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The objective of this article is to present an analysis of one of the most creative currents of Mexican political ecology, referred to as social environmentalism. We will present its historical context by showing how it began at the crossroads of critical theory: between left-wing Mexican political movements and local development projects. Over the past two decades, the social environmental movement has faced two principal challenges: institutionalization and internationalization. Institutionalization refers to the sensitive question of the movement's relationship to the Mexican state and its tradition of clientelism. Internationalization pertains to the arrival of new funding sources and actors that tend to orient political ecology toward global issues and methodologies based on critical expertise.