Cañón del Alacrán

Cañón del Alacrán (Goat Canyon) is one of the many tributary canyons that feed into the Cañón de los Laureles (Scorpion Canyon) that begins in Tijuana and ends in the United States just north of the Mexico-US border. It is watershed sub-basin, part of the 1,750 square miles Tijuana River Estuary watershed that spans the two countries. The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (TRNERR) is tasked with cleaning up the river estuary and looking after the health of the native flora and fauna that thrive in the watershed wetland, and one of the main approaches of their Watershed Program is to promote local development projects amongst the network of vulnerable communities living alongside the canyons that feed into the river estuary.

Read more here about Goat Canyon here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Canyon_(Tijuana_River_Valley)
Read more about the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve here: https://trnerr.org/about/overview/
Read more about community-based collaborative research around pluvial flash flooding in Tijuana, Mexico here: https://www.wiki.wasteforlife.org/images/4/45/Goodrich_addressingPFF_water_2020.pdf

Cañón del Alacrán is also an informal border settlement at the periphery of Tijuana. It is where pastor Gustavo Banda-Aceves and his wife, Zaida Guillen, built their Church - the Templo de Embajadores de Jesus. From its beginning in 2016, the Church and a few hastily constructed outbuildings, have metamorphosed into emergency housing sheltering hundreds of Haitian and Central American refugees in this impossible physical, political and socioeconomic canyon topography. In this photo, 300+ people are packed into side-by-side tents, where some families have lived in absolute limbo for the past 4 years. Waste for Life is partnering with the Church and the Tijuana River National Estaurine Research Reserve to develop a waste recycling business initiative in the Canon del Alacrán that generates a self-sufficient, small-scale cottage industry, allowing the refugees to support themselves as they await an uncertain future.

This is directly outside the Templo de Embajadores de Jesus and, as is obvious, without any municipal garbage or sewer services or infrastructure, the health situation for the refugees can be dire.

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