Behind the glossy image of healthy eating promoted to British consumers lies a stark reality of violence and dispossession in Mexico. In November 2025, protests filled Mexico City's main square, a visceral public outcry against relentless national violence and the assassination of Michoacán mayor Carlos Manzo.
The Lake That Fed Us Is Dying
Claudia Ignacio Álvarez, an Indigenous Purépecha human rights defender from San Andrés Tziróndaro, describes a childhood shaped by the waters of Lake Pátzcuaro. Her community's way of life, once sustained by fishing and traditional music, is now under severe threat from agribusiness. Michoacán, a leading Mexican export state for produce like avocados and berries, masks a brutal truth.
Companies legally rent communal land, meant to guarantee local food security, to create vast plantations. To irrigate these thirsty crops, pipes extract water directly from Lake Pátzcuaro. During a severe drought last year, this extraction nearly caused the lake to dry up completely, decimating fish stocks and leaving a fishing community without its primary food source.
Forests Cleared by Fire, Defenders Silenced by Fear
The environmental impact is catastrophic. Avocado plantations, which consume enormous amounts of water, replace diverse forests. Fires, often deliberately set, clear land for rapid conversion. When communities like Claudia's resist this destruction, they face terrifying consequences.
They find themselves trapped between corporate interests, organised crime, and a state that fails to protect them. Defending the land has led to threats, killings, and disappearances. According to Global Witness, at least 36 defenders were attacked in Mexico between 2023 and 2024, most of them Indigenous. Human rights work now entails accepting grave personal risk.
A Collective Psychological Toll
The violence inflicts a deep collective trauma. Many defenders, including Claudia Ignacio Álvarez, now live in forced displacement, returning to their communities only briefly and in constant alert. "Violence is not only physical; it is psychological," she states. The strategy is to fragment resistance, exhaust campaigners, and corrode hope.
For Indigenous communities, this fight is not an abstract environmental cause. It is about memory, survival, and dignity. Claudia's testimony is a direct appeal to the international community, including UK consumers: if the benefits of cheap, abundant produce are enjoyed while ignoring its true cost, the cycle of violence in places like Michoacán will never end.
The protests in Mexico City's Zócalo in November 2025, captured in powerful photographs, stand as a testament to this ongoing struggle—a struggle literally rooted in the land that grows a favoured global fruit.
