In Search of the Mayan Water Forest
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Reforestation around wells and springs provides shade and critical complexity to the soil's microbiome in order to retain water, and sustain the biodiversity of the planet.
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We cross the dry bench past several lemon trees, beyond where the compañera's kitchen garden extends to the mountain. Two pigs stand tall, but not so wide in the shade. Holding the slender liquidambar tree in my hands, the compañero leads us to a ravine where the spring runs, sometimes, though not this time of year, and not very regularly anymore. I ask him what he thinks about the idea of food forests. He says, "I think it's a wonderful idea, but the problem is water."
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Three of five springs have dried up in this particular autonomous community over the last 10 years. Dried up springs and lack of water is a story repeated across Chiapas, across Mexico and across the globe. Indigenous and
campesino
communities throughout the world are suffering the losses of water as both direct and indirect consequences of a global economy built on extraction. In this case, climate change and drought threatens the community's ability to plant its corn and to feed itself, a story that in one form or another, forces thousands of people from their homes each year to seek other means of survival. Reaching the shade of the taller trees, the soil is cool, and we plant the sapling, hoping the trickle from the shallow pool that we give it is enough to keep it alive until the rains.
This summer, Schools for Chiapas is excited to engage the wisdom and experience of two brilliant researchers
to support processes of water autonomy through the esablishment of native trees locally known to replenish water tables.
Rosa Lopez Valentín and Nils McCune join us as of mid-May 2019, and are working alongside our very knowledgable Schools for Chiapas team in the plant nursery in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. Until these recent additions, the team consisted of Rosa Maria Santiz Gomez and Socrates Lopez Hernandez, as well as the talented media coordinator, Medhin Tewolde.
As a segue from our work with food forests, the proposal for these “water forests” will build upon the existing food forest curriculum already being studied in autonomous secondary schools. Reforestation-based restoration of water sources depends on local
campesino
knowledge, Mayan ecologies and community self-organization. It is extremely difficult, but not impossible, to recover watersheds and construct water autonomy. And the lives of many depend on it. That is why Schools for Chiapas is dedicated to supporting the efforts of autonomous Zapatista communities to reduce the impacts of climate change by maintaining and recovering forest-based watersheds.
This important work would not be possible were it not for the dedication, hard work, intuition, creativity and shared knowledge of our amazing team in San Cristobal. This newsletter is dedicated to introducing this team. Please read about them below.
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An
urgent communique
from the CNI-CIG and EZLN dated on the 26th of May denounced two more horrific murders of members of the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero by narco-paramilitary forces. These kidnappings and murders follow the murder of two members of the same organization, just three weeks ago.
Their denunciation reads, "
We as indigenous peoples, nations, tribes, and barrios resist not only the megaprojects used by the owners of power to appropriate land and nature, but also the death, fear, and desolation imposed by their armed groups throughout the country."
Those responsible in this case are narco-paramilitary, but the letter is clear in its condmenation. "
T
he power of money and ambition to profit off the suffering of our peoples make them one and the same. Our brothers were murdered by neoliberal capitalism in their struggle to create peace and autonomy for the peoples of Chilapa and the broader region."
Violence from all levels of the bad government continues to assassinate defenders of land and territory throughout the rebublic, dispossessing communities, and destroying the Mother Earth; and its cause is singular. We stand with the CNI-CGIN and the EZLN opposition to these forces of death and destruction, and for that which sustains life.
#AltoALaMilitarización
#JornadasPorLaVidayContraLaGuerra
#VivanLosDefensoresDeLaTierra
#VivanLosPueblosIndígenas
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The Hands that Make Our Work Possible
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I was born in 1984 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, but for purposes of custom and tradition my parents registered my birth in the municipality of Oxchuc, as a speaker of the Tseltal language. I have finished my studies with a degree in pedagogy, and my goal is to obtain a position as a teacher. I am a single mother of a beautiful son of six years. My favorite sport is basketball, and also I make pieces of embroidery and weavings of table cloths, napkins, covers, etc., but I don’t give it much time.
I am currently part of the team at Schools for Chiapas. I am happy to be a part of it for the reason that I am expanding my understanding of plants and the uses for each of the species that I never knew. I help with the sowing of plants, and get to see how the seeds, cuttings and bulbs grow until the time that the distributions and deliveries are made in each one of the autonomous schools. I also support the administrative work required in the “Very Other Nursery.”
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I feel happy to be doing this kind of work because the plants inspire me. The different types of leaves, sizes, shapes, colors and flavors that each one of them contains guide me to make my embroidery. In this way, the nursery has helped me get ahead as a person, as a woman, mother, daughter, sister, etc., for the different characteristics I mentioned, and I also dare to mention that the nursery has been my psychologist. That is why I am interested in the nursery continuing to thrive — for different reasons, but primarily to help the Mother Earth. Thanks to her we have life, food, clothing, shelter, and for this reason I am interested in reforestation- to give her life instead of killing her.
