ECO WATCH In Mexico City, a new green revolution

ECO WATCH

In Mexico City, a new green revolution

    Agreen revolution is sweeping across the car and concrete jungle of Mexico City, an infamously smoggy capital that was once dubbed ‘Makesicko City’ by novelist Carlos Fuentes. Residents are growing vegetables on rooftops, planting trees where buildings once stood, hopping on bicycles and riding in electric taxis, defying the urban landscape in this metropolis of 20 million people and four million cars. “This is our vote for the environment,” said Elias Cattan, a 33-year-old architect pointing to the lettuce, onions and chillies growing in a planting table and inside used tires on the balcony of his rooftop office. “It’s a window to the future and it is very important that we reconnect with the earth,” he said.
How it started
Twenty years ago, the United
Nations declared the Mexican capital the world’s most polluted city. Fuentes envisioned black acid rain in his novel Christopher Unborn, but in real life, the air was so nasty that birds dropped dead in this megalopolis 2,240 meters (7,350 feet) above sea level. While Mexico City still has high levels of pollutants, it has dropped off the top 10 blacklist, thanks to traffic restrictions and the closure of factories, but also because other cities have become grimier.
    The left-wing city government has carried out a “green plan” since 2007 to clean up the capital, but many citizens have also taken it upon themselves to change their habits.
    Five lakh plants have been placed across the city. The government has expanded a popular bicycle loan programme, opened a new subway line and launched an ‘eco’ bus that runs on natural gas.
Citizen’s co-operation Many go to Chapultepec Park on the first Sunday of every month to trade their recyclables — empty bottles, paper, cardboard — for locally-grown produce such as tomatoes, corn and nopal (an edible cactus) in a city programme.
    A corporate-funded citizen initiative has installed huge ‘vertical gardens’ to spruce up the city and clean the air. The city and private groups offer advice to those who want to learn how to plant in a building. “It’s easy, fun and cheap,” said Liliana Balcazar, deputy director of the city’s environmental education centres that show people urban gardening tricks. “You can do it anywhere that gets at least five to six hours of sun per day.”
    “It’s like being in the countryside inside the city,” Balcazar said, noting that it is also a great source of healthy, homegrown produce for a population facing obesity problem.

Chilli peppers on a rack near mud brick oven at Taos Pueblo