OVERVIEW

On March 7, 2025, on behalf of and alongside the Traditional Authorities of the Eight Yaqui Pueblos in Sonora, Mexico, the Water Protector Legal Collective and the International Indian Treaty Council, an Indigenous Peoples Organization in General Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, submitted a request to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for Urgent Action Procedure to Protect Rio Yaqui Water Rights.

 

The urgent action procedures submission raised the urgent and ongoing threat of human rights violations against the Eight Traditional Yaqui Pueblos and other Indigenous Peoples of Sonora, Mexico, resulting from extractive and industrial lithium mining projects carried out under Plan Sonora.

 

Plan Sonora is a broad development initiative for a so-called “green” energy transition in Mexico, including large-scale mining of lithium and copper, infrastructure expansion (expansion of Guaymas port, highways, and railroads), and mega-projects such as solar and liquefied natural gas facilities. These developments are moving forward rapidly in the Rio Yaqui river basin, in the ancestral lands of the Eight Traditional Yaqui Pueblos, despite their catastrophic impacts on the precious water resources from the Rio Yaqui watershed, a region already under extreme stress from drought and water scarcity, agrochemical contamination, and mining waste.

 

The Mexican government has Treaty obligations to the Yaqui found in the Decreto Cardenas of 1937, which guarantees land and water rights to the Yaqui, reserving half (50%) of the Rio Yaqui’s surface flow. These rights have not been honored and the Yaqui have long struggled to secure their right to water through legal action, including a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (which resulted in a “Plan de Justicia Yaqui” under now-former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador). In addition, the recent “Plan Hidrico Sonora 2023-2053,” guarantees water supply to Sonora, Mexico for the next 30 years and recognizes that mining strains water resources.

 

The Bacanora Lithium Mine, part of the Plan Sonora mining plans, has been in development since at least 2010, with exploratory activities directly affecting the Yaquis just south of the U.S./Mexico border, 20 km south of Bacadehuachi, near the feeding waters of the Rio Yaqui. No notice or consent has been sought from the Yaqui for these projects. The mine is currently halted due to international arbitration between Mexico and two British and one Chinese company, but remains a serious threat to the Yaqui’s access to clean water. Lithium mining, particularly through open-pit methods, is highly water intensive and causes significant environmental damage. In Sonora, open-pit mining, which produces 37 tons of CO2 per ton of lithium mined, will not only deplete already scarce water resources but will also contaminate the remaining water with toxic substances that will remain for hundreds of years.

 

It is documented that lithium mining can contaminate water sources up to 150 miles from the actual mine and for up to 300 years. Lithium mining in the Sonora Desert will use massive amounts of already-limited desert groundwater, which Indigenous Peoples of the region use for drinking and growing food. The lithium extracted in Sonora is intended to be processed in Mexico as well, leaving behind the resulting contamination. Construction of railways to ship the finished lithium to the  United  States  is  already  forcibly  displacing  the  Opata  Indigenous  Peoples  further inland from Yaqui Nation lands.

 

The Yaqui have never been informed or consulted about Plan Sonora or its component projects, in violation of their rights under ICERD and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

 

Since March 2025, the Mexican government has accelerated Plan Sonora’s implementation, expended its global promotion, and entered into new partnerships while still denying the Yaqui and other Indigenous Peoples their rights to information, consultation, and consent. The Yaqui Pueblos remain excluded and are being erased from consideration of Mexico’s future and move towards sustainable energy at risk of irreparable harm to their lands, waters, and survival. Water Protector Legal Collective continues working in partnership with IITC and the Traditional Yaqui Authorities to urge the CERD to take immediate action under its urgent action procedures to prevent further violations of ICERD and UNDRIP, and to protect the water of the Rio Yaqui river basin.