Sea Turtles - Selva Negra

One dream, one utopia
Knowledge as reality
Mari Carmen Casares t Augusto Chacón
Selva Negra
Directive Council
Fher OlverarÁlex Gonzálezr Sergio Vallínr Juan Calleros rUlises Calleros
Directors
Mari Carmen Casaresr Augusto Chacón
Administration and logistics
Beatriz Verar Javier Hernández
Education
Circe Peraltar Carla Pataky
Plastics
Yolanda Quintana
Sea turtles
Marcelino Lópezr Blanca Bojórquezr Miguel Flores Peregrina r Cruz Nájar r Ruperto Ortega
El Huatulco r David Ortega r Martín Gómez r Marisol Castruita
Community development
José Sánchez r Blanca Bojórquez
—2—
Contents
Introductory words by Fher
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5
Foreword .
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6
Introduction
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Search
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Oaxaca’s experience . . . . . . . . .
Oaxaca: less reality, more imagination
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Education: through reason and feeling, I modify
The educational program
Plastics, a project . . . .
Numbers . . . . . . . .
Communities . . . . . .
Testimonies . . . . . . .
The Guide . . . . . . .
Yo soy… my experience .
Sea turtles
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Platanitos Camp .
Chila Camp . . .
Palmarito Camp .
Testimonies . . .
Numbers . . . .
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—3—
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Community development
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Testimonies . . . . . . . .
Perspective . . . . . . . .
Communities and numbers
f ao . . . . . . . . . . .
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69
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83
General Motors
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Pan American Health Organization .
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85
Common consciousness
¡Aterrízate!
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Social labors by universities .
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Social labors by universities
Reforestamos México
Lectures
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Ecological land classification
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100
Epilogue
Tabasco .
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107
Acknowledgments
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109
4
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Introductory words by Fher
The environmental thought was already in me when I was a child, as an intuition. I know because
I couldn’t help releasing my grandmother’s canaries from their cages. Sure, back then I didn’t
think that things —natural environment-wise— would get to such a critical state. Then, as time
went by and the earth’s future seemed so dark, I didn’t imagine that people’s consciousness would
change, that they would become aware of the problem at such speed… and we’re getting there.
I’m happy and positive about this; but we can’t lower our guard: there still remains much to be
done.
I continue to believe in men: men created the problem, and they shall create solutions.
We will live in the hope that our planet’s natural environment can be improved. It’s better to
live this way than in defeat: to be dead before even dying. Amongst many other things, this is why
Selva Negra is the best alliance Maná has made in the history of its career.
—5—
Foreword
Maná-Selva Negra: What are we? How do we operate? What brings us together? Selva Negra
is Maná’s social branch. All Fehr, Alex, Sergio, Juan and Ulises have been concerned and have
contributed all these years through tours and concerts to make the operation of the organization
totally possible; their work and environmental commitment allows channeling each penny of the
sources we receive from those who associate to our projects.
The commitment, support and confidence Maná brings to Selva Negra, has opened us paths
and chances to grow and become leaders at the subjects that got us here today.
Selva Negra is composed of a directive council presided by Fernando Olvera; in which Alejandro Gonzalez, Ulises Calleros, Sergio Vallin, Juan Calleros and the Selva Negra Directors also
are.
We operate through a core staff that besides having two directors, one assistant and an administrator, has, in each one of the programs, a team of committed persons full of energy and certainty that make it possible to render our organization’s dreams and goals into something real.
All of us who form a part of Selva Negra are united by the utopia of building a country that
is aware of its strengths, responsible for its habitat diversity, and engaged with all its people.
—6—
Introduction
To inform is to bring something to notice, but it also means to give an essential form to said
something. In order to confront the task of preparing a report, it is necessary to gather the data,
compile facts, face testimonies… to add and subtract… And yet, as hard work as this represents,
we barely get to the minimum parameters to be able to say, in an intelligible way, what has been
done. But, beyond the numbers and the review: can we presume that an essential form has been
given to the activities we undertook during a given period?
The answer won’t be unmistakable, of course; after reading through this volume everyone
shall form their own opinion and answer whether all that has been presented as a report reached
indeed the qualification of “essential form”. This is no excuse to leave the question unanswered,
for in a matter of essences, philosophies are shattered by tastes. This is why, through the structure
of the report, we decided to introduce the particular and animated essence of Selva Negra’s doings: the human being surrounded by a certain environment: the former being determined by
history, culture and particular living conditions; the later becoming corrupted by its interaction
with the former, who shows signs of economic and educational dependence on a daily basis.
The thesis is that at the same time we’ve inflicted harm to the natural environment, human beings have also broken down the social fabric and capital. Thus, we argue that in order to be able
to modify our relationship with the environment it is unavoidably necessary to recompose the
knitting of said fabric made of women, men and nature: society.
Essence and data must be the basic content of this report; but neither one nor the other
will acquire their true dimension, or at least their place, if we fail to identify who the speaker
is: a foundation, an N G O, the organized civil society, non other than that: the good as social
reason, as political binding.Yet, when looking back, we don’t see the cliche in any of the things
we undertake. We don’t proclaim having done good deeds; and because of this, neither have we
intended people to behave in a specific way; we’ve never deemed ourselves better than anybody;
each day we ignore more at the same time that we are learning non-stop; we understand pretty
well how easy it is to make harm by wielding the best of intentions. This way, in search of the
—7—
essence, of the data that will become a report, we couldn’t but ask ourselves: what are we? Not
from the legal standpoint, and neither from the even-before-birth imposed popular imaginary…
What are we deep inside?, how can we define ourselves better? And we came across an explanatory detail: we are Selva Negra.
To understand what we are, let’s locate the origins of what brought us here: the sea turtles. In
1997 Selva Negra started working and focusing its efforts towards this endangered species in the
coasts of Jalisco. A few years later we expanded to the Oaxacan coasts, a very meaningful place in
the world because two of its beaches, Escobilla y Morro Ayuta, are top locations for their nesting
beds (“arribazones”): hundreds of thousands of turtles in just a few weeks. Unfortunately, not all
of these species are safe, and a couple of them might disappear in some years. We tried then, and
are still trying, to find the answers to their correct care and conservation. By observing, admiring and taking care of them in the different beaches of Oaxaca, the subject led itself to what is a
fundamental piece in our organization today: people. From this standpoint, it is possible to understand what preserving and taking care of the world we live in is all about.This way, with these two
arguments, Selva Negra has engaged in the task of creating programs outside the conservative
structure of what foundations can offer —they work bounded by the limits of philanthropy—
and we have opened the possibility of working with and for the people; not making use of the
concept of assistentialism, nor following the trends of current times, but starting from the clear
vision and commitment with a work ruled by ethics and civics —core points in our projects.
From protecting sea turtles to educating; passing through middle points about sustainable
methods development towards family nourishment; it is all part of the basic conception: human
beings and the imperative need of changing the way they relate with the environment. But this
was not the result of a sudden inspiration; we have wandered around doubt, immersed in questions and answers. If this economic model and its constant search for growing —whatever it
takes— hasn’t made of the world a fairer place; if the hegemonic culture threw away the healthy
permanence of both environment and the notion of sharing life; if ecological activism hasn’t but
widened the gap between problems and solutions… if all this is true, what must be done? Who
should be responsible for proposing solutions or a different scheme altogether?, and who should
be involved in it?
These questionings made us think that perhaps the problem was already in the way of posing
it. By saying “the economic model,” or “hegemonic culture,” we over-simplified them, and worse:
while the equalization of everyone seemingly facilitated our thought process, we also rendered
invisible those who have not been part of the economic model or who haven’t profited from the
hegemonic culture. And even worse, these people might indeed be victims of both: “the peripheral identities, the minority traditions, the threatened heritages,” as they are called by Antoine
8
Robitaille in the book L’ingratitude, by philosopher Alain Finkielkraut1. This way, if we manage
to stop homogenizing and regarding ourselves as holders of the absolute truth, we might find
an alternative path to start thinking about what the interventions in favor of the environment
should be like.The simple and daily gesture of assuming that something might be done differently
didn’t just facilitate the answers (ever incomplete), but it also helped us raise better questions: all it
took was for us to look above and beyond the beach dunes in which we were protecting the sea
turtles. We started to understand that their tragedy (the sea turtles’) isn’t separate from that of the
surrounding communities: despair, endemic —structural— poverty, mistrust of institutions, zero
involvement in the decision making of public policies, well, not even of the lean local budget.
So, who must save the sea turtles, or which is the emphasis this must be done with? According to what we’ve been doing and abide by the trendy discourse the answer is: the governments
and the organized civil society. The first ones because it is their legal obligation; the second one
because they have set it as their moral obligation. Both parties depart from a basic and mutually
exclusive tenet: only they know what is best for all, because law (according to the popular imaginary) is generous in itself, and because the good that naturally sprouts from a Civil Association is
unquestionable. And because doing the good deeds is the most important thing in an emergency
situation, and every other trifle must be disregarded —such as what the means should be—, it is
not startling to find that a palpable result of many conservation actions consists of: rendering the
communities invisible and criminalizing their individuals who become prosecuted by law due to
their cultural and/or self-preservation oriented exploitation of turtles, trees, etc. These are individuals who, one way or another, ignorant of notions such as crisis, globalization, etc., have managed to survive, to persevere as culturally alive, and maintain themselves apart from the omnipresent discourse: “Poor of the poor people. They don’t know what they need, nor what they want.
