The Zapatistas Movement

The twentieth century saw an upsurge in a new form of protest movement, the anti-globalisation/anti-capitalist social movement, which is a branch out of what was known as the New Social Movement. The new social movements were a plethora of informal groups, organisations and campaigns that surfaced in the 1960s. These included movements that campaigned for racial equality, sexual equality, gay rights, environmental concerns, peace groups, prisoners rights, human rights, among others. Because of this history, contemporary groups have been dubbed ‘Even Newer Social Movements’ (Crossley, N. (2003) ‘Even Newer Social Movements? Anti-Corporate Protests, Capitalist Crises and the Remoralization of Society’, Organization, 10(2), pp. 287-305).
Fishing is a very important source of food and income for poor people living in coastal regions while forests are the ancestral habitat of many tribal and indigenous communities as well as a provision of natural resources and a means of survival. The Zapatistas movement was also about the environmental concerns which inhabitants had. They felt that their poor and largely agricultural area had been ignored by the governments and also they did not want the army encamped in their jungle to build a road through it. This concern is shared by many other forest dwellers, notably in India, Nepal, Zaire, and many others, who are highly threatened by destruction of their homelands and official government policies to end their forest
Only now, these concerns are not restricted to a specific region as before but extend to the global level. So, for instance, a movement for racial equality in Africa would not only serve to counter the Apartheid system in South Africa, but also for the international recognition of tribal rights in the Amazon or