Within the nursery, my favorite plants are basil, rue, rosemary and mint because thanks to them, for their different aromas, they made me want to live and struggle forward as a single mother. For that reason, thanks to these plants, I learned that each one has their own style and way of surviving. And of course all the other plants look for their own way to get ahead, but these plants helped me emotionally; for that reason, thanks to them, I feel lucky to be on this team and to continue supporting it so that the nursery continues to thrive.
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Socrates Lopez Hernandez
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My name is Sócrates Lopez Hernandez. I am from a community called Shulvo, in the municipality of Zinacantan, Chiapas. I speak Tzotzil. I have liked working with plants since I was a child, when I had a small greenhouse where I cultivated chrysanthemums, but unfortunately, due to the lack of water we had to stop using it. Nothing could be done for the plants. When I separated from my parents and had to find my own way, I got my first job in the city in an association called SECODES, Consultancy Services for Social Development, where my job was to survey people in the communities about the arrival of government support to the communities. I collaborated with the work of this research for five years. Afterward, when this project ended, I stayed doing work with organic compost and vermiculture.
After that, I was a driver for a vendor of fruits and vegetables in Comitán. Despite the hard schedule of waking very early and finishing very late, it was okay, we all do what we can, and I have always worked this way. While I was doing this job, though, I received a call offering me a job in an environmental project that was called PRANA, (Project for Recycling and Actions for Nature). There, we delivered coffee plants in exchange for recycling materials, like paper, plastic and used cooking oil.
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I worked there for three years, and then three weeks after leaving the work with PRANA, my sister put me in contact with Peter of Schools for Chiapas, who talked to me about the plant nursery and what I knew about apiculture and veterinary practices with chickens, and plants. He invited me to visit the nursery, and told me about what they were doing there and the work that needed to be done, and asked me if I was interested in collaborating with them. I accepted, and now I am happy working. It is interesting because it has to do with the environment and I can talk about it with the people in the communities. That is how one goes about learning. Thanks to this work I am learning many things and putting them in practice with the plants that I have in my house.
My favorite plants are rue and epazote, because they have cured me of illnesses of the stomach. Also the rue cleanses bad energy, and though the rue plant hurts me, and causes me allergies, I really like to work with it. So, when I do work with it I use gloves for protection.
Since I decided to leave the house of my parents, thanks to all of the work that I have had, we have achieved something; I bought my parcel of land and built our little house, and there I live happily with my wife and my children (a 13 year-old girl and a seven-year old boy), and we all live with my sister, who has always supported us and been with us. With this, I am happy, but we continue pushing forward while we can.
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Medhin Tewolde
My name is Medhin Tewolde. I am Eritrean-Mexican originally from Victoria City, Tamaulipas, and have resided in Chiapas for 11 years.
I collaborate with Schools for Chiapas doing audio-visual work that documents the work of the organization, as well as the creation of
teaching materials
to share knowledge with groups with whom they work, in addition to various other audiences.
Telling stories
and making them accesible in different formats that consider the audience with whom one wants to share is one of my great interests.
Of the nursery, what I most like is to listen and learn from my compañerxs who are in charge of taking care of it!
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Rosa Lopez Valentín
My name is Rosa Lopez Valentín. My father was originally from Chiapas and my mother from Guerrero. For some reason, I was born in the state of Mexico, but my heart and my roots are in Guerrero for the good part of my life that I have lived there. I had the good fortune to study agroecology at the Autonomous University of Chapingo, and recently graduated with an M.S. in Rural Development and Natural Resources; since I graduated I have worked in several distinct states of the Mexican Republic of which Guerrero, Nayarit, Guadalajara, Puebla and Yucatán stand out. In this work, I accompanied processes with organizations and groups of campesinos and campesinas in subjects related to agroecology, rural development, eco-technologies, and productive projects in rural “backyards.”
The issues that most excite me are the horizontal processes of campesino education, traditional medicine and agroecological food production. For me it is important to learn from the campesinas y campesinos, because they have a deep and intimate connection with the Mother Earth. Learning from them teaches me about myself and to question my relationship with my environment.
My favorite plant is Guaje
(Leucaena leucocephala
). In my pueblo we collect the seed and we let them dry to have available all year. En the dry season we eat the toasted seeds, and in addition it is good forage plant, a nitrogen-fixer, and even used as medicine for animals.
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Nils McCune
My name is Nils McCune. I am from the Bay Area in California. I have worked primarily as a teacher within social movement spaces, along with some experience as a carpenter.
My heart is in a lot of places: I have learned from elders and youth of many struggles in the Caribbean and in Central American. With this job, I am falling back in love with Chiapas and with the team of people who I work with here. We need unity, humility and lots of hard work to dismantle capitalism, racism and patriarchy. Every moment is ripe for making the most important decision: who we are and what we are doing here. I hope Rosa's and my research here adds a grain of sand to the effort to maintain and recover aquifers, so that autonomous communities can continue living on and with the land as they have been.
There are two trees that most remind me that we belong to the earth: the old growth redwoods on the California coast, and the giant ceibas that are a holy tree everywhere they are found.
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Schools for Chiapas
is an international solidarity organization supporting autonomous Mayan education in the Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico.
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