ABSTRACT
The case study of Mexico-with its ongoing low level war against drug traffi cking is an example of a complex emergency.5 Public security with more than 35,000 dead people (2007-2010)—refers to environmental degradation, social inequality, a rampant globalization process, high climate change risks and threats and a state with a weak and corrupt legal system (CIDE 2000, 2005, 2009; Negrete and Hernández 2011).6 The young people are especially affected as they are often pushed into informal and illegal activities, which has increased public insecurity in urban megalopolises and also in rural areas. After a long drought from 1994 to 2009, many rural villages in the drylands were forced to abandon their traditional agriculture. This was reinforced by the lack of governmental support for mitigation, but also by the high prices for inputs and low prices for their products due to subsidized imports and unpredictable precipitation patterns that were often linked with fl ash fl oods and longer mid-summer droughts (Arreguín et al. 2011), that often destroyed the entire harvest.
