Defending the Birthplace of the Sun
It’s been a decade now since Mexico experienced its Standing Rock moment. It was the native Wixárika people—better known internationally by their Spanish name, the Huicholes—who galvanized a global movement with their call for help. In the north-central state of San Luis Potosí, one of their most sacred sites—the Birthplace of the Sun—was being readied for […]
Farmers Rain on Monsanto's Parade
A crisis facing Mexican corn farmers emerged decades ago as corporate giant Monsanto pushed to get the country to use its GMO corn seed. As a result, a movement was spawned to prevent industrial agriculture from threatening the sustainability of thousands of years of farming tradition. In February, we visited Oaxaca to report on an […]
Spinning a Lifeline in Zapotec lands
High up in the southern sierra of Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, an innovative nonprofit business inspired by Mohandas Gandhi is helping Indigenous Zapotec families to weather the economic storm that COVID-19 has brought to the Mexican countryside. San Sebastian Rio Hondo, a Zapotec highland village like many others, has traditionally supplemented its agrarian way of […]
A Little Bit of Gandhi in Oaxaca
A century after Gandhi’s original Khadi Movement helped Indians to attain economic self-sufficiency and ultimately independence from Great Britain, the movement is having an unlikely revival in indigenous Zapotec communities in rural Mexico. “Khadi” means handspun cloth, and like its original Indian counterpart, Khadi Oaxaca has re-established a farm-to-garment ethic that restores dignity to its […]
Protecting our Guardians in Oaxaca
It was an unusual Calenda (traditional procession) even for Oaxaca, a city used to these colorful, musical and boisterous parades often led by giant puppets (monos) and a marching band for weddings, quinceañeras, and religious observances. This specific Calenda was dedicated to the protection of the guardians of native corn, to defenders of ecological diversity, […]
Turning trash into groceries in Oaxaca
A “pet” is a PET-type plastic bottle. Its worth is equivalent to about a penny, and gathering together several of them you can purchase some basic food items through a project developed by a university student and implemented by his local government.
The Town That Refuses to Drown
This remote Mexican pueblo has stepped into the national spotlight, standing up to a total of eight governors in two different states over the years and taking their fight all the way to Los Pinos, the Mexican White House. If the townsfolk get their way, it will probably be the first time that a mega-dam will be dismantled before it is ever used.
From Sunset Strip to the Sierra Madre to a Nobel nomination
As the founder of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and a lifelong advocate for their cause, Susana Valadez was chosen by an Amsterdam-based nonprofit, the Drugs Peace Institute, to represent the indigenous Wixárika (Huichol) people, whom the group nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts in favor of a sociable, ecologically friendly and peace-promoting use of mind-altering substances.”
A village of women in resistance
TEMACAPULIN, Jalisco, Mexico — Amid the green of Los Altos de Jalisco, hiding at the bottom of a valley, lies a village in resistance. In Temaca, as it’s affectionately known, a band of women have vowed to fight to the end to preserve their territory and their dignity. The women — and the men — […]
Temaca to the World: We're Not Going Anywhere
TEMACAPULIN, Jalisco, Mexico — It’s been 14 years since the people of this charming colonial town in the Green River Valley of Mexico’s agriculturally rich Jalisco state have gotten a good night’s sleep — 14 years of fighting the thirty-story megadam that poses an existential threat to their precolonial heritage. A generation has nearly grown […]
Campesino Past, Biodynamic Future
Gaby Gonzalez is a soil scientist, an architect and a third-generation Mexican farmer, descended from a proud campesino grandfather and schooled by her father in the ways of modern industrial agriculture, an approach she found seriously flawed. The lessons she learned from both of them found a new meaning when she discovered biodynamic agriculture. Last […]
San Antonino Castillo Velasco, Oaxaca, Mexico — Twelve years ago in the verdant Ocotlán Valley of Mexico, a group of men and women of Zapotec origin watched as their crops of vegetables and flowers began to wither away. A long drought seemed destined to turn their fertile valley into a desert area. But through a […]
Review by Ana Ruiz Photos by Tracy L. Barnett ZIPOLITE, OAXACA – Nine actors emerge as bats, bees, butterflies and wild felines, pollinating and controlling crop pests as they weave a fabulous dance into the web of life. Monsanto suddenly steps onto the stage, depicted as a fat man with a briefcase and a sprayer, […]
We came from all over the republic and beyond to show our support and to run this historic “Carrera con Causa” – Race with a Cause – to enjoy the charms of a threatened yet defiant pueblo and to bask in its famous hot springs. Here are a few images from the 11th annual Carrera […]
“What will become of us when we go to Wirikuta and can no longer find the tutuu (peyote flower)?” – question from a participant in “Let’s Talk About Hikuri,” a series of dialogs organized by Pedro Nájera and Lisbeth Bonilla. (photo at left: Antonio Moreno Talamantes, from Naturista.mx, some rights reserved – CC BY-NC) This […]
Healing the planet, healing themselves
The sun is setting as we arrive in La Laguna. It’s been a long day of travel and an even longer week for the Ramírez family, many of whom have just completed their pilgrimage to Wirikuta, the faraway desert where they find their sacred medicine and the spiritual guidance that helps them set the course for their lives.
