Ecuador in Flames: Indigenous Movements Rise to the Rescue
From diesel hikes to human rights: the Indigenous movement challenges Noboa’s heavy-handed rule Editor’s Note – Update, October 15 2025:Since the original version of this story was published, the situation in Ecuador has continued to deteriorate. Civil society organizations and community media have issued new denunciations of what they describe as state terrorism amid the ongoing national […]
On a UNESCO-recognized Wixárika pilgrimage route, a fence comes down — and hope rises
Thick clouds covered the unusually lush, green lands of San Luis Potosí as campesinos and their Wixárika guardians gathered at the edge of the barbed wire. Back home in their adobe kitchens, women prepared huge skillets of scrambled eggs, steaming pots of beans and warm, fresh tortillas. Those savory flavors of the Wirikuta region would […]
“It’s not grass, it’s a milpa”: Defending Life on Avenida Federalismo
At the corner of Avenida Federalismo and Francisco Zarco, a small plot of earth has become a symbol of agroecological resistance. Known as Coamil Federalismo, this community agroecological space transforms one of Guadalajara’s busiest avenues into an oasis of food, medicine, and memory. It’s not just a garden — it’s a living classroom, a sanctuary […]
Rhizome Roots: Tran Dang on Resilience and the Realities of Deportation
When Tran Dang is asked why her nonprofit is called The Rhizome Center for Migrants, she doesn’t hesitate. “Rhizomes sprout more roots and more shoots in unexpected ways. A rhizome symbolizes growth that has no origin or end. It represents, for us, resilience across borders and interconnected journeys.” For Tran, founder and director of The […]
Moon Dance: Healing the Mother Wound
In the moonlit circle above Teotihuacán, a mother confronts her lineage of pain and finds renewal in community and ceremony. Editor’s NoteThis is the third and final part of our Moon Dance series, published as the women of the Danza de la Luna prepare for their fourth and final night of ceremony at Cerro Gordo, […]
Four Nights, One Vision: How the Moon Dance Transforms Women at Teotihuacán
The drum’s deep heartbeat reverberated through the clearing, steady as the women swayed in flowing white garments beneath the waning moon. From the slopes of Cerro Gordo, the pyramids of Teotihuacán could be glimpsed faintly in the haze below, reminders of another era of ceremony and community. Voices rose from the Casa de Cantos: “Hey, […]
ITESO launches binational legal clinic to support migrants
The auditorium at the ITESO university was filled to capacity on the evening of September 2 as students, faculty, civil society leaders, and an international delegation from Loyola Marymount University gathered for the inauguration of Guadalajara’s new Clínica Jurídica de Migración Binacional (Binational Migration Legal Clinic). Applause broke out again and again as speakers underscored […]
From the Seas to the Streets: How Guadalajara Sparks Green Action
As part of Green Action Week 2025, Guadalajara’s Colectivo Ecologista Jalisco is rallying citizens to confront the plastic waste crisis with science, creativity, and community action — from global treaties to neighborhood parks.
Sonora River in Resistance: A Resounding NO to the dams
That is what has been heard since December of last year, when the Movement in Defense of Water, Territory and Life was created, born out of a call to an academic event in the Industrial Engineering Auditorium at the University of Sonora. The diagnosis from the academics was precise: if the project of the three […]
Tales of Tlaquepaque: Book project preserves village memories
For The Guadalajara Reporter The people of San José de Tateposco still tell of the day their patron saint wandered through the village. Some said they saw him in the fields, others glimpsed him barefoot among the mezquites, his robe shining green in the sun. “Suddenly, he disappeared and went back to his temple,” recalled […]
Ecuador: Rights of Nature on Paper — The Case of Sarayaku
In 2012, the Kichwa people of Sarayaku won a historic lawsuit against the Ecuadorian state in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—one of the first major tests of Ecuador’s trailblazing 2008 Constitution, the first in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature. But thirteen years later, the promises of that legal victory remain largely […]
A Historic First: Indigenous Kañari to Host World Quinua Congress in Ecuador
After centuries of colonization and decades of scientific marginalization, an indigenous organization leads the global dialog on research of quinoa and other Andean grains, currrently considered superfoods and an answer to global food insecurity. By Alan Adams with Nicolás Pichazaca In June 2025, the world’s leading researchers, scientists, and producers of quinoa and other Andean […]
The Water Revolution in the Andes: Vilcabamba, Ecuador, on the front lines
How a Small Town in Ecuador is Combining Ancestral Wisdom and Community Action to Regenerate its Valley. VILCABAMBA, Ecuador — While the world debates the climate crisis, in a small valley in Ecuador, an international community is taking action. Their tool: ancient knowledge that could transform modern agriculture. In southern Ecuador, there is a valley […]
Ancient Paths, Modern Prayers: The 2024 Peace and Dignity Journeys
Yesterday, in an explosion of celebration, dance, music and pure love, the Peace and Dignity Journeys runners from the North — the Route of the Eagle — met their counterparts from the Route of the Condor. It was a long-awaited encounter south of Bogotá, Colombia, with runners that started their journey in Alaska in May, […]
Global Water Defenders Issue Nuwiaka Declaration in Colombia's Heart of the World
At the request of the Mamos, the spiritual guides of the Sierra Nevada, please share this message far and wide. From the mist-shrouded peaks of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, I’m witnessing an unprecedented gathering of Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders who have come together from five continents to protect a river sacred to […]
