After losing 28 feet of shoreline annually for 50 years, an entire community may be forced to move

One Indigenous community in Mexico is grappling with the challenges of a necessary relocation due to the unrelenting advance of the sea.

What's happening?

Mongabay profiled the community of Cuauhtémoc in San Mateo del Mar, on the Pacific coast, near the mouth of the Tehuantepec River. Sea-level rise has been gradually impacting Cuauhtémoc, with around 28 feet of land swallowed up annually since 1967.

For the approximately 900 individuals living in the Ikoots community, the changes have radically impacted life through wiping out homes and displacing residents.

"I can clearly see how it was before: the houses, the streets, the people who lived there," 51-year-old police officer Gabriel Pinzón Leyva told Mongabay.

The impacts go beyond lost buildings. Severe flooding events occur twice annually, and the community's well is now contaminated with saltwater, with the nearby river proving insufficient as a water source.

The decision to move the community to a new settlement about three miles away was made last May. Progress to that resolution, though, is slow and uncertain.

"Many people are still here, but there's no way for them to relocate because of money," 74-year-old resident Gualteria Leyva said, per Mongabay. "People can't leave."

Why are Cuauhtémoc's struggles important?

While viral posts often show costly properties succumbing to the sea, many long-term residents lose their livelihoods in these events. For Indigenous communities, this forced relocation is nothing short of devastating because of their attachment to the land.

Cuauhtémoc is an especially interesting case, as the root causes of the rapidly encroaching sea are in dispute. Undoubtedly, overall changes to the climate are contributing, as is seen around the world. Still, there's a belief that there is more to it.

José Antonio Ávalos, an investigator at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, theorizes that the nearby Benito Juárez Dam is trapping sediment that could slow erosion on the beach.

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Locals point to the construction of the breakwater as a contributor to the sea's unusual behavior. That move was made to increase commerce in nearby waters, which they said is upsetting currents.

Whatever the case, it's becoming apparent that the residents of Cuauhtémoc will have to move, and human-induced factors are weighing heavily in the mix.

What's being done to relocate Cuauhtémoc's residents?

The pace of relocation is frustrating residents. There's the complication that the new settlement features landowners from outside the community.

Even if relocation comes to pass and federal funds come through, it's a painful situation for residents who don't want to leave and are unsure about the future.

"We're almost going now, we've already lived our time here," Camilo Pinzón Edison, 48, told Mongabay. "What worries us are our children, the ones who are coming after us."

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