Wixaritari: "Out with the politicians"
MESA DEL TIRADOR, Wixárika territories, Mexico— At midnight on May 10, 2018, members of the Wixárika (Huichol) community of Wuaut+a (San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán), in the Western Sierra Madre of Mexico, took the dramatic step of blocking all entrances to their community, given the lack of response from the Mexican State for their demand to peacefully […]
‘We will extinguish the magic of Bacalar’
Now that the Bacalar Lagoon weighs a development model some liken to “the New Cancun,” a plan that would condemn it to the loss of its famous seven colors, its stromatolites and everything that makes it a truly magical place, it seemed to us it would be important to consult with an expert from the […]
By Tracy L. Barnett for The Washington Post Looking down from the hilltop through the palm fronds, the sight took my breath away: at least seven hues of blue, stretching out before me to a green-fringed horizon. This was the Lagoon of Seven Colors, and it was everything I’d been told, and then some. Set […]
Puebla festival seeks to restore contaminated river
Río Atoyac in Puebla has gone the way of most rivers in this country: It’s become a contaminated, barely recognizable version of its former self. But something is different about Río Atoyac. That’s because a handful of people cared enough to fight for it. The result: Ríos Vivos (Rivers Alive) Atoyac Xicome Forum + Festival, the […]
Marichuy, Mexico's indigenous candidate: My goal goes beyond being president
By Angélica Almazán “We do not bring promises, we do not bring anything to give away, more than the heart, more than sweat, more than the effort of each day. It has been a difficult road because people no longer believe in anything and are tired of hearing promises. That is why we are not […]
Left: Cayuco Maya, the venue for the XV Vision Council, “Call of the Water,” was held on the shores of Bacalar Lagoon. Foreground: The Rainbow Peace Caravan’s Circus Tent has been a trademark gathering space for two decades in Vision Councils from Peru to Mexico. BACALAR, Quintana Roo, Mexico — The XV Vision Council – […]
Fighting adobicide in post-earthquake Mexico
By Tracy L. Barnett Editor’s note: After the earthquakes of Sept. 7 and Sept. 19 in southern and central Mexico, scores of architects, builders, engineers, designers and other experts stepped forward to help. A nascent natural building movement – known as “bioconstruction” or “bioarchitecture” here in the Spanish-speaking South – is pushing back against the […]
Rebuilding Tradition in Hueyápan, Morelos
By Tracy L. Barnett Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on bioconstruction, or natural building initiatives, in post-earthquake Mexico. When the earthquake struck the adobe-rich town of Hueyápan in the foothills of Volcano Popocatepetl, a circle of mourners surrounded their dearly departed in the colonial-era Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán. When […]
A House for Mari: Bioconstruction to the Rescue in Tetela del Volcán
Editor’s note: This photo story is part of a series about “bio-reconstruction” or natural building initiatives that are springing up in the wake of the earthquakes in Mexico. To follow some of these developments see the Facebook page for BioReconstruye México, a network of natural builders around the country who are sharing techniques and coordinating […]
Bio-Reconstructing Mexico: Toward an Architecture for Life
By Tracy L. Barnett For ArchDaily.com Editor’s note: After the earthquakes of Sept. 7 and Sept. 19 in southern and central Mexico, a nascent natural building movement – known as “bioconstruction” or “bioarchitecture” here in the Spanish-speaking South – has stepped forward, seizing the opportunity to rebuild with an architecture that promotes long-term resilience and […]
Visionary gathering brings regenerative development to Caribbean shores
All the pieces are beginning to come together for the XV Vision Council – Guardians of the Earth “Call of the Water” gathering. This year, the itinerant ecovillage and high-impact social movement has set its sights on Mexico’s Caribbean coast near the border with Belize. The gathering is set for the shores of the magnificent […]
‘A wound to the heart of the community’
by Tracy L. Barnett For Intercontinental Cry Este artículo está disponible en español aquí GUADALAJARA — As commissioner of public lands for the indigenous Wixárika territory of San Sebastian Teponahuaxtlán, Miguel Vázquez Torres was at the forefront of the legal fight to recover 10,000 hectares of indigenous ancestral lands from surrounding ranching communities. He was […]
Towards a New Jurisprudence of the Earth
“Coyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil has devoted his life to nurturing the bonds that connect humans with the place we inhabit and its other inhabitants, from the beaver to the bee to the wind and the water. His ethic has been influenced by and has in turn influenced movements toward intentional communities, ecovillages and bioregionalism. He […]