NAFTA: Does Economic Aid Help or Hurt the Environment and People?

In 1992, Dan Fagin, a staff correspondent for Newsday, wrote about several reports of children being born on both the Mexican and American sides of the border with birth defects. From Brownsville to McAllen and Laredo to Mexico’s Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Rio Bravo all had high rates of stillborns with nerve bundles for brains or other defects. On the American side the rate was eight times the national average, the condition: anencephaly.

México has only recently in the past two years began a review process for the waste and byproducts of many manufacturing plants along the border. Since before and during NAFTA, the government has allowed industry to regulate itself, and even it’s new regulatory scheme only scratches the surface of the level of regulation in the United States.

The border between the United States and Mexico is the one in the world where such a powerfully industrialized country shares such a long border with what is still considered to be a ‘third world’country. Keep in mind that in 2000, México's economy was ranked 11th in the world, however they are still considered 'third world' because of their high population rate as well as unstable government.

the countries covered in red are part of the Global South and the blue are the Global North.




Oliver Bernstein, the Sierra Club’s border Environmental Justice organizer, has recognized how the environment is perceived by Americans and by Mexicans in both nations, although living only twenty miles apart.

In Reynosa, Tamaulipas there is a water source for the town called La Laguna Escondida “The Hidden Lagoon” and because most water sources in México are from lakes (including underground) and because this particular lake has experienced s significant amount of dumping and been the final destination for some of the city’s runoff, the townspeople are beginning to do take environmental action to help clean up the land.


This specific lake is also a stopping point for migratory birds making the trek every year from the US to México and then from México to the US. A lot of Texans that are concerned with the birds’ habitat have decided to help the Mexicans restore the lake in order to ensure environmental stability for the birds that go to the lake.

Although this is a good example of people from both countries working together, it is clear that the motivation of the Americans to restore the lake for the sake of the birds avoids having to discuss a big ín-your-face issue; that of poverty.

What is also evident throughout the northern regions of México, specifically the cities with maquiladoras who are experiencing bottlenecking, are being surrounded by shanty-towns, people who come to the North with practically nothing on them except for their clothes, and begin scavenging the landfills and using old wood and discarded plywood to make small huts in which to live.

The term ‘paracaidistas’ is applicable here, and it has first been used to discuss the growth of Mexico City and its surrounding poverty. ‘paracaidistas’ means “parachutists” and those living in absolute poverty are called this because, to those who live in houses, they could go to bed one night and wake up the next morning to see twenty or so shanty-town huts outside of their window as if ‘they had just fallen from the sky’. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to Reynosa, Matamoros, Ciudad Juarez, Tecate or Tijuana. This is representative of every single border-town city in México and is also representative of Mexico City. Anywhere one travels in México it is unavoidable to miss houses like this, but the cities with rapid growth in industry have seen the greatest creation of these ‘shanty towns’.

But what are many of the towns to do about landfill scavenging? Is it safe for people to sift through the city’s garbage in search of useful equipment for their own home? Bernstein has visited Matamoros and has discovered that since many of the roads are not paved, people throw their garbage onto empty lots or have it burned, because the city’s garbage collectors can’t venture too far into parts of the city with unpaved roads. This problem has been present since even before the rapid economic growth in NAFTA.

It is these concerns about what Americans might consider basic environmental services that are lacking in México. There has been concern and some active efforts into correcting the damaging environmental hazards on the border-towns. Part of what interests many Americans on this issue is that by sharing a river, the pollutants that go into it by either side—although namely by Mexican industry that is by and large unregulated—and have been willing to participate with to some degree in cleanup efforts. Historic droughts and little water available for the population of México has, since 1992 at least, let the Rio Grande become open for sewage as well as for drinking water. Recent environmental-activist trends may help offset this, but perhaps if they and others shifted their focus to a humanitarian side of environmentalism the situation can return sustainability to the region.