal and marine ecosystems, leads to erosion, salinization of waterways, the loss of protection from storm surges, and the deterioration of biodiversity
The river’s force has gradually changed. Now, locals say that when the river level rises, it carries away everything in its path, washing away the banks, knocking down trees, and destroying the flora, because the areas that previously had sand no longer do, as the locals have documented.
Lawyer and environmental activist Liudmila Oropeza Fuentes, originally from the Cuicatec region, also explains that the area where the sand is extracted from has become private property. ‘It used to be a public passage where everyone could come and enjoy the river, walk through the whole area towards Cuicatlán, but not anymore, now it is practically fenced off and guarded.’
Nature is not a pool of resources; it is the source of life!
On 5 April 2025, in San Pedro Chicozapote, community authorities, ‘ejido’ representatives (the ejido is a communal form of land management), community representatives, and residents held the first Forum for the Defence and Conservation of the Río Grande to reiterate their rejection of sand and gravel extraction, which has been going on for more than a decade.
During the forum, they took the opportunity to highlight their fight through community organization, although lawyer Liudmila Oropeza recognizes that it isn’t easy, given that the individuals that exploit the river have influence and power, both within the Oaxaca state government and the federal government, as well as within the commercial sector.
At the forum and in other small meetings, various residents and community leaders have begun organizing to form a defence front. They have agreed to visit different villages along the river, as well as those in the uplands, to raise awareness of the implications of sand extraction, pollution, and the importance of water and the river. ‘They believe that, at any moment, they will not only be impacted by sand extraction, but also by deforestation, drought, and other challenges that are arising,’ adds activist Liudmila.
Although the residents and families of Chicozapote understand that the only way to halt the plunder of natural resources is through community organization, they are afraid to speak openly about it due to fear of reprisals.
The residents have always opposed the extraction of their resources, but it was in 2019 that the agricultural authorities decided to report the uncontrolled extraction of sand, stones, and gravel.
‘The river has always been part of ours and our grandparents’ lives, and it hurts us deeply to see it in this state. The plunder doesn’t only pose a threat to our lives, but also to everything that lives in the river: the plants, the animals. Before, you would see fish in many more areas,’ explains Don Ismael.
It’s midday and we have walked along the shore for at least a kilometre. In the middle of the Río Grande, Don Ismael continues telling his story with courage, pointing to the piles of sand and stones in the distance as he describes how the plunder of the waterway has progressed. Along the way we collected quelites for Don Ismael’s family. In some stretches we came across a couple of bulls under the shade of the willow trees.
Although there is no one representing the defence, the community’s position is clear. ‘We will not let them continue to steal our resources. Little by little, we will speak with more residents and communities to give this fight a name,’ says Liudmila.
Unregulated destruction of the river
Exploitation of the Río Grande is not limited to San Pedro Chicozapote, it spans across the river’s entirety. Locals recall that the extraction started even before 2010. In those days, anyone could extract the sand for minor construction work, but this wasn’t such a problem because it did not involve excessive extraction. However, in 2015, the Concha Ojeda family began a large-scale business venture.
Although sand extraction is permitted, the quantity that is extracted is unregulated. ‘Sand and gravel are among the most extracted resources by volume, possibly one of the most profitable sectors of illegal trade, and, at the same time one of the least regulated,’ says the international bank BBVA in its section on sustainability in 2022, as part of the Global Sand Observatory report.
In 2018, the agricultural authorities of the community – residents who manage the land and its use – started to investigate who was responsible for the plundering of the sand and gravel. To do so, they approached various government bodies responsible for monitoring natural resources, which led them to Elpidio Desiderio Concha Arellano.
In Chicozapote, businessman, politician, and former civil servant Elpidio Desiderio Concha Arellano has been spotlighted for excessively exploiting various zones of the river. ‘In all the years that he has been exploiting the river, there has not been an inch of support for the community; it has only been for his own benefit,’ the communal landowners say.
Elpidio Desiderio Concha Arellano is originally from the municipality of San Juan Cuicatlán, in the state of Oaxaca. He was a federal deputy from 2009 to 2012 for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He then rose to various positions of responsibility within the party and the government.
Currently, his daughter, Lizbeth Anaid Concha Ojeda, is a local deputy and president of the Permanent Commission on Government and Agrarian Affairs of the Oaxaca Legislature. This has led to accusations that the family used its influence to speedily manage and validate permits for stone extraction following pressure from the authorities and residents of Chicozapote. Elpidio Desiderio is also accused of influence-peddling on behalf of his son, as authorities claim that Elpidio Desiderio began exploiting the river without authorization from the relevant agencies before 2010, prior to his son being granted river exploitation permits, which expire in 2029.
‘If you look at this part, it’s just rocks, but further down it’s all green, which is how the whole river should be,’ says Don Ismael. It seems difficult to believe because the waterway is also part of the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve, a protected natural area in Mexico and a World Heritage Site since 2018.
Otters and palo de agua are lost to extraction
It’s a sunny spring day with a temperature of almost 40 degrees Celsius as we walk documenting the sand extraction. There are areas where the machinery hasn’t interrupted the fauna or the flora. In these zones, locals argue that the Darwiniothamnus Tenuifolius bush, known as palo de agua, blooms, among other species.
According to the Charles Darwin Foundation journal Sew Me in Your Garden, it is a near-threatened species that can only be found on Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. However, locals in San Pedro Chicozapote say the palo de agua has always been part of the river, alongside quelites, willows, and other plants. It is now being lost.
‘We used to find palo de agua all along the river, but now, look over there, we no longer do,’ reiterates Ismael. ‘Sand provides habitats and breeding areas for a great diversity of flora and fauna, and it plays a vital role in supporting biodiversity. However, there is still no one documenting these important species.’
Approximately 30 kilometres away from San Pedro Chicozapote, in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve, the banks of the Río Grande form the habitat of the neotropical river otter (Lontra longicaudis), one of only three in Mexico. In October 2005, the species’ presence was confirmed through the discovery of 21 droppings and footprints.
Yet, as some areas of the river become deeper, the current becomes more and more forceful. If this continues, the damage could be irreversible, and many species that inhabit the river could suffer greatly as a result.
Meanwhile, the Cuicatec inhabitants of Chicozapote and other communities that coexist with the Río Grande hope that the extraction will stop, although regulation feels far off and the struggle is becoming increasingly difficult due to social conditions, violence, and the criminalization of land defenders in Mexico.
According to CEMDA’s annual report, in 2024, 25 land defenders were assassinated in Mexico, an increase of 25 per cent in comparison to 2023. In addition, they documented at least 20 incidents of criminalization in the same year.
With 15 attacks, Oaxaca is the state with the highest number. ‘We have no choice but to keep organizing ourselves – for the river,’ emphasizes Don Ismael.
Juana García is a reporter from the Ñu’u Savi Indigenous community in Oaxaca, México.
