Current Situation In February 2007 at Lake Chapala

Marion Hammerl, President of Global Nature Fund, visited Lake Chapala in February 2007 to analyse with the Living Lakes Partners Fundación Cuenca Lerma Chapala and Amigos del Lago as well as the experts of the Living Lakes Scientific Committee the current situation of the lake. Since the Regional Living Lakes Conference in March 2004 in Mexico the situation did not improve and regarding the level of contamination it is even getting worse. The highly dangerous cocktail of heavy metals, arsenic, pesticides, DDT and other chemical substances is increasing and the majority of the waste water treatment plants around the lake is still not functioning at all or only working very badly. The requested transparent monitoring system has not been implemented and there is no official information on the status of contamination. The National Water Administration decided to apply glyphosate to combat the water hyacinths in the lake – against an official Mexican jurisdiction based on the potential danger for humans’ drinking water.

Also regarding legal protection there were no positive steps done: Lake Chapala still does not have any legal protection and also not the RAMSAR status and there is no management plan for the lake and the catchment area approved. All proposals to define Lake Chapala as an area of high ecological value and the need for restoration or to elaborate and to implement a sustainable tourism development plan are still without political approval. Marion Hammerl sent again a letter to the new President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, and to the new Environmental Minister to request the urgent implementation of measures and to offer once again the collaboration with Living Lakes.

Our Living Lakes partner and GNF agreed on a new Action Plan 2007 to 2010. They invited more NGOs around Lake Chapala to support the network "Todos por el Lago Chapala" and to help to realise the Action Plan. 14 NGOs signed their participation in the network and before the end of the year hopefully more than 40 NGOs will collaborate. 

The followiing documents can be downloaded as pdf data in English and in Spanish.