Category: Latin America

Programa de Documentación y Narrativa de Brighter Green || Programa de Documentação e Narrativa da Brighter Green || Brighter Green’s Documentation and Narrative Program

Published on | Updated on by Mia MacDonald
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Esta página presenta las historias en español, portugués o inglés que han resultado del Programa de Documentación y Narrativa de Brighter Green. || Esta página lista as histórias em espanhol, português ou inglês que resultaram do Programa de Documentação e Narrativa da Brighter Green. || This page presents stories published in England and Spanish or Portuguese and English as a result of Brighter Green’s Documentation and Narrative Program.

Ganadería industrial en Yucatán, México || Industrial Animal Agriculture in Yucatán, México

Slaughter-land by Patricio Eleisegui and Maricarmen Sordo documents the growth of mega-pig farms that are affecting Mayan communities and cenotes in Yucatán. Slaughter-land won the 2025 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest. Read about the film and watch it here. Read Patricio Eleisegui’s original report in the Guardian: “Drugs, Hormones, and Excrement: The Polluting Mega-Pig Farms Supplying Pork to the World.”

Slaughter-land de Patricio Eleisegui y Maricarmen Sordo describe el crecimiento de mega-granjas de cerdos que afectan a las comunidades mayas y a los cenotes en Yucatán. Slaughter-land ganó el Concurso de Cine Yale Environment 360 2025. Lee sobre la película y mírala aquí. Lee el reportaje original de Patricio Eleisegui y en el periódico Guardian: Drogas, Hormonas y Excremento: Las Mega-Granjas de Cerdos Contaminantes que Suministran Cerdo al Mundo.

Ganadería industrial en Colombia || Industrial Animal Agriculture in Colombia

O impacto da pecuária nos animais silvestres e no desmatamento no Brasil || The Impact of Animal Farming on Wild Animals and Deforestation in Brazil

Actividad delictiva y ganadería en Colombia || Criminal Activity and Animal Agriculture in Colombia

Exploitation, Resistance, and Resilience in Mexico’s Yucatán

Published on | Updated on by Mia MacDonald

Stories of Human and Nonhuman Rights under Pressure from Animal Megafarms

By Mia MacDonald and Isis Alvarez

To read the entire paper, click here.

Summary

Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula is known for its beaches, Mayan archaeological sites like Tulum and Chichén Itzá, and its forests and cenotes (a network of rivers and lakes, sacred in Mayan cosmology, that wind through hundreds of sinkholes and caves composed of karst). Among the nonhuman species found here are endangered spider monkeys, threatened jaguars, and Yucatán parrots. The blind eel and fish, both at risk of extinction, are found only in the peninsula’s cenotes (see left). Through the caverns, rainwater and other substances filter directly into the groundwater, which provides the freshwater used by Mayan communities as well as wildlife.

Over the past decade or so, the forested land and especially the cenote waters have attracted the meat industry, which raises animals on an industrial scale in factory-like “megafarms.” As many as 800 Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) pack tens of thousands of pigs and chickens bred for rapid growth into vast sheds.[i] It is estimated that 70 percent of these megafarms have been built within the Ring of Cenotes in northwest Yucatán, which is, or should be, protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.[ii]

The CAFOs for pork production, owned by Kekén, a large Mexican meat processor, which monopolizes the pork business, threaten the Mayan communities’ and wild species’ access to fresh water. Animal manure and run-off from cleaning operations pollute the cenotes, even as the facilities themselves draw significantly from them. Research by Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment in 2023 found that in more than half of the municipalities with mega pig farms, “critical conditions for the water sustainability of the aquifer [cenote]” existed, due to high levels of nitrogen from pig manure and urine.[iii]

The CAFOs, also known as “factory farms” or “megafarms,” displace habitats for wildlife, and threaten traditional livelihoods like beekeeping, which Mayans practice in forested areas. The megafarms—and their powerful owners—are also threatening the land and human rights of Indigenous Maya communities and deploying the state police and judicial apparatus through muscular, militarized means to intimidate environmental defenders. At the same time, local associations, individuals, and legal advocates in the Yucatán are employing creative means to protect and expand rights—of humans and more-than-humans—including an effort to gain legal personhood status for the Ring of Cenotes.

