Blog: March

Jesús León Santos: Goldman environmental price

Jesús León Santos receives the Goldman environmental price for his titanic work in Oaxaca. What did he do?

There's a region in Oaxaca, of more than 50,000 hectares, that has lost about five meters in height since the XVI century. The intensive breeding of goats, shepherding, the industry of lime production established during colonial times, and the intensive tree felling for the construction of Dominican temples all contributed to the sterilization of the region.

Jesús is transforming this heavily eroded and almost deserted region into the fertile land it once was. How has he done this? With the tequio (from nahuatl téquitl, work or tribute), a form of organized work for the benefit of the community as a whole:

  1. He founded the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca (CEDICAM).
  2. He and his community have built more than 2,000 km of ditches to retain rain water.
  3. The community has planted more than 2,000,000 trees.
  4. The community is rejecting the use of genetically modified corn because these present a threat to the corn diversity of the region.
  5. They are using local organic fertilizers that don't damage the soil.

Since 1994, the NAFTA has flooded the Mexican market with US corn. As a result, the Mexican corn has plummeted. Corn represents a fundamental role in the Mixteca culture, not only for being one of the basic foods for us, but also because it represents our identity as a people. There are many reasons that native seeds are sown. One of them is that these corn varieties can resist certain types of environmental conditions, like drought, cold, or poor soil.

CEDICAM always tries to value the culture of the Mixteca people, where natural resources still belong to everyone. I think this is a very good concept for humanity today [...] where there is community wealth and we value everything that exists among all of us.

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Posted on:
2009.03.30 -0500

Tags:
food , people , texts

The meaning of reach out

One may well agree that improving relations between the two countries "will not be advanced by threats", but who has been threatening whom? Has Iran been threatening a "preventive" (i.e., unprovoked and aggressive) attack on the United States? Has Iran been insisting that "military action" remains "on the table" if the United States does not bow to Iranian demands?

One may also agree that no country’s "rightful place in the community of nations" should be reached "through terror and arms". Yet it is the United States which brought "shock and awe" (the American marketing term for "terror" when unleashed by the United States) to the region six years ago this month, and it is the United States which spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined.

One may also agree that the "true greatness" of a country is demonstrated through "peaceful actions". Iran has not invaded another country in over two centuries. The same can scarcely be said of the United States.

One may, finally, agree that "greatness is not the capacity to destroy". America has, most recently, destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq and applauded the destruction of Gaza, and, for decades, it has possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on Earth many times over. Its capacity and proclivity for destruction shape its unique "place in the community of nations".

The meaning of reach out
John V. Whitbeck

Posted on:
2009.03.28 -0500

Tags:
texts