Research report: evaluation of the performance of environmental management instruments in the high Santiago River Basin, Jalisco, Mexico

Abstract

We start from the hypothesis that environmental policy in general and the instruments at its disposal (the Official Mexican Standard, cost/benefit analysis, environmental impact assessment, declarations of natural protected areas, etc.) have been designed to exploit natural resources and not to conserve or develop ecological reserves or the cycles that guarantee their existence. This is derived from the theoretical foundation that sustains both the dominant economic science and its environmental component: the belief that natural balances are a consequence of the functioning of free market forces.
Thus, the official philosophy of sustainability is based on the growth imperative. Under this precept, the capitalist system's need to increase gross domestic product, there is an irresolvable contradiction between development and environmental health. Production implies destruction.