For several years, Brighter Green has been tracing the connections and distinctions between the movements for the rights of animals and rights of Nature (RoN), exploring how collaborative analysis and action could advance both. As part of their work, the authors of this paper have been documenting connections and distinctions between the movements for RoN and animal rights, exploring how collaborative action and analysis could advance both. The Yucatán CAFOs bristle with multiple rights violations of the human and more-than-human world, and the community environmental defenders, investigative journalists, scientists, and lawyers offer a pathway to protect them both.

Still, our analysis finds that the realities of industrial animal agriculture (reliant on CAFOs or megafarms) haven’t received as much attention from the RoN movement as it warrants. This is, therefore, an area ripe for collaboration among the RoN, more-than-human life, and animal rights movements. Other scholars and legal advocates working at the intersection of animal rights and RoN have come to a similar conclusion, and have encouraged more cross-pollination of ideas and action, particularly around animal agriculture.[iv]

Brighter Green at COP30

Published on | Updated on by Mia MacDonald

This page highlights Brighter Green’s agenda and work related to COP30 in Belem, Brazil, from two of our initiatives, Documentation and Narrative and Animals, Climate, and Biodiversity.

Events at COP30

Just Transition in Agriculture & Food Systems. Wednesday November 12: 6:30–8:00 pm. Blue Zone, Side Event Room 9. Sponsored by Brighter Green, ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, Mighty Earth, and World Animal Protection.

Seeding Solidarity: Visions and Actions for Just, Sustainable Food Systems from Ground to Government Policy. Thursday November 13: 11:30 am–12:30 pm. Blue Zone, Food Roots and Routes Pavilion, Hangar Convenções & Feiras da Amazônia. Sponsored by Brighter Green with RepaSur Global.

Environmental Defenders Tribunal: The Case of Mega-Farms in Yucatán. Thursday November 13 to Friday November 14 (Times TBA). The Peoples’ Summit, Peoples Tribunal against Eco-Genocide, Travessa Piedade 426, near Republic Square. Photo exhibition debut of Environmental Defenders in Yucatán supported by Brighter Green.

Socio-Environmental Impacts of Animal Agriculture in Latin America. Saturday November 15 (2-4pm). The Peoples’ Summit (UFPA Mirante 407). Organized by Brighter Green.

A Just Transition Away from Industrial Animal Agriculture as a Pathway to 1.5C and Food Justice. Tuesday November 18, 10:15–11:15 am. Blue Zone, Food Roots and Routes Pavilion, Hangar Convenções & Feiras da Amazônia. Sponsored by Brighter Green, World Animal Protection, Center for Biological Diversity, Global Forest Coalition, and Aquatic Life Institute.

Initiatives for COP30

Investigative Reporting

As part of the Documentation and Narrative initiative, Brighter Green has established the Animals & Biodiversity Reporting Fund. Here is a selection of recent investigative journalism projects exploring the intersection of food systems, the climate crisis, and animal protection.

Slaughter-land by Patricio Eleisegui and Maricarmen Sordo describes the growth of pig mega-farms affecting Mayan communities and cenotes in Yucatán. Slaughter-land won the Yale Environment 360 Film Contest 2025. Read about and watch the film here. Read Patricio Eleisegui’s original reporting in the Guardian newspaper: Drugs, Hormones and Excrement: The Polluting Pig Mega-Farms Supplying Pork to the World

The Pork Mega Farms Eating Away at Life in Meta by Andrés Gómez (en español)

Carranza’s Dead Hand Behind Aliar-Fazenda and the Mennonites in Meta by Andrés Gómez (en español)

