Border 2012
Guiding Principles
The following
Guiding Principles are designed to support the mission
statement, ensure consistency among all aspects of Border 2012,
and continue successful elements of previous border programs.
- Reduce the highest public
health risks, and preserve and restore the natural
environment.
- Adopt a bottom-up approach for
setting priorities and making decisions through partnerships
with state, local and U.S. tribal governments.
- Address disproportionate
environmental impacts in border communities.
- Improve stakeholder
participation and ensure broad-based representation from the
environmental, public health, and other relevant sectors.
- Foster transparency, public
participation, and open dialogue through provision of
accessible, accurate, and timely information.
- Strengthen capacity of local
community residents and other stakeholders to manage
environmental and environmentally-related public health
issues.
- The United States recognizes
that U.S. tribes are separate sovereign governments, and
that equity issues impacting tribal governments must be
addressed in the United States on a government-to-government
basis.
- Mexico recognizes the
historical debt it has with its indigenous communities;
therefore, appropriate measures will be considered to
address their specific concerns, as well as to protect and
preserve their cultural integrity within the broader
environmental purposes of this program.
- Achieve concrete, measurable
results while maintaining a long-term vision.
- Measure program progress
through development of environmental and public health-based
indicators.
Overview
Border 2012, a
new program for addressing significant environmental and
environmentally related health problems in the U.S.-Mexico
border region, is now available for public review and comment.
Border 2012 builds upon past binational programs and on comments
received from numerous stakeholders to promote environmental
improvements.
Border 2012:
U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program
The U.S.-Mexico
border region is one of the most dynamic in the world. It
extends more than 3,100 kilometers (2,000 miles) from the Gulf
of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
on each side on the international border. It includes large
deserts, numerous mountain ranges, shared rivers, wetlands,
large estuaries, and aquifers. The region has various climates,
a remarkable biological diversity including many rare and native
species, and national parks and protected areas.
Over the last 20
years, population has grown rapidly in the border region to more
than 11.8 million people. This figure is expected to reach 19.4
million by 2020.
The border region
contains many social, economic, and political contrasts, while
its people share natural resources like water and air. Ninety
percent of the population reside in the fourteen paired,
interdependent sister cities. Rapid population growth in urban
areas has resulted in unplanned development, greater demand for
land and energy, increased traffic congestion, increased waste
generation, overburdened or unavailable waste treatment and
disposal facilities, and more frequent chemical emergencies.
Rural areas suffer from exposure to airborne dust, pesticide use
and inadequate water supply and waste treatment facilities,
among other things. Water quality, air quality, and other
natural resources have been adversely impacted.
Border residents
suffer disproportionately from many environmental health
problems, including water-borne diseases such as hepatitis A and
respiratory problems such as asthma. The elderly and children
are most at risk. Tribal communities and residents of some
unincorporated communities also are at greater risk because of
inadequate or non-existent water supplies.
A New Approach
In response to
these grave environmental and public health problems, the new
10-year Border 2012 Program is being launched by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Mexico’s Secretaría
de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT, or Secretariat
of Environment and Natural Resources), in partnership with other
federal agencies (including the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services and its Mexican counterpart, Secretaría de Salud)
and with the active participation of the ten border states and
U.S. tribal governments.
Border 2012
emphasizes a bottom-up, regional approach, anticipating that
local decision-making, priority-setting, and project
implementation will best address environmental issues in the
border region. It brings together a wide variety of stakeholders
to produce prioritized and sustained actions that consider the
environmental needs of the different border communities.
Border 2012 aims
to achieve concrete, measurable results while maintaining a
long-term vision and transparency to the public.
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