Bringing Prophecies to Life: Indigenous Leaders Converge at Mayan Pyramids
Over 250 Indigenous representatives and allies unite to forge Sacred Covenant at Palenque’s ancient ceremonial center. It was a scene that could have played out a thousand years ago, or more. Amid a cluster of ancient Mayan temples, a rainbow-hued assemblage of Indigenous elders and young leaders formed a ceremonial circle. They looked on as […]
March 8: ‘Identity can never be silenced.’ Misak women fight back in Colombia
Reflections of a Misak journalist two and a half years after the femicide of the Indigenous leader Nazaria Calambas. By Angélica Almazán, Tracy L. Barnett and Diana Mery Jembuel Morales. It’s been two and a half years since Nazaria Calambas, an Indigenous Misak leader in Colombia, was shot to death before the helpless gaze of […]
Waste Pickers to Recyclers: Reimagining a Scorned Sector
Waste pickers sort and sell recyclables from open-air landfills. One municipality made the position official — a move that could transform the industry. By Ena Aguilar Peláez, Global Press México. SAN LORENZO CACAOTEPEC, MEXICO — Marisol Mendoza leaves home on her motorcycle at 5:45 a.m. She rides down a brush-lined dirt road and over a […]
Colombia's Call of the Mountain: Restoring the Heart of Sumapaz
The Kunagua Network in the mountains south of Bogotá hosted the 17th edition of this gathering, a Colombian version of the Vision Council, this time with the purpose of preserving and regenerating the Colombian paramos. Text by José Aristizábal G. with editions from Tracy Barnett and Angélica Almazán. SUMAPAZ, COLOMBIA — On the cool, rolling […]
A Mexican Entrepreneur With a Painful Past Is Finding New Purpose With a Recycling Startup
By Maya Piedra, Global Press Mexico. Eleno Ulloa endured ridicule, rejection, drug and alcohol addiction, and two deportations from the United States. Today, he is his family’s breadwinner and, with his recycling business, a sign of hope for many in Nayarit. PASO DE LAS PALMAS, MEXICO — Eleno Ulloa inherited his interest in recycling from […]
Mexican Indigenous Group Fights to Preserve Sacred Sites
By Maya Piedra, Global Press Journal Mexico. This story was originally published in Global Press Journal Mexico. GUADALAJARA, MEXICO — Dressed in white clothing embroidered in colors and symbols representing the sacred universe, Mario Muñoz Cayetano, a man with a good-natured expression and deep gaze, speaks on the importance of a presidential decree to legally […]
Healing the body and the land on Lake Chapala, Mexico
Faced with a public health crisis due to kidney disease in the region, a group of women organized in Agua Caliente – on the shores of Mexico’s largest lake, Chapala, in the municipality of Poncitlán, Jalisco – to launch a community garden of medicinal plants. Although there are factors beyond their control, these women are counting on their collective organization around a budding agroecology project, to help them care for their health.
'Stop the criminalization of planting in public spaces': Agroecology collectives
In the heart of Mexico’s second-largest city, next to a cornfield planted in the median of a major thoroughfare, Radio Coamil was born, in its first broadcast addressing the growing tension around the criminalization of the unauthorized practice of urban agroecology in public spaces.
Land defenders caravan to Mexico City to defend Chimalapas
Editor’s note: Last year we featured a two-part series by award-winning Zapotec journalist Diana Manzo about Indigenous community forestry initiatives to defend the biodiversity hotspot that is the Chimalapas forest reserve against illegal logging, mining, territorial invasion and other threats. The situation has continued to deteriorate and the government has failed to respond to community […]
Oaxaca Mural Documents Struggle to Defend Native Corn
In a noisy entrance to one of the oldest markets in Oaxaca City, not far from one of the sites where corn culture originated 9,000 years ago, muralist Mariel García stood on a scaffold in the hot sun for three weeks and painted her heart out. The mural she was creating, more than a year […]
Mine Resisters Denounce the Dangers of the New "White Gold" Rush
Editor’s Note: The U.S. eleventh-hour climate policy — to pin global greenhouse gas reduction on the proliferation of individual electric vehicles made with lithium exclusively from the American continent — appears to be having a domino effect nationally and in countries south of the border. In April, when Chile’s President Gabriel Boric announced his intention […]
Maya Villagers Resist Mega Hog Farms in Yucatán
“The smell was what woke us up. The green flies, the mosquitoes. The headaches. The pestilence, which at night no longer lets us sleep. Then something appeared in the fruit, as if it were smoke. The bushes looked sad and would soon dry up. When we realized it, the Kekén farm had already been running for a year.
Guardian of Temaca: “I had to see with my own eyes”
TEMACAPULÍN, Jalisco, Mexico — The fight was clearly worth it, was the feeling of the residents of this colonial town, who showed up punctually to observe the destruction of part of the curtain of the El Zapotillo Dam, a megaproject that threatened to flood the town along with two of its neighboring villages, Acasico and […]
Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta: Reversing a Century of Colombian Tragedy
When I visited the floating palafito fishing village of Nueva Venecia in early 2021, I found myself staring out across the calm, reflective expanse of the coastal lagoon complex known as the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. Looking back at that moment, I understand why Ernesto Mancera has spent the past 35 years studying the region’s mangroves […]
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