Resumo

HERNANDEZ-SUAREZ, Cleotilde. New water policy and centralizing legacies: the basin council in Valle de México. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2011, vol.8, n.3, pp.303-327. ISSN 1870-5472.

The new water policy by the Mexican government, implemented for almost two decades, has among its main aspects water management by basins and through Basin Councils. In the official discourse, there is an emphasis in that this public policy promotes the participation of users in water decision-making, and that this in turn leads to an integral water management in the basins. Here, we analyze the legal framework in these aspects, in contrast with the discourse and the processes that take place in the Valle de México Basin Council (Consejo de Cuenca del Valle de México, CCVM), with an emphasis in the type of participation that this framework allows for agricultural users of raw sewage waters in Valle del Mezquital, in the state of Hidalgo. To construct the theoretic-conceptual proposal, we took up contributions by political ecology, and environmental history and justice. We carried out a broad literature review and field work was performed; in the latter, there were exploratory-descriptive tours and open interviews were applied to key informants. Research shows that the legal framework in water issues, far from fostering a broad social participation in decision-making, as is suggested by the official discourse, constitutes one of the main instruments used to give continuity to the historical centralization of the resource, with social and environmental consequences that are inconsistent with sustainable development.

Palavras-chave : water; basin; centralization; decision-making.

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