Barrulia: From Living on 58,000 Hectares to Inhabiting a Sports Centre by Camila Ramírez (en español)

Fire in the Pantanal Leaves Rescued Animals with Nowhere to Go (video)

Trapped: The Impact of Agribusiness on Brazilian Wildlife

La Extinción del Pueblo Nukak (video)

Deforestation and Livestock Farming: A Paramilitary Marriage in the Colombian Amazon

Deforestación y ganadería: un matrimonio paramilitar en la amazonia colombiana

Other Relevant Writing

Rights of Nature, Rights of Animals

Within the Animals, Climate, and Biodiversity Initiative, Brighter Green launched a project the intersections of rights of Nature and rights of animals, and some of the philosophical and policy areas where there opportunities for both sets of advocates to work together.

Building on Patricio Eleisegui’s reporting and the film Slaughter-land (see above), the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) has finalized a Resolution of the Assembly of Judges of the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature on the impacts of the Maya Train and pig mega-farms in Yucatán on the Rights of Nature and of Indigenous communities. Brighter Green contributed research and documentation on the mega farms. The Resolution, addressed to the government of Mexico, includes this section on the rights of animals: “Violation of the right of non-human animals exploited in mega-farms to maintain their identity and integrity as different, self-regulating and interrelated beings; violation of the right to well-being, to life and not to be subjected to degrading treatment, or to be genetically altered.”

The Resolution was delivered by representatives of the Maya communities to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. See video here. GARN’s press release on the Tribunal resolution—”Mayan activists file complaint against the Mexican state before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights over the Maya Train case”—is available below, en español.

nota de prensa Corte IDH (1)Download

Brighter Green and the More Than Human Life Project

Brighter Green has presented its ongoing paper, entitled “Justice at the Intersections” on the rights of Nature and the rights of animals at two More Than Human Life conferences (in New York City and in London). You can read the version presented below.

Moth Final_Brighter_Green_Justice_IntersectionsDownload

Brighter Green and the Goldman Environmental Prize

Published on | Updated on by Brighter Green

Since 2020, Brighter Green has been a nominator for the Goldman Environmental Prize, which, as its website notes, “honors ordinary people who take extraordinary actions to protect our planet.” The prize, which was founded in 1989 by Richard and Rhonda Goldman, highlights grassroots activism and inspiring fearless leadership against polluters, extractive industries, and those who fund them. Each year, the prize is awarded to individuals in six geographical regions: Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and islands and island nations. Previous winners include the late Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel peace prize winner. A friend to, guiding for, and hero of Brighter Green, Wangari was awarded the prize in 1991.

Since it became a partner for the prize, Brighter Green has been privileged to nominate activists from all over the world, including five finalists and two winners (so far): Sharon Lavigne (who won in the North America category in 2021) and Marcel Gomes (who won in the South America category in 2024).

In its citation, the Goldman Foundation said the following about Marcel (shown left):

Marcel Gomes coordinated a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, to illegal deforestation in Brazil’s most threatened ecosystems. Armed with detailed evidence from his breakthrough investigative report, Marcel and Repórter Brasil worked with partners to pressure global retailers to stop selling the illegally sourced meat, leading six major European supermarket chains in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom to indefinitely halt the sale of JBS products in December 2021.

Marcel and Repórter Brasil have continued to work with Brighter Green. Through our Animals and Biodiversity Reporting Fund, Marcel and his team have documented in a series of articles and a short film the devastating impact of agribusiness on wildlife in Brazil.

In its citation, the Goldman Foundation said the following about Sharon (shown left):

In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Lavigne mobilized grassroots opposition to the project, educated community members, and organized peaceful protests to defend her predominantly African American community. The plant would have generated one million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, in a region already contending with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution.

We are grateful to the extraordinary people we’ve nominated for the prize for their pathbreaking work on food and agriculture, forests, protecting wildlife, climate and environmental justice. We also appreciate the colleagues who’ve recommended potential nominees to us.

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