HISTORY                                                      

History of the Meeting on the Border Environment

      The Border Environment Meeting, also known as the "Encuentro", is a unique bi-national meeting where those interested in the environment of the U.S.-Mexico border region come together to exchange ideas and approaches, discuss current conditions, network and create partnerships.
     

      Prior to the 1998 Encuentro, most workshops and Meetings on U.S.-Mexico border environmental issues were topic-specific, geographically limited, government sponsored, or small, invite-only meetings that targeted policy making and academic audiences.

      As interest in border environmental issues continued to expand, however, so did the number of individual, communities and organizations working to protect the health and safety of their families and local environments. This created a demand for broad and more open border-wide events geared toward the training, educational, and networking needs community and non-governmental organizations, activists and border citizens in general.

      Organized civil society is an indispensable stakeholder in gaining understanding and solving the border's complex environmental problems, and it was with these notions in mind that we created the Meeting on the Border Environment. Successful meetings with broad bi-national and cross sector participation were held in Ciudad Juárez in 1998 and Tijuana in 1999, 2001 and 2003.

DIRECTORY OF ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS