Team:UNAM-Genomics Mexico/HumanPractices/LawProposal

HYDROBIUM ETLI. CASE EXPERIENCE AT CUATZOQUITENGO, GUERRERO: A SUSTAINABLE PROJECT TO DEAL WITH ENERGETIC ISSUES IN THE RURAL COMMUNITIES OF MEXICO

OVERVIEW

This page contains the information about “Hydrobium etli goes Cuatzo”. This project was born thanks to the fact that this year our team is an association between the UNAM Genomics undergraduates as well as fellow students, also at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, from the Latin American Studies Undergraduate Programme.

As we raised our ideas for what would become our 2011 iGem project, Hydrobium etli, it was quite clear that an interest to develop a project with the ability to improve our immediate surroundings was present. Namely, a situation in our country that could take advantage of Synthetic Biology.

Hydrobium etli goes Cuatzo represents the effort of building an interdisciplinary iGem project, because it aims to take the Synthetic Biology project “Hydrobium etli” and place it under the context of Mexico's current rural situation.

This area of the project vouches for the incorporation of new Synthetic Biology proposals, such as Hydrobium etli, as potential solutions to the necessities in the indigenous communities of our country. The posibility to supply environmentally-friendly energy to this localities, together with the energetic diversification it would imply, are the two objectives chosen to explore.

Among the results of this intiative you will find a document containing the analysis of the current mexican legal framework on GMOs, as well as the panorama on energetic matters of our country. Through this paper, it is concluded that the rural situation of our country could take advantage of a project like Hydrobium etli.

Another fundamental section of Hydrobium etli goes Cuatzo is the diffusion of the Hydrobium etli project, which is where it takes its name from. Cuatzoquitengo or “Cuatzo” is an indigenous community that belongs to the mixteco linguistic group of the country. It is located in the Malinaltepec municipality of the Guerrero State, right in the middle of la Sierra (the mountain system). Cuatzo was the place elected to the field work part of the project.

The two goals of this field work were, first, to take the information of the Hydrobium etli project to the people of this community. And second, to collect their opinion on the posibility of carrying it out. Electric energy is a public fundamental service nowdays but in Mexico we have many communities like Cuatzo where sumministrating this service is a challenge for the government, Hydrobium etli goes Cuatzo is thus, a quite relevant approach to a social issue present accross our whole country.

Introduction

Placing the project under a relevant context

The UNAM-Genomics-Mexico 2011 team is formed by undergrads from both scientific and humanistic programs. We understand that Synthetic Biology is an evergrowing field and that it holds many challenges; but the outlook is quite promising: its ability to develop applications with the potential to solve problems posed by disease, environmental deterioration, and scarcity among many others, is overriding.

The development of Mexico and its international vinculation (specially with other countries from Latin America) beg for a systematic analysis of the cultural, political, and economical problems of the country. The Latin American Studies Undergraduate Programme is an interdisciplinary one seeking to understand the historical development and the contemporary problems in Mexico.

Mexico is a developing country, population (2010): 112,322,757.

Maturing the Idea

Don't forget to include photographs

Document

Precedents

Law's stuff

Viability

Case Study

Mediciones

Conclusion

Case Study

Información

When we posed the project Hydrobium etli within a laboratory, we understood that we faced ourselves with a project with a social future... for many days we thought in the best way to take this project to the right and relevant people. What would be more relevant than to one community with the potential to take on a project like Hydrobium etli? Since this moment it was our greater objective to highlight the integral and profound relationship between science and the society.

In our first meeting with one of the community professors, he expressed the true problems that electric energy represents in rural regions of the country. The cultural diversity of Mexico has propitiated that it is a constant problem the land tenure among communities and this in turn provokes quarrels that end by promoting electricity outage that last weeks, road closures, problems among the communities that take years to be solved; it is true that provide public services to the Sierra represents by itself a great challenge. A project correctly oriented that permits the communities access to their own electricity supply could solve some of the problems here stated. Of course this is about a project that still remains in the research step, but it is important to reaffirm that it is about a project with a social potential against the rural communities reality and their needs in our country.

The rural communities are restless, participative and foster the dialogue about problems in a updated manner, and personally, in Cuatzoquitengo, we found people with full awareness of their environment, of their needs, with projects to be applied in a non-distant future; people willing to give the necessary opinions to share the information, people that want their opinion to be listened above all other. This is why finishing the difussion work has made me be part of this community eager to participate.

Experience

Bitácoras come here Include LOTS of photographs

Future Directions

We are humanists, the people opinion is one of our main concerns. The world needs a mayor interaction between sciences and the society. To make this bond between Synthethic Biology by means of the Hydrobium etli project and an indigenous population has been a demanding task, but it has also been an unique and necessary experience to us because there probably does not exist better way to make scientific difussion other than really promote a dialogue among science concerns and the people concerns.