YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — On Sept. 11, 2014, Mario Luna Romero was arrested by state judicial police in Obregón, a city on the periphery of his tribe’s territory in Sonora, and transported to a maximum-security prison. They accused him of being involved in the kidnapping of a man with links to the state government and car theft. Despite presenting little evidence to back up those claims, they kept him in an isolated cell for one year and 11 days. A few months before his arrest, Luna had led a ferocious campaign against the construction of the Independencia Aqueduct that would drastically decrease the Yaqui River’s waters from reaching his tribe’s land, known as the Yaqui Territory. The 172-kilometer (107-mile) aqueduct was approved by the Mexican government to satisfy the water needs of Hermosillo, the state’s capital and largest city. This was done without the consent (or the free, prior and informed consent — FPIC) of the affected Yaqui tribe, as later confirmed by a Supreme Court ruling. The Yaquis, along with other affected groups, organized protests and legal actions to halt its construction. When Mongabay met Luna outside his white-painted brick house, he was wearing a navy blue long-sleeved shirt and white wide-brimmed hat. The northwestern Mexican state of Sonora was experiencing one of its first deadly heat waves of the season. It was the late afternoon; the sun had hit its peak and we gathered around his kitchen table. “In the first days [in prison], what worried me least…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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