Oaxaca, Mexico

The Foundation has established a relationship of cooperation with a community that combines all the conditions required for an initial community project: Ixtepec, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Oaxaca).

Ixtepec is a Community in the legal sense. The Mexican Agrarian Law (Ley Agraria) defines the Community as the legal figure for indigenous communities that want to keep common ownership and management over their land and resources. The law defines the Community as a juridical person and establishes its ownership over the land and a number of protections on that ownership: the right over communal land is “inalienable, cannot expire and cannot be seized” (“inalienable, imprescriptible e inembargable”). Ixtepec has decided to remain a Community in a legal sense, despite the governmental programs offering incentives for the transition to individual property.

Ixtepec is a large community, with over 30,000 inhabitants and a large number of professionals trained in different fields. The body that administers the commons of a Community is the Communal Goods Commissariat (Comisariado de Bienes Comunales). The Commissariat of Ixtepec had already decided that they want to undertake a community wind energy project before we had any contact with them. They live in an area with a very rich wind resource, and they have not signed contracts with any wind energy developer. The Mexican public power utility CFE is building in Ixtepec’s communal land a very large power substation that will feed into the national electric grid the energy from all the wind farms that will be built in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The Ixtepec Communal Good Commissariat engaged in a negotiation process with the CFE, in which they offered access to their land in exchange for CFE support in the development of community projects in different areas, including wind energy.

The legal protection over communal land means that communities cannot use it as collateral for loans. It is therefore very difficult for them to obtain loans of the magnitude required for a wind farm. Although we are still in the beginning of the process, the Commissariat is in principle very favorable to the idea of doing a project in partnership with the Yansa Foundation. In this partnership, the Foundation would contribute the wind turbines and the Community the use of the land, and the profits would be divided equally. However, a lot of steps still need to be taken before we can realize this project.

The partnership agreement that the Foundation will sign with the Community of Ixtepec will include terms governing the use of profits generated by the project. The Foundation will commit itself to using its share of profits from the project exclusively to the advancement of its goals, as mandated by the law, and will invite the Community of Ixtepec to be part of the Foundation and of its work in partnership with other communities. The Community of Ixtepec will establish a transparent and democratic governance structure for the management of the funds that it will receive from the project, and draw guidelines and criteria for the distribution of funds in several projects of common interest. This should not be difficult, since the Community of Ixtepec has functional and democratic governance structures, it has already defined a number of community projects that it would like to undertake in the next few years, and it has very capable members who are certainly able to produce more common projects for the benefit of the community.