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.
Lino Pichasaca and I walked the rough footpaths, the chakiñanes in Kichwa, around the Hacienda Guantug in the province of Cañar, Ecuador. It was 1967, and the Ecuadorian agrarian reform was getting started. Leaders like Lino saw great possibilities and huge obstacles.
Megadam: ‘Obsolete technology’ wreaks havoc across the Americas
A global boom in major dam construction, mainly in developing countries, is currently underway, with an estimated 3,700 now under construction or in the planning stages. Latin America is ground zero for much of this development.
Native Flower Rebellion in Argentina
As the Extinction Rebellion shuts down the system in the North, Indigenous women in Argentina stage an uprising of their own. The Native Flower Rebellion, they are calling it: an occupation of “self-convoked” Mapuche, Qom and other Indigenous women have traveled from all corners of the republic to demand an accounting from their government, and to unite in a powerful message: The Terricide must stop.
Amid sweat and tears, Esperanza is born
Here in the darkness of the temazcal, sweat, steam and mud become one with the throbbing beat of Teresa’s drum. The heat bears down, melting away the boundaries between us. Rhythms from her Mayan heritage rise in the air with the incense-like scent of copal, her voice carrying us to a place beyond time. She […]
Heroes in Ponchos and Sombreros
“Superheroes don’t wear capes. They wear ponchos and sombreros.” The Andean phrase is being invoked once again in Ecuador.
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 — […]
Saving the Amazon: 10 Things You Can Do Now
1. Fund Forest Protection Let’s start with the most direct route. One of the most effective organizations to contribute to is the Rainforest Trust. Their project in the Peruvian Amazon supports the local indigenous communities to getting recognised as having land rights and is seeking to give the title for more than 6 million acres to […]
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 […]
Six Children Dead: Enough is Enough
Allegra Love, founder of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project and an immigration attorney on the front lines of the migrant crisis created and exacerbated in large part by the US government, has just had enough. She wrote these words before the news came out of a sixth child — a 10-year-old girl from El Salvador […]
Striking Back Against Femicide in Costa Rica
Aude Mulliez is a woman for the new millennium. At 33, she has launched her own green social enterprise, become a continental ambassador for female empowerment and impacted lives in half a dozen countries – including her own. She’s tackled some of the thorniest issues of our time – migration, environmental degradation, extreme poverty, and […]
It’s a long way from Buenos Aires to Panama City – and the distance is not just physical. When Hernán García made his first journey to the country in 2011 as a young film student, he was captivated by the natural beauty and the cultural diversity of the country. He returned at every opportunity, and […]
Mamos of Colombia Issue Call for Help
An unprecedented wave of wildfires has devastated communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Three deaths have been reported, two victims from the Kogi and one from the Wiwa communities. Many animals have died, especially the sheep that produce wool used to make traditional bags, several mules, and horses. The costs of the damages […]
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, […]
Mapuche Motherhood in the Age of Benetton
Moira Millán is an award-winning Mapuche activist, screenwriter and author from Argentina. She is a leader in the movement to recover her people’s ancestral lands and the founder of the Movement of Indigenous Women for “Buen Vivir,” which advocates a way of life in harmony with nature. I
PUYO, ECUADOR — A handful of urban artivistas in this small Amazonian city in Ecuador started out 2019 by bringing the walls of the public works offices a new type of mural that Puyo has never seen before. Local artists Estiven Mera “Steep”, Pedro Tapuy “Pedrote”, Israel Vinces “Irki”, Jordy Yucailla “Jah”, and Miguel Tapuy […]
WITNESS: Poetry penned in civil wars of Central America
My first trip to Central America was in 1988. For several years, I heard other people’s testimonies of what was occurring in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. For even more years, I had read about the history and politics of the region. And of course, there was what was being reported in the media […]
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 […]