Let’s save them, give them some charity (this is to say, the money from government programs) and
training for them to become like us (this is to say, N G O projects).” We think that, regarding the
situation of several regions of Mexico, we can put into practice what had already been proposed
by Arturo Escobar and Álvaro Pedrosa for the Colombian Pacific coast:
It has been said about the Pacific that it is of an unhealthy nature: that its people are lazy and delayed;
that it has endless reserves of natural resources; that it must get developed; and, in the 90’s it was said
that it can get to be the platform for the country’s integration into the famous Pacific Basin. The commonality of these representations is that they all render invisible both the biological reality, as well as
the socio-cultural dynamics of the region. And when they are not invisible, local inhabitants appear as
opposing themselves to the changes; and therefore, as sacrificial candidates for the Progress’s altar.2
1
Alain Finkielkraut, La ingratitud, Anagrama, 2001, p. 149
2
Arturo Escobar, Álvaro Pedrosa, Pacífico, ¿Desarrollo o diversidad?, Estado, capital y movimientos sociales en el Pacífico colombiano,
Colombia, Cerec, Ecofondo, 1996, p. 19.
9
Members of Selva Negra’s Directive Council: Ulises Calleros, Augusto Chacon, Mari Carmen Casares and Fher Olvera.
This way, we were revolutionized by the following question: how can we get to the condition
of solving our problems from the root? We tried out an answer: dialogue, inclusion and a trip to
the past.We need to change our ethical attitude in order for the scientific knowledge that spreads
to be meaningful. Armed with this conviction, visiting communities like San Agustinillo, Ventanilla, Mazunte, Rio Seco and Escobilla in Oaxaca was never the same experience for us. Natural
environment is like a second skin, whereas people are the heart of that organism-system which
uncovers itself as soon as one gets rid of one summary judgment: good guys vs. bad guys. This
trip to the past led us to pose a research project from a philosophical view: what is it that we’re
not able to listen, to understand, from these peripheral communities? The result is amazing: each
group encloses an irreducible complexity; and at the same time there’s a unity that encourages
hope: each one’s yearn for happiness is linked to their environment and not to the expensivelooking homogenization, so out of place. This is to say, each community can pretty well be in
charge of its development and its environmental responsibility —at least through their autonomic
decisions, without implying any social atomization.
So, the straws had been drawn and it was settled not just the way Selva Negra would act, but
the spirit that would accompany each of its programs: education, sea turtles, family farming.
To think of the carbon dioxide-produced global warming and greenhouse effect; or of the
threats faced by the Mexican-born lute turtle when she passes by South-American coasts; or of
melting glaciers; or of fluorescent and foamy rivers; to think of the seas and their yearly decreasing
10
production…; and to consider it all as part of our initial drive and to put it together into an ecology course —such that it would be so meaningful for Oaxacan, Sinaloan or Yucatecan children
that they would start having attitudes different from their parents and teachers— it all seemed
like a very intense labor to us. We claim that the shortest path to a new way of living in our environment relies on two pillars: ethics and civics; not just the ones chanted about in textbooks
and discourses, but the ethics and civics perceived in the daily actions of those with the power
to shape a community: professors. Our environmental education program suggests some exotic
things: that everyone look at him/herself differently; that they be able to understand themselves as
part of a society which they can affect with their acts; and to behave in consequence. And not just
that, but it also suggests putting one conviction into play: that people’s knowledge flow within
their interactions, and we cannot deny either of them in light of the other, nor can we give any
of them more relevance. It is within peoples’ exchanges that knowledge takes place (each subject’s
and also common knowledge); and it must translate into positive actions in favor of the group
and its environment. We must re-get to know ourselves and re-get to know the others because
we wholeheartedly subscribe to what Rüdiger Safranski says in his foreword to Peter Sloterdijk’s
Spheres: “The idea follows from there, it is not a new one, of course, but it is a newly weighed up
one: that coexistence precedes existence and that to live means to allow one’s self to be involved
in the passions and obsessions of such coexistence.”3
Can this be transmitted by giving dictations of Spanish, Mathematics, Natural Sciences or
Physics? Maybe; but we resort to leaving at least one emissary in every place (firstly, basic education teachers, and then, students and their parents) who, through their being and staying, pass by
a constant message with an impact on those around it. This way, the knowledge of hard sciences
will acquire a sense for everyday life: from the will to change things, to the ethical dimension of
life, to the application of scientific knowledge. The results to this day are amazing (and stating
this amazement might seem rude, but we can’t express it any other way: it’s amazing; specially
given the misinformation that leans us to always believe negative things about teachers). After
working with more than three hundred teachers we can’t say we now have “well-trained people”
but rather allies, speakers; in short: we have enough elements today supporting a solid hope. The
funny part is that everything was already there. In 1999 the Secretary of Public Education (SEP)
gave birth a textbook: “La Educación Ambiental en la Escuela Secundaria, Lecturas”; and one of
its passages by Silvia Schmelkes clearly states what the center of our strategy is about:
“A value-oriented formation; or, if you will, an education towards human rights; or an education for peace
[along with the Public Education Department we also add between the lines: an environmental education]; if assumed seriously, compromise deeply the ways of teaching, interpersonal relationships at
3
Peter Sloterdijk, Esferas, T. I, Ediciones Siruela, 2003, p. 16
11
school, and even the school structure and organization.This is so because neither of these ways of approaching the value-oriented formation can be simply translated and added into the curricular program.
In doing so, the cognitive objectives may be achieved but there will be no value-oriented formation.
Value-oriented formation implies the possibility of living the values we’re trying to get students formed
by in the school’s everyday life. (…) Under no circumstances will it ever be sufficient to reason with students when trying to apply a value-oriented formation; teachers have to live and allow students to live
said values.”4
Sea turtles have their home in Mexico, rather than in any other place of the world. Six out of
seven species nest in Mexican seaboard beaches. In return, Mexico has insisted in despising them,
frightening them away… Mexico stubbornly claims to be doing something for them but hasn’t
really been able to understand how embedded they are in an important part of our imaginary,
culture and national economy. So much so, that it only takes to see one of them lay an egg; or to
set free one of their little hatchlings for our life to change, as we maintain.
By observing that wonderful image, we’ve been able to turn around and discover this species
of which we all are a part; the part that is said to be the most important on earth: men; artificially
stratified and differentiated. Many men and women who are a part of this species remain forgotten, left behind, and in an absolute carelessness signed by the indifference of those who think they
are helping just through false discourses and unfulfilled commitments, based on lies and promises
—all practices that automatically conceal the ignorance of what our people are really like. And
thus, knowing this and having felt the social frustration that can be sensed in certain places, we
don’t think it is by changing discourses that we’ll be able to start a change that will benefit us all.
On the contrary, today we know that it is not a matter of good guys vs. bad guys, but of knowing
how to listen and acknowledging the communities’ capacity and knowledge (even as abandoned
as they have been) to propose solutions and get out of poverty and protect the natural environment. One thing we are sure of: each turtle egg that has been stolen, and each turtle that has
been sacrificed means a huge backlash for every community we have known; and doubly so: by
unconsciously ravaging the neighboring turtles, beach and sea —which they own— they (these
communities) are giving in their history, their culture and their traditions; they really are giving
in what they are and their aspirations.
Therefore, we reckon that turtle camps ought to act as a link: they are an opportunity to protect the turtles; but they also are a privileged space to share and contrast preservation ideas with
the communities. A camp can be —should it be?— a place for learning and a parting point for
each community and town that lives near the sea to get to own deeply the place they live in; to
4
12
Silvia Schmelkes, «La pedagogía de la formación valoral», in La educación ambiental en la escuela secundaria, Lecturas, s e p,
1999, p. 133.
give them the opportunity of making themselves responsible for the turtles and mangroves and
crocodiles, and above all, for their development and their identity.
Selva Negra has set to work with those marginal communities, full of people willing to get
ahead and offer their families what they have not yet been able to obtain by right nor by hard
work. Listening to these communities has been our foremost task; so that we can understand
their shortages and their way of seeing themselves and being in the world.We accompanied them
with an environmental education program which suggests an ethical and civic commitment to
their communities and to themselves. Through teachers we sought to encourage their own communitary projects, parting from their needs. We approached them in order to get to know and
try to understand the customs (for example, the “tequio”) with which they face daily life events,
along with values and characteristics that make them Mexican, because they are representative of
most of us.
We followed an intricate course. In order to protect turtles we delivered an educational program which departs from and arrives to ethics and civics; in order to talk about turtles we shared
with some families a family farming system which we promote along with the F A O, they are
very productive, aimed to women and very water-thrifty; well, in order to save turtles we decided
to listen to the communities, their members, and to build along with them, from what fits their
own wishes, their possibilities, their eagerness to exit poverty. Education, preservation, self-consumption programs (family farmings), training, micro-enterprises, tourism, working with local
governments, ecological land classification in the area are some of the activities we undertake as
a pilot plan in Oaxaca, hoping to set it as example for other places. It is one of our goals to encourage productive activities. Nothing would please us more than to start a meaningful change
in these communities; to make discoveries along with them; to acknowledge and value what they
really are and mean to their country; to recover together the environment care awareness and the
knowledge that natural resources can be transformed into sustainably employed ones from their
own proposals.
To inform is to bring something to notice; but it also means to give an essential form to
said something. We deliver this document with this aim: essence and hope, action and thought.
We don’t strive for this to be a fruitless action; we here try to sow the seed of doubt in order to
change the way we conceive ourselves and the social order, which is a stratified one and with
which we face environmental problems. We claim that it is indispensable to understand the other
and include him/her for our actions to have a real and resounding impact. We state that knowledge resides in science; but it’s also found in the indigenous rite that “summons” the sea turtles to
Morro Ayuta beach each January; or in the everyday life knowledge of peasants, fishermen, civil
society organizations. A society that is responsible for its problems; that possesses the necessary
tools to undertake its own development; with individuals that won’t be called ignorant and have
respect for nature and law; and with a law that respects the individuals… this is all we want. We
are trying to achieve it in a portion of Oaxaca’s coast.
13
Search
The work suggested by many civil society organizations is based on how they see themselves: they
know good, or at least the routes to it; the only thing they need is to show it to everybody else.This
way, for many of these organizations, the other is a receiver, who can get to be a speaker, as long as
he answers according to the codes already established by the N G O for him to use; and of course,
these codes will vary depending on who the other is: an indigenous, a disabled, a poor, or an illiterate person, etc. Well, we know this is just a bold cartoon and things are actually not that extreme;
there are indeed plenty of institutions doing a wonderful job. Nevertheless, we pose the situation in
a crude way to try and make it obvious how big one of our concerns became after widening our
presence in Oaxaca, both geographically and thematically: the cases of communities reporting how
an N G O ’s interventions caused more harm than beneficial actions are not rare.There are multiple
reasons for this to happen, not all of which can be attributed to the well intended organizations.
An important one of these reasons refer to the expectations that are generated by both sides; they
are rarely met and it is not strange that expectations flare up because it is easier to penetrate in the
other’s community by means of sowing the seed of an ambiguous hope.We understood this well after setting ourselves to search for documents concerning the organizations that had already worked
in the area: we checked bachelor’s thesis, books, and we talked to many people.
But there’s yet another reason behind N G O s ’ and communities’ misunderstandings; one
which we already sensed by intuition: the one referring to a relationship of respect and understanding that we have to have for the other: how much do we know about him/her, and how
much do we understand his/her way of being and living. And not only this, but how much are
we willing to get naked of our own prejudging? To what degree are we able to accept that the
other knows as much as us? Are we ready to take away —in an aprioristic manner— the negative moral sign on his actions? The main clue pointing to this problem was the banning of sea
turtles exploitation by the Mexican government in 1990. At a stroke, this law criminalized thousands without legislators nor the executive stopping to consider the probable social, cultural and
economic impact this decree would have; nobody could deem it as a bad thing: it looks for an
animal species’ good. Of course, as we’re unable to unlearn what we know just like that, our initial reaction was to decide that we needed to conduct a study of the area. Through Julia Tagüeña,
the National Autonomous University of Mexico (U N A M ), suggested and gave us an estimate
for an anthropological study. The University of Guadalajara (U d e G ) offered another study to
— 14 —
us through Blanca Bojorquez; this time from a social work angle. We had the feeling that we
shouldn’t do this; that it would be more of what we already knew; and that we would most likely
receive social and anthropological characterizations of which libraries have plenty already.
The suggestion that different disciplines should interact with each other is born out of the
constant search to understand the individual’s being and acting. It is common, and not at all
strange, that different humanities sciences should run into each other and touch. Sometimes
this intertwining happens as a recognizable interaction in a specific space. Other times it is an
unintelligible, alien, encounter. But thanks to this —almost always faint— interaction, it is possible to find answers in our search for understanding the actions of human beings, be them alone
or in society. We don’t approach this coming and going between history, philosophy, sociology,
anthropology and psychology from a separate analysis of each knowledge and its doings; but
from the intersecting points. This widens our vision and allows us to approach the individual
and his everyday life in a more complete manner. It allows us to imagine the ways in which he
perceives his surroundings and his own self within them. This is surely not easy to systematize; it
is not about erasing boundaries between a diversity of sciences. The search consists of being able
to share what we assume as constantly unfinished knowledge, and whose completeness depends
on two factors: its ability to adapt to a reality while changing it at the same time; and on accepting that said reality is also a product of the particular look given by a diverse matter, scientific or
not. This involves changing the basis of currently accepted academic knowledge: it is not about
proving whether what we know is valid or not; but about measuring our capacity to set a dialog
between any wisdom, not minding its source.
After thinking about this, we decided that philosophy could offer some of the answers; so
we went to Francisco Morfin Otero at I T E S O, and he accepted that our proposal was not at
all crazy. Afterward, we were presented a project proposal by Roxana Xaman and Adán Ángeles
(both graduates from this university) that we liked very much. A methodology and intellectual
support was included; and they suggested living for four months in the Oaxacan coast, thirty days
in each community: Rio Seco, San Agustinillo-Mazunte,Ventanilla and Escobilla.
We won’t give any more details about their work here; what resulted of it will be published in
a book which is currently in press. What we can say by now is that we’re very satisfied with our
decision: the philosophers’ footprints last in the communities still. We have gotten a wide range
of information (about education, preservation, development and culture); and what is best, from
what Roxana and Adán have written in their account we have come to give the other a different
status. Today we know that there remains much to be learned; but we also know that in order
to arrive to solutions aimed at the country’s secular problems we have to get everyone involved
—rather than just enlightened governors, or so very ignorant caciques (chieftains), or old school
philanthropists being involved. Listening, talking and constructing… The book written by these
philosophers offers us plenty of keys to do it.The name we chose for this project, the philosophical one, is telling: Search.
15
Oaxaca’s experience
Roxana Xamán
Selva Negra
Every journey aims to arrive some place.The journey I set out on September 21st, 2007 to Oaxaca’s
coast took me, in just three months, to about ten places at least. The first discoveries: the highway
with its impressive manner of changing landscapes; San Agustinillo town in front of the sea with
foreigners who call themselves residents because they arrived some day and never went back.
The following day: Rio Seco, a place diluted in maps, engrossed in its self-absorbed personality. I soon learned that almost no one ever goes in or out of Rio Seco. Maybe it’s more appropriate to say: autonomous personality. Mole tamales, giant quesadillas called tlayudas, paper mache
in different colors, Sol beer (all rights reserved, beer monopoly), a wind and percussion band.
Uncertainty traveled with me all the time. In that place, I didn’t know the faces. As days went by
—or was it since the first day?— everyone welcomed us. Every step, a greeting, a “buenos días”.
Adán and I made the journey together. That reminds me that company alleviates the uncertainty,
but it doesn’t erase it. You always arrive to an unknown place because you haven’t already been
there or because it has changed during your absence. Adán was my work team, my company at
breakfast, meal and dinner, at fun. The goal of the journey: to know the people there, their way
of living, their concerns, wishes, truths, fights. We visited some of them in their houses to question them, to look into their lives, to make them tell us the reasons for their actions. Others just
came by as friends, without much effort, with an invitation to have lunch with them; or with a
sympathy gesture, with those sorts of gifts you want to repay. The turtle egg was always there as
a simple but indiscreet truth. “We summon them here” (the turtles). Federal law, crime, criminals
are diluted truths in Rio Seco; or at least, that’s how I lived them in my short four weeks stay.
Questions pop out, such as… Why are there coastguards at the beach when it’s been three years
since they don’t have any budget to send for a garbage truck? Rio Seco: A town full of contradictions, hot weather, hammocks and wood oven baked bread.
In San Agustinillo the air is salty and you can hear the sound of the beach waves all the time.
We bought our groceries and interview cassettes in Pochutla; no more taxi trips from Rio Seco
to Salina Cruz. Again, the unknown faces; but here welcome wasn’t given just because we were
there. Some way, it’s an advantage to be unnoticed when you’re in a research project; but sooner
or later you will be recognized in such a small town. About five hundred inhabitants? A little
more, a little less. There we lived, surrounded by mosquitoes, villagers, foreigners and passing-by
tourists. Every day fishermen left in their boats and came back to deliver fish to the “coyote”
that would later sell it to us and many more. Surfers went to the beach trying to “catch” some
waves and creating an extraordinary show. San Agustinillo: a full of energy and an inviting place
to stay. I soon found out that there are many people fighting for a few (or many, depends on how
16
The day philosophers Roxana Xaman and Adán Ángeles settled in Rio Seco; here in company of the community’s
judge and treasurer and Morro Ayuta’s camp chief.
it’s seen) available goods. A very politicized place: sea, tourism, control of organizative means are
the coveted powers. It seemed to be calling for peace; but it looks like a place so aesthetically
privileged couldn’t ask for that. Who doesn’t want to enjoy its beaches? Beyond that, the desire
of consumption: everyone wants to possess a piece of land, some palm shelters, a position in the
Municipal Agency… The piece of coast seems to be growing forcefully, at a rhythm that’s not its
own, a rhythm that’s imposed from the outside. I would always like to be a tourist in San Agustinillo, maybe a recurrent tourist, but nothing more than that. Some faces became very familiar
to me; others became acquaintances; and yet there were others I didn’t even get to meet, but of
whom I know exist because someone mentioned their name or house location or their family
profession. A place of a complicated orography. There are shacks or rooms by the sea; after and
beyond the road a bunch of houses that get lost in the different earth paths opened between the
trees. It looks like a very cramped place until you go deep into the woods beyond the houses, at
the back of the town; or is it the town that is at the back of the woods? The richness of the woods
excites me. This isn’t a lost cause! The problem, I believe, is not the lack of resources, but the fact
17
that everyone is trying to take over them. Of course, the one who discovers the goodness of the
woods will soon notice that behind him there are many willing to fight in order to get the new
treasure. San Agustinillo: A town full of nostalgia. The turtle market established there many years
ago is now a school, but the memory of long past time of economic wealth remains. Personally:
the sea, surfing and fresh fish brought me back home, to the Sinaloan beaches. It wasn’t time to
go back home, the journey continued.
Next stop:Ventanilla. Located just some minutes from San Agustinillo, the small human settlement presented itself as a united, ecologist, nationally important community. They count on the
privilege of having an island and a navigable red mangle lake. The internal organization labels you
as a tourist the moment you arrive, and takes you in a raft ride on the lake without you having to
make a minimum effort. In Ventanilla they’ve got many visitors and almost all of them go for the
same reason: the raft ride, freeing turtles and meeting the island. Some of them go away without
meeting the island, that, I believe, depends a lot on luck. If you first run into the Cooperativa La
Ventanilla, you’ll meet the island; if you don’t and instead arrive to Lagarto Real, then you won’t. It’s
a matter of luck because, as I said before, the moment you just arrive you’ll have someone offering
you a touristic service. It’s their job and they do it well. But we weren’t on a pleasure trip.Yes and no.
Yes, because that implied meeting the town. No, because we weren’t on a “pleasure trip”, as they call
them, but we were on a “business trip”. Finally, I enjoyed the journey, so it was a little bit of both.
Objective: Again, meeting the town, its people, their concerns, wishes, ways of living, their
relationship with nature. Ventanilla: Irreparable breakage. Conflicts don’t wait to pop out and
the breakage in Ventanilla doesn’t seem to foretell a healing any time soon. It used to be a single
cooperative before, now it’s two. A dispute, and the power fight once more, caused the separation
of many families and the creation of a new cooperative. A commercial competition reality. It’s
nothing that we hadn’t seen before, in any other place for the competition to happen; I guess that
being there made it seem very serious because we had had the records that this sort of conflict
didn’t use to happen there before.
Apart from this, someone sold some lands and the new owner decided that in that place of palm
constructions he could build his hotel. As evidence of this possibility having been denied, there
remain the foundations of the stopped/banned/closed construction, in front of the sea.Yes, it’s true,
almost in any place at the beach we can see big constructions, luxurious hotels, places for tourists.
Precisely because we almost always find hotels by the sea, we know that they are not desirable here.
Even if I’m risking myself to sound corny: this construction “breaks the harmony of the place”.We
had just a few days to stay in there, the schedule was very tight. We conducted as much interviews
as possible; we looked for the key characters; we made the respective trips; and we were part of a
meeting where we were officially introduced in order to get into the community of Escobilla.
I think that what impressed me the most was the number of persons doing tequio: a kind
of community service that each citizen has to provide. Here the tequio wasn’t only the citizen’s
obligation, but also the obligation of those who were members of the cooperative, and a moral
18
obligation towards the other inhabitants. The beach seemed to belong to no one or no one from
the town at least. The federal government, the coastguards, the Profepa, the biologists, they are
the ones with the power to decide who, when and how to get into the beach. The presence of
that power is noticed along the way of the Urales by the road, way to the camp; and by the fire
weapons that show up before men do.
Villagers here are more than pacific, however, they are known for the traffic of turtle eggs
and for being skilled at
their job. It’s curious to
see how many have left
this path and committed
themselves to preservation; and it’s more curious
to see that there’s a whole
population sector that lives
in the hills and as they do
the harvest for survival
they are not interested
in the turtles coming in
or not. You could believe
that everyone is looking
to get benefits from the
sea, but peasants show us
Mari carmen Casares, Adán Ángeles and Roxana Xamán.
that there are many possible ways of life, that not
everything has to be about turtles. Religious traditions are more important. I was impressed by
knowing that just a few years ago they chose their saint because the town’s catechists asked them
for it. They chose him and now they have an organization that legitimizes their beliefs every year.
The joy they live the parties with seemed to me like a centenary tradition. They’re people with
faith, but one that goes beyond religion; a belief in their ability to create their own job sources, to
make their relationship with nature better, to have a future to offer their children.
Escobilla is a place of emigrants: many are in the US working illegally; maybe one member
of each family. Others went once and now they’re back. Some others are preparing themselves to
go for a first, second or third time. There are no jobs, no money, there doesn’t seem to be many
chances of surviving; and yet I found projects, interests, wishes… and best of all, concrete actions to support them.You could suddenly see a man that believed music was important and had
formed a group of children to whom he offered lessons; or someone who liked birds and had
learned from a book the names and features of these, just to identify them on his walk to the lake.
This was the last place we visited. This, my experience in Oaxaca’s coast.
19
Oaxaca: less reality, more imagination
Adán Ángeles
Selva Negra
I had dreams of witches during the days of dengue. I had no body, but pain. I left that behind
thanks to Roxana’s assistance. I’m sorry for those uncomfortable days for her, because besides the
job she took her time to take care of my health. But, as I said at the beginning, I had dreams of
witches. They repeated themselves many nights. Rio Seco presented itself as a complex town day
and night. Besides the permanent hot weather, complex atmosphere was hanging over me which
Roxana and I had to decode in these few days. In a short time people stopped being “informers” to reveal their names and part of a history that we were about to discover in a rudimentary
and embryonary way. Besides that, Rio Seco seemed to me like the most confusing and virginal
community. A land curved in itself. With no newcomers, with not many persons going out. It
produced in me the feeling of isolation, and I must confess, of uncertainty. Interviews reproduced
once and again that isolation feeling because they didn’t seem to have many influences in their
stories. The references to outside situations seemed to be null. Rio Seco’s reality seemed to be
the debate between pairs of ideospheres: a law and a ritual one that struggled for the dominion
over the turtle eggs on the one hand; and cooperative members and peasants in discord for the
possession and use of the land, to mention some cases, on the other hand.
I can accept that Rio Seco was way too heavy for me. I’ll repeat, the dreams were constant.
Sometimes I didn’t think it was possible to extract something that could be coded as information.
The link between the monthly report we would write down and the interviews we possessed
consisted of our past two conversations. In Panfilo’s and don Ladislao’s words, Rio Seco seemed
to be an imaginative act. I remember that the different forces that keep the community divided
seemed to be absolved and dissolved by their testimonies. The community wasn’t an irreparable
problem any more; but an excess of reality and a lack of imagination to face the surrounding
adversities were.
It seems to me that since we were in Guadalajara, Roxana and I had started a work of imagination to make philosophical and methodological aspects coexist with an alien community which
is also alien to philosophical and methodological aspects. And now there was a certain complicity
with those men’s accounts. There was in Rio Seco a mythical and intelligent reality that had just
made me think. And that myth had a charming function in a community that watched its freedom being cut off under the weight of a law that didn’t recognize them. I could see then their
intelligence linked not to logic, but to more than material needs: being recognized, stop being
attacked, being able to found and charm their place (that to my eyes it didn’t seem to have much
charm, shall I say); they even asked to be encouraged, maybe to retake a quite frail confidence that
20
had diluted in the permanent banning and the presence of the coastguards —evident sign that
they were object of suspicion and persecution.
In view of that lack of imagination, from the federal government, I doubted the worthiness
of what we did there. The only thing left to me was to try and be loyal to what we had found;
and think a bit of something that could be useful for the community. That way I stopped being
objective with the research to mix a bit of subjectivity in the discussions with people from that
town. It was like obtaining immediate reactions and leaving concerns out of the way since the
very beginning. I doubted they would read the text that would be one of the research results.
San Agustinillo was a physical opening to many things. There I started a therapy, literally in
hands of Azeneth. Each massage made me leave the dengue’s weakness behind while making me
get abruptly into a fragmented community that had forgotten the hurricane Paulina’s days of
solidarity. I’ve got a water phobia, I can’t swim; but there I dared get into a boat and throw myself
into the sea (with a life jacket, of course). It was my imagination partially overcoming fears of a
supposedly scary reality to me, to make it clear.
People in San Agustinillo didn’t seem to have cultivated a grudge. But a paradox showed
up in facts: a beautiful beach was being disputed in not very kind ways. Tourism has been an
incentive for work; but it has also been an inconvenient to reestablish relationships that can’t be
distinguished between work, family and society. I’m not saying disputes shouldn’t exist, but that
sort of discord isn’t necessarily an advisable way of providing advantageous tourist services. I often
thought: if instead of thinking by competitiveness they thought about cooperation, what would
the results be? There are many different people in that place and with lots of imagination, such
as Hugo, Miguel Angel, Caroline, Isidro, among others. But they are a few, or better said, I didn’t
hear from anyone else.
What presented itself as a staunch individualism was just a kind of pride. A hidden desire of
working together seemed to show through in the interviews; but how to coordinate that desire
is exactly their problem. In the end, something happened that only in my dreams I could have
thought of: to see all the service providers together. It was a meeting that promised to make
improvements to the shacks. We never knew which were the conditions they arrived to for that,
because we already had one foot in the taxi to move out to Ventanilla.
When you aren’t a tourist, you immediately notice when something’s not right.Ventanilla is
paradise-like to the passers-by just because they find it novel or exotic. But for me, I felt that the
differences showed up very quickly.Yes, we could tell that the community was divided. So this is
what we immediately talked about with the people from the place. It seemed to me like the ones
from the cooperative Lagarto Real talked without any inhibition about their separation with the
cooperative La Ventanilla. They came across like characters that showed off some kind of heroism for having reported not so honest practices; but for some reason I found the effects of their
separation to be useless. It was just my very impression, but nothing more than that. At some moments I even thought that the ones from Lagarto Real were playing unfairly. In the end it seemed
21
to me like both cooperatives were doing so, but I left this feeling behind to find a point in which
both parts could notice that they could find an element to restore their damaged relation. Let’s
remember that Ventanilla is a small community, basically formed by families.
We could talk a bit with them even though there was a resistance from Agustin. And it’s obvious; he lost an influence that had almost never been questioned. I found Agustin to be an interesting character, very complete, but ill-advised and with not very convenient decisions.
The connection we had with the last community, Escobilla, was an emotive meeting between
the representatives from Profepa, Isidro de Escobilla, Selva Negra and from the Turtle Mexican
Center (Centro Mexicano de la Tortuga), with the people from Ventanilla as hosts. From that
meeting, I keep a double feeling: how difficult institutional ways are, and the sensitivity of daily
ways. I think it was there when I started noticing the disparity and diversity between all the different speeds: the bureaucratic, planetary, anthropological and individual rhythms, to put it some
way.
In Escobilla the tequio showed itself with more strength. In the other communities, the tequio
was just a component, a source, but in Escobilla, it was the basic running of the community.
Maybe it was there where I could appreciate the wonder of an action of these dimensions. It
seemed to me so splendid that I have practiced it during this year. It seemed to me as though it
related to another intelligence of things. A world full of imagination, where one loses respect to a
plain, boring reality which is manipulated by a present, unjustified and circumscribed order if not
reduced to the monetary exchange.Well yes, the tequio made me think that we had to invoke less
reality and rather cultivate imagination. So that that thing of living the present is nothing more
than an involuntary ascription or a captivated joining to the established order —schemed from
validated interests of those who hold the minimum pound of power.
I don’t know what else to tell you. There was a bit of everything. I thank Roxana for her
certain company, hours-long discussions, days of uncertainty because of what we saw, weeks of
sleeping little and months of work.
I remain with the idea that we gave every drop of our best effort..
22
Education: through reason and feeling, I modify
It was September 2005; in the middle of the joy for what Selva Negra had attained through ten
years, we concluded that despite the good results and all we had had, the impact was not proportional to the invested efforts; that the action which could result in a long term benefit for
the environment was —and is— education. We rescued turtles, planted trees; Maná brought the
environmentalist message to different countries; and even though our actions fairly grazed the
real big problem’s surface,which is in fact that those human actions leading nature to collapsing,
are the result of our attitude towards nature and life within society.
In light of these reflections we approached Julia Tagüeña, who was at that time general director for the Popularization of Science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico,
and also for the Interactive Museum Universum. We invited her to join us with her reflections
on environmental education. What was needed? What could we act on? We also invited writer
Carlos Monsivais. Both of them gently shared their feelings with Selva Negra, with Maná: it was
—and is— absolutely necessary for the civil society to get involved and intervene in this problem,
without staying apart from the educational government agencies nor from other influential institutions which can act upon public policy, such as the Teachers’ Union, among others. We were
marked by our guests. Carlos Monsivais stated that environmental issues must take the first place
in the national agenda; on the other hand we shouldn’t adopt a high drama attitude towards the
catastrophe we are witnessing every single day. On Universum side, they took advantage of the
passion and knowledge of Julia and her team, to make —along with Selva Negra— the TV show
“¡Aterrízate!”
The so fashionable “activism” —that sometimes leads to dismiss the core of problems and the
deep reflection— as well as the will for changing reality at a stroke, led us to hope that the gathering we had with Julia and Monsivais, could result in acquiring recipes to cause an immediate
engagement, recipes that would tell us the how and when to do things.
It was not the case; nevertheless, we got much more from them, namely the certainty that
talking about environmental education is not just to quote some data disguised as “reachable”
— 23 —
knowledge for common people; nor is it to claim that there are some problems, so that other persons can face them. Instead, the right path for an appropriate environmental education travels to
many stations, but there is only one vehicle to undertake it: human beings and their complexity.
Guadalajara (Mexico, 1992) It was stated by the conclusions of the Iberian-American Congress of Environmental Education, that this kind of education is intrinsically political and also a fundamental tool if we are to
attain a society which is both ecologically sustainable and socially fair. Within this connection, environmental
education must include not only ecology, but the multiple dimensions of reality; as well as contributing to resignify basic concepts.
Social participation and communitarian organization were considered environmental education aspects, as
they promote global transformations leading to an optimal quality of life and a full democracy which could
in turn help the person’s self development. (…) Jose E. Marcano: Breve Historia de la Educación Ambiental.
We did not dismiss another suggestion that arose in that gathering: to look for the authorities’
cooperation. In order to do so, we had to wait until two processes had given their results. The
first one —the 2006 elections— would renew federal authorities; the second one was the social
crisis in Oaxaca, in which the 22nd Section of the National Union of Education Workers and the
Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca were confronted with the government of that state…
and as a third party the forced mute guests —the common citizens— who were not part of the
conflict, but suffered the consequences.
Despite the convulsions the country was experimenting, the Oaxacan crisis gave us the opportunity to run an idea.
Thanks to work at the Mexican Turtle Center (C M T ) in Mazunte, we had a first hand look
at the experience of a small community when its schools are closed due to a political conflict
(which for them is just a vague rumor). Although the codes of the situation remain unclear for
them, its consequences certainly hit them. This led us to be proactive. We turned to artist Circe
Peralta. She had the experience of a workshop aiming to raise environmental awareness through
art, through painting. She presented us a program to work with for a month. Then, we asked for
a place in the C M T, and the Deutsche Bank contributed with some money. The workshop is
named Yo soy… (I am…)
A failure was foretold by experienced people who had worked in the region, specially on education. They were not willing a failure, but predicting it. They used to say: “that’s how people are
around here,” they do not get involved nor they allow their children to do it. We were very surprised to see that along with Circe arrived filmmaker Carla Pataky. Both of them worked —with
an amazing passion and perseverance— with three hundred children, by far more than the ten or
twenty that were predicted (they even had predicted that by the end of the workshop we would
have no more than three children). Parents and some teachers also joined the workshop. All the
participants talked about their feelings towards their surroundings, their fears regarding the situ24
ation and their will to act somehow. Rather than talking of science, the workshop touched their
hearts and spirits; it led them to ask themselves: what can I do?
Some things beyond our expectations came along with Yo soy… namely the great attendance,
the pleasure of participating and the joy of getting involved in the work towards solutions to the
environmental damage. How did it happen? From the beginning we had some possible explanations: the good timing of the workshop; Circe and Carla’s open minded and good-hearted attitude towards the communities; the fact that art is usually a suitable way for contacting and liberating what one normally doesn’t talk about or hides. Anyway, the reason for such a good response
we got, might be that people are eager to be listened and taken into consideration.
The purpose of EE is to provide individuals with:
1. The appropriate knowledge for understanding environmental problems.
2. Opportunities to develop the necessary abilities in order to research and assess the existing information on this area.
3. The possibility of developing the necessary abilities to assume a proactive attitude and take part in the
problem’s solutions and —perhaps even more important— in its prevention.
4. Opportunities to develop teaching abilities for other persons to do the same. N. J. Smith-Sebasto, ¿Qué
es la educación ambiental?
Just a few days later, the organization Red de los Humedales de la Costa de Oaxaca, A. C.
asked us to give the workshop to their members. They were creating their own program on environmental education. This led us to reflect upon Yo soy…; and to attempt to give it the right
shape in order to clarify certain points to a future —adult and with specific interests— participant; namely, its didactic strategies, dynamics and goals. We could hardly foresee that we were
taking our team and workshop to an acid test: there would be a mixture of indigenous people,
communitarian leaders, members of civil associations and postgraduates, looking in Yo soy… for
a way of bringing the appropriate environmental education to their communities. Our suggested
activities —supported by an added framework— and the names for the units caused a little bit
of fear among the organizers. Nothing sounded usual; maybe they did not expect to be facing a
piece of paper and acrylic paint, maybe it was not “academic” enough. Nevertheless, the results
were again wonderful; we had not only the excitement caused by a well conducted workshop;
but there were also environmental projects that arose on its basis in several places, the closest of
them, one that has grown very much and is already considered as a reference in the area, is a
project for collecting plastic materials. (See section in this report.)
Some time later, new federal authorities took control of the country’s public institutions and
thus we had our first meeting with the Basic Education vice minister of the Secretary of Public
Education.We presented him our opinions on the treatment that the State gives to environmental
25
and ecological issues through the academic programs, and told him about our will to take part of
the necessary, urgent educational change in Mexico.
He kindly agreed to our suggestions and provided us with some materials: elementary school
textbooks and workbooks for junior high teachers. He also pointed out every chapter in which
—according to the vice-ministry— these books deal with environmental topics. Surprisingly, it
was not little, but its dispersion make them appear as if it was almost nothing.
And thus we arrived to our second meeting. This time we got to know the implications of
creating a new subject course in the Mexican educational system, namely: creating new materials,
teachers’ training, a budget for it; and once the teachers are trained, one must pay them higher
salaries… Briefly put, it was an extremely high cost; and to make things worse, we would not be
sure that in the end of the process, the aim of a radical change in children’s way of relating to their
environment could be fulfilled.
We arrived to a point in which we could say we had achieved a lot and almost nothing at the
same time. The situation brought ourselves to direct the following reflection: If the basic education books contain important scientific information for the environment; if the teachers’ books
emphasize the role they must perform to encourage their students to learn —or at least to teach
them (The Public Education Secretary is a giant which has 250,000 schools, 1’250,000 teachers
and millions of students); if no one has any doubts regarding the need for preserving and protecting nature through education; then why are things in this condition?
Perhaps —suggested Mari Carmen— the problem begins beforehand, maybe it is a civic one,
an ethical one. Thus, not any book, nor all the technical data brought together and organized,
could stand in for a missing ethic position towards nature, towards the others. Without a practice
form for it, a “reason why,” there is no way any knowledge could be a meaningful one, said Mari
Carmen: our first task is to change attitudes, and then —although almost simultaneously— to
transmit information, data. A great light was turned on. According to our readings, practicing
what one preaches is the right way to shift an attitude. And so teachers were in charge of providing students with that exemplary practice. Were they so doing? No. Let’s work with them, this
way we will not only reach the children, but also the communities.
“In no case in which the aim is to form around values, will the sole reasoning with students come to
be enough. Instead, teachers must live those values and allow their students to live them as well (…)
According to Donoso (1994: 78-82), it is necessary to create a new pedagogy which includes —among
others— the following elements:
t
" QFSUJOFOU QFEBHPHZ *U JT DPNQMJDBUFE UISPVHI IPNPHFOJ[JOH QPTJUJPOT UP QFSDFJWF UIF JOUFSrelation that must exist between contents and surroundings. This requires creative and innovative
professors; and will only be possible once “the local” appears as a relevant value. This pertinence will
be achieved with the fundamental support of students and their parents.
t
26
"OBDUJPOPSJFOUFEQFEBHPHZ#SJOHJOH‰UPUIFFEVDBUJPOBMQSPDFTTJUTFMG‰DPODSFUFBDUJPOTMFBE-
ing to a behavioral and social change. Promoting a disposition towards transforming actions demands the students’ involvement in innovative collective actions; which in turn implies entering a
world of tensions, conflicts, dilemmas. (…)
t
"QFEBHPHZPGSFTQPOTJCJMJUZ4XJUDIJOHGSPNBOUISPQPDFOUSJTNUPCJPDFOUSJTNHVJEFTVTUPSFTQFDU
every form of life and to reject the profitable use of nature and other human beings.
t
"QFEBHPHZPGJOUFHSBUJPO*UJTBNVTUUPSFEJSFDUJOEJWJEVBMJTUJDUFOEFODJFTUPXBSETDPPQFSBUJWFBOE
solidarity oriented behaviors. It is thus needed an integration of theory and practice, of the concrete
and the abstract, of doing and feeling (stated by Sime, 1994: 95).
According to Sime, this list should also include a pedagogy of consensus. This consensus would aim to
democratically and critically process differences, rather than to eliminate them.” 5
It was thanks to Yo soy… to our success with it and to the hours of reading we poured in it,
that we could arrive to these conclusions. The workshop has become more solid now. Through a
scheme we graphically clarified the relation between ethics and the official educational subjects.
We established our own educational “belief ” (see attachment) and suggested an effortless form in
which teachers could be the central factor, just by recovering the ideal image of professors. Our
suggestion did not imply high costs.
This is why we devoted our efforts towards looking for the path and making a proposal from
a different place. A place aiming to make a connection with origins; starting from the simplest
and most primary forms, from which the transcendental —consciousness, reason, respect and the
knowledge of what we are— begins its construction. It seems that men, being capable of changing their environment by enriching or destroying it, have chosen the later option. This is a result
of biased views, caused by their inability to endow with meaning their pertaining to a country
that needs them, to a society that gave everything. Men at last don’t recognize themselves as inhabitants of a unique planet. On the basis of being aware of civic and ethical behavior,Yo soy…
gives the opportunity to find this meaning, and thus allows us to get engaged with everything
that surrounds us: animals, forests, shores, the nature in which we are included. The nature which
is the whole we are a part of at every moment, in every space, in daily life, with every person we
meet, with every living being, and every centimeter we step on.
t
&OWJSPONFOUBM FEVDBUJPO JT OPU POMZ BCPVU USBOTNJUUJOH UIFPSFUJDBM BOE UFDIOJDBM LOPXMFEHF PO
biology, physics or chemistry.
t
&OWJSPONFOUBMFEVDBUJPONBJOMZTFBSDIFTUPDIBOHFCFIBWJPSTPSUPEFWFMPQOFXPOFT
t
&OWJSPONFOUBMFEVDBUJPONVTUCFTPMJEMZSPPUFEJOJOEJWJEVBMBOETPDJBMFUIJDWBMVFTTUBSUJOHGSPN
SFTQFDUSFTQFDUGPSPVSTFMWFTGPSUIFPUIFSTGPSBOZGPSNPGMJGFGPSOBUVSF
t
5
&OWJSPONFOUBM FE-
Silvia Schmelkes, “La pedagogía de la formación valoral”, in La educación ambiental en la escuela secundaria.
27
ucation must not be separated from ethical values, such as plurality, freedom, democracy, inclusion,
responsibility and human rights.
t
0OPGUIFNPTUJNQPSUBOUUPPMT‰BOJOEJTQFOTBCMFPOF‰GPSUSBOTNJUUJOHFUIJDTJOFEVDBUJPOJTUP
practice what one preaches; we affirm that by acting ethically and civic-minded at every moment,
professors would already be taking part on the environmental education of their students.
t
*OUIJTDPOOFDUJPOXFTVHHFTUDJWJDTBTBQSPNPUFSPGBCFUUFSSFMBUJPOTIJQXJUIUIFFOWJSPONFOU
This also turns the environmental education a less arduous subject for beginners. A civic and ethic
education environmentally oriented is also easier and cheaper, than bringing the professors to a
scientific field they are not familiar with, for their formation was in another area. This is a statement
by the main stream models of environmental education.6
And thus we returned to the S E P (Secretary of Public Education) to invite them to get to
know and promote the workshop Yo soy…, but emphasizing two new modules:Yo me reconozco (I recognize myself) and Yo propongo y me comprometo (I propose and get engaged). Let’s
try it in Oaxaca as an experiment; it could be supported by you and by the Education Institute
of that state —we suggested. They accepted, they wanted the area directors of the vice-secretary
to take it first. It resulted in a very interesting experience. Circe came from the coast of Oaxaca,
armed with her materials.There was a distrustful atmosphere; they did not know what this workshop was about; first, its approach was not what could be expected from a normal program of a
teachers updating course; and second, Circe and us were dubious the workshop could produce
the results it has so far, in that environment. Our expectations got lower due to this one being
just a two hours sample of the normal workshop.
They accepted, they wanted the area directors of the vice-secretary to take it first. It resulted
in a very interesting experience. Circe came from the coast of Oaxaca, armed with her materials.
There was a distrustful atmosphere; they did not know what this workshop was about; first, its
approach was not what could be expected from a normal program of a teachers updating course;
and second, Circe and us were dubious the workshop could produce the results it has so far, in
that environment. Our expectations got lower due to this one being just a two hours sample of
the normal workshop.
Of course, good ideas are not enough, no; not even to arrange them in a way they can be
shared and result in consensus, knowledge and improved practices —educational ones in this
case. Economic resources are a must. The way Selva Negra works implies that these resources
come together with an eager attitude towards our proposals. This is exactly what happened with
Telephone Foundation in which their president, Jose Antonio Fernandez, did not hesitate, and
thus all the pieces came to fit into the puzzle after a year and a half of work. Yo soy is a traveling
6
28
M. C. Casares y A. Chacón
reality in the coast of Oaxaca. Many teachers, schools and communities are eagerly participating
(see the following data) not only as mere spectators but taking part of this never-ending learning
path, for this is what the workshop means to all of us.
We did not stop there, though. Results are good, and despite the SEP’s diminishing enthusiasm,
the Centers of Professors and Oaxacan School have not reduced their passionate involvement.
They gave birth to environmental projects. In search for an academic validation, we invited the
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), to get to know this experience. Franciso Morfin —the academic
general coordinator— did not hesitate in giving us a positive response.
Our intention was not only being assured that what we were doing was alright; we wanted their help to create a
teachers’ guide, that would pay tribute
to the workshop. We wanted it to be
independent from us and to be multiplied. Mireya Hernandez joined the
team early 2008, but she also took part
on Selva Negra: she observes, makes
suggestions, evaluates. We are working
Students at the Mazute’s school, Oaxaca, attending a talk on
together with her on the guide that
solar energy.
will be published soon.
In August 2008, we arranged a meeting between Fher Olvera and Ulises Gallegos; and some
of the professors who take part in Yo soy… in the coast of Oaxaca. It took place in Mazunte. The
exchange of ideas could not have been a more fruitful one; the epistemological revolution we
fight for, has a trench on sharing in a horizontal manner; this way, no one is allowed to dismiss
the other’s knowledge. Establishing an equality of everyone’s knowledge is a must; the start line
of solutions is drawn on the acceptance that diversity objects unequivocal solutions, which grow
from the real distance of any person or institution who claims to be the center of any problem. It
is necessary to recognize that the surroundings, the culture, the identity and the personal dreams,
mark everyone’s relationship with the social environment.Therefore ignoring this plurality would
be loading education with a dead weight; not only environmental education, but any education.
Through reason and feeling, I modify.
This phrase is the basis for supporting Selva Negra’s relationship with its field of action from a
different perspective: informing, transforming, creating, constructing, respecting, listening, providing, talking, assessing, protecting, teaching, learning, walking together and getting engaged
with the people and their environment.
29
The Eucational Program
Circe Peralta t Carla Pataky
From the beginning, it was thanks to the encounters with professors and students of the coast of
Oaxaca, that the workshop Yo soy… got its strength and richness. The variety of situations and
circumstances in which this workshop has been put in practice, have revealed the distinct forms
in which every educational community, professors and students give this experience a meaning
for everyday life. This is why it is important to recover the developmental process of Yo soy…
Backgrounds
July-August 2007
r Workshop Yo Soy… on art and environmental sensitivity (there was a participation of more
than 300 children and young persons from Mazunte, San Agustinillo and other nearby communities).
r Workshop Yo Soy… on environmental sensitivity, given to Red de Humedales.
September-December 2007
Workshop Yo soy… design. The workshop’s conception must fulfill the following characteristics:
r To promote sensitivity.
r To generate changes leading to improve our environment.
r To encourage more communitarian participation.
r The workshop as a tool for transforming; changing habits and attitudes through the rising of
awareness.
r That students make the most of it by increasing knowledge on their communities, their environment and themselves.
The workshop is thought to be developed in four stages:
1. Creativity.
2. I am.
3. I recognize myself.
4. I propose and commit myself.
Pilot workshop
January-June 2008
30
Circe and students of the first Yo soy… workshop—in Estero de Venadilla, Oaxaca—in their way to the classroom.
Primary schools
r In a pilot stage, four primary schools are chosen. From them we take 5th and 6th year groups.
r The main objective is to work —along with the professors— on the integration of the
workshop’s teaching tools and activities to the curricula.
r During this period, the workshop’s structure is modified and the different activities potential
is tested.
r We got familiar with the teachers’ work pace and school year.
State Office for the Education Updating in Oaxaca (Unidad Estatal de Actualización de Oaxaca).
The workshop is given to the technical staff of Oaxaca. This was really meaningful, for the following reasons:
r The directors of teachers’ centers and the updating staff attended the workshop.
r An interest for working together with Selva Negra arose there.
r The workshop is promoted and channeled with help from the Teachers’ Centers of Puerto
Escondido, Tehuantepec, Pochutla.
31
Workshops with Professors
June-July 2008
We make a call for the workshop to professors from two communities, in collaboration with the
Teachers Center of Puerto Escondido.
r Among the attendants to the two workshops, there were professors teaching in different years
from ten primary schools of the region.
r Having a continuous working day (six hours a day during five days) allows us to take the best
advantage of the workshop.
r Both teachers groups —the one from Rio Grande and the one from Puerto Escondido—
committed themselves to develop a project— which is currently being carried out.
r The results of these workshops are the best way so far, to validate the work performed by
every person who has taken part of Yo soy…
Workshop with teachers and monitoring
October 2008 - February 2009
The work with professors continues, as we start following the past workshops.
r We conducted workshops with principals, professors and supporting staff in the first communities where Yo soy… was given: Mazunte, Rio Seco and Chila.
r The workshop spreads out to other school districts: Juquila, Salina Cruz and Malinalco.
We continue to follow the work with the purpose of assessing the undergoing projects and the
new initiatives coming up from the workshops’ participants.
32
Plastics, a Project
Yolanda Quintana
January - March
With the purpose of increasing awareness about the importance of plastic collection, we started
the elaboration of a small news-board, by initiative of Mari Carmen Casares Gonzalez and Augusto Chacon Benavides, who are Selva Negra’s directors, and with Carla Pataky, Circe Peralta
and Isis’ help we printed it once a month in Puerto Escondido.
We’ve got three places in San Agustinillo to post it and we brought some copies of it to
Tonameca, Pochutla and Zipolite, where there’s a young foreigner, called Tintin, who has made
wonders with plastic collection and with whom we’ve worked. He too started picking up trash
in the beach with his dogs and as he kept walking other people and more dogs joined him.
Plastic collection in the community goes on, and each time there are more persons who bring
their trash.
April - May
During this period, besides the daily activities I took the Town Council Environmental Management Workshop in the City of Oaxaca’s Ecology State Institute (Instituto Estatal de Ecologia de
la Ciudad de Oaxaca), with regents from many communities. There, they provided us with the
tools to be able to make small changes in the environment.
June
At the beginning of the month, some young men who worked with the church’s priest in Tonameca and heard about us collecting plastic, invited me to participate in a meeting to talk about
pollution to a group of one hundred people, who showed to be interested and willing to change
their habits regarding trash handling.
This chance allowed me to establish a good relationship both with young people and with
Tonameca’s parish priest, who is very interested in the environment, but because of a lack of
knowledge his attempts at handling garbage from a recycling center have failed. As a result of
those early meetings we established the commitment of cleaning said place, and because of that,
I started coming every Saturday afternoon.
As I started working with the young ones, new ideas popped out and we began to carry out
the idea of creating an important compost with the flowers from the church and the organic
material they take from their homes, with the purpose of growing medicinal plants. I’m carrying
out this project with a folk healer and Selva Negra’s support. I think it’s very important because
knowledge about herbs and their relevance is being lost. I’ve talked about this to the priest and
he deemed it a very good project.
33
At the same time, in Tonameca, I went to a meeting with the ladies who receive support from
the Opportunities Program (Programa Oportunidades). I talked to them about how important it
is to collect plastic in their communities and I gave them container bags and a sign; I committed
myself to visit them again and to send them a truck to pick up the plastic.
Also, I spoke with the ecology regent in Pochutla, who already has an authorization to buy
a plastic industrializing machine; but now he’s worried because there’s a campaign against plastic
and he can’t make this project move forward.
As plastic collection became a reality, I clearly noticed that we were not prepared to transport it, store it, nor process it. I was very worried about this problem because people were giving
their best, but we needed the authorities’ support. I prompted myself to intensify my relation
and visits to the ecology regents, who
come from Pochutla town and from
Tonameca.
In my encounter with the ecology regent Estela Escamilla, she told
me she was very overwhelmed and
she asked me for help (as if I could
help her…) to achieve a proper water
handling in the communities. She had
recently took the Waters Cleaningup Workshop in Conagua and it was
urgent for her to talk about it to the
San Agustinillo, Oaxaca.
citizens. We agreed on going together
to talk about both topics.
In the end of the month, we went to San Bernardino and we would afterward keep on visiting other Tonameca’s communities: Los Horcones, Caulote, Llano Frio, Cuajinicuil, Cerro Gordo,
La Culebra, Popoyote, Rincon Alegre, La Frutilla, Cuatode, El Cuarto, Paso Lagarto, Tonameca,
Cerro de la Cruz, San Jose, Agua Dulce, Pieda Ancha, Arroyo la Puerta, Taraguntin, El Tigrero,
Rincon Bonito, El Tule, Agua Blanca, Soluta, Tilzapote, Guapinole, Union del Palmar, Barra del
Potrero, Samaritan,Ventanilla, La Florida, El Huisache and Llano Grande.This visit I made along
with the regent to San Bernardino community was a complete experience. It turns out that we
arrived and there was no one there, but after a few moments some people showed up and they
started getting organized with the projector of the community’s library which, by the way, has
very interesting books and is very clean. One hour later a group of about 20 persons began to arrive; Estela showed a movie from Conagua and she talked about how important it is to clean and
to take care of the water before drinking it. After that, I spoke to them about plastic; I suggested
them to drink more water and less soda. In sum, I tried for it to be pleasant and above all, practical
and feasible. I brought Selva Negra’s sign and the container bag with me, but I was very surprised
34
when they showed me that they had already collected a lot of plastic. I asked them what was going on and they told me they had received the visit from Don Antonio Rivera’s Foundation and
that they had proposed them to work with them for two months and, if they were still interested,
for more time. I thought it was very good and I told them I’d like the ones from the foundation
and the community president to go to the university meeting as well.
This same month I walked into another surprise, this time a not so nice one. I went to
Tonameca’s church to meet the boys, I found everything cleaner, but now, in the place where we
cleaned up, the priest had put gravel to build a bell tower and I almost died. I told them to speak
to the parish priest and tell him to respect the agreement and the work we had done there, that it
wasn’t fair and that he gave us a place for the compost. It was a complete experience to walk from
my house with a rake and a machete.Everyone helped me.The young ones were very enthusiastic
and we went together to the local presidency to ask for a truck to help us keep on cleaning the
church’s yard. The boys remembered well that during campaign the back-then-candidate had
committed himself to support them and they wanted him to keep his word.
San Agustinillo, Mazunte and San Antonio are doing well with the plastic project and they’ve
been a good example to the other communities.
This month I didn’t stop for a moment. I had many opportunities and I tried to make the
most of them. Going to the communities with the regent could result in a very good thing, because it was a very valuable way of beginning to get in contact with new people and to get the
work extended.
July
At the beginning of the month, the ones from Del Mar University at Puerto Escondido invited
me to attend a lecture about the use and appropriate handling of plastic to create an integral plan
that can benefit the coast settlers and that counteracts the environmental impact. This work was
specially aimed at local presidents and regents; however, only three of them attended. The rest of
us were just people interested in this solid waste. Nevertheless, it was worthy going because there
were very capable persons, with master’s degrees, and they exposed very important and different
subjects.
Two concepts became very clear to me now and will be very useful at my work: the local
government has the responsibility of collecting; and the integral handling of solid wastes appears
indeed in the legal framework. Thus, it is not a voluntary thing for them to do or a favor, but a
responsibility they should fulfill. Of course, we should remind them of that responsibility kindly,
but also constantly and very firmly. The other concept: rather than training people, we must sensitize them. It was very worthy going to the lecture.
The Environment Day was commemorated on the 4th July; and because of that they invited
me to give a speech in San Pedro Pochutla’s town council’s yard before more than 800 people. I
talked about how transcendental it is nowadays to construct an ecological cemetery. I’ll explain
35
myself: in Pochutla the cemetery’s director was very worried because there wasn’t any more space
for graves and they bought a considerably big land to build another one.This land can be divided
into two, one for the conventional monuments and the other one respecting trees and the environment. We also talked about how essential it is to keep checking on the mahogany trees that
were seeded on the Environment Day.
After that, the third week of the month, I just went to Tonameca to talk to the regent and
ask him to go with a truck to San Agustinillo to pick up plastic. There was a lot of it and we had
got a lot of vacationers. He didn’t get me and he told me that I was packed with money; I tried
not to get exasperated and kept on talking to him, explaining more patiently. Finally, he told me
he would help (as if it was a personal
favor).
I hoped the regent would keep his
word and that he would send the truck
to the community; but three days went
by and there was more plastic accumulated each time. I went again to Tonameca and I asked for an appointment
with the local president and the regent.
I set myself to wait as long as it would
take. Four hours went by; they took
me in and we talked until we got to
an agreement: they would send a dump
Mari Carmen Casares, Yolanda Quintana, Carla Pataky and
truck and they would send the plastic to
Circe Peralta in Mazunte, Oaxaca.
Pochutla, because the regent from this
town committed himself to receive the plastic. My meeting was over and I got back home very
happy. However, what happened afterward is very harsh: yes, they went to the community; yes,
they took a whole truck full of plastic, but not to the deposit in Pochutla, but to the garbage
dump, to burn it. All the agreement we had had was already forgotten. Isis spoke to them, but it
was useless.
August
The main activity this month was getting the local government to pick up the plastic and…
I made it! On day 22nd at last! They made the first trip.
In those first days, I had a conversation with the volunteers from Banamex about my plastic
collection experiences.
Just before the month would end, they called the local representative of our community, Isis
and me to a meeting with the whole council in Tonameca, to talk about the San Agustinillo’s garbage dumb closure.This is a very important topic.We’ve been fighting for years for them to listen
36
Yolanda Quintana in San Agustinillo, Oaxaca
to us because it’s dangerous in every way. We went there, but the authority from San Agustinillo
didn’t arrive, he forgot! So, neither him nor anyone from the town attended.
The meeting took place and for this project the federal government gave us 40,000 Mexican
pesos and they’ll give us as much again if everything goes well. We, Isis and I, suggested that Del
Mar University be our adviser. We agreed to an appointment three days after the aforementioned meeting.
The meeting took place in the town council. Even though the local president didn’t attend;
the ones from Del Mar University and representatives from the communities of Mazunte, San
Agustinillo, Zapotal, Ventanilla and Arrollo Tres did come. The garbage dump in San Agustinillo
was widely discussed, because it is very full and polluted. The university announced that their
estimated cost to conduct a research would be of 500,000 Mexican pesos. After many hours, we
agreed on meeting again and on the University giving us a course about how to handle solid
wastes.
37
In the Zapotecan community Agua Dulce, Oaxaca, plastic collection was adopted after a talk in the town council.
But… Surprise! I didn’t think it would happen so fast. From one day to the other the garbage
dump was closed because, as the place was so crammed, the garbage truck couldn’t go through
anymore.
This abrupt decision led us to the following options: in order to keep using it, Tonameca’s
council would have to pay 7,000 pesos and we would pay —with the money we got— another
7,000 to clean it and get the machine in; or a new garbage dump would have to be opened.
As this closure wasn’t planned, everyone got upset. The truck didn’t come by anymore. Trash
was piling up. People began making pressure and then it came by again, picking it up, but they
took it to Tonameca. Residents from there got mad and in the mean while, none of the communities were able to open a new garbage dump in their lands. It was a big problem.
At the same time, the garbage truck rider, who is very kind as well as his helpers, told me that
people aren’t putting plastics on the truck and consequently, the truck goes less loaded. They said
that in the communities of San Agustinillo, Mazunte, Zapotal,Ventanillo and Arroyo Tres, plastic
collection was doing very well. It was a relief to know that in the middle of things.
While all of this happened, I was also going to a committee every Monday to Casa Oaxaqueña —which is a Belgian foundation— to talk about plastics; make them aware about the
38
importance of taking care of their communities and performing activities with children around
these subjects.To the volunteers and the children I taught them to feel the energy of the trees and
I told them to ask permission to touch the tree. When this dynamic was over, children wanted to
thank it for being able to climb and take its fruits. It seems it was a good idea. Children were very
lively. I told the volunteers that children could be the guardians for their community, and they
said they would find out what the children thought about it.
November
Each week, a surprise. I spoke to the regent of Pochutla and they already were in good spirits
to put a recycling center. Without a doubt, that’ll be very useful and they’ll keep on picking up
plastics.
A meeting with the garbage dump committee took place in the community to see what we
were going to do with the separation of the wastes and also to establish who will be checking
the machine when they come to block the garbage dump. Luckily, the committee is formed by
competent persons, so I was very calm about it. The machine arrived and they blocked the garbage dump with soil, but there are many bags and plastic bottles.
I received at my house a group of eleven volunteers from Telephone Foundation, and I gave
them a speech about plastic handling. They came very tired from a whole tour, so I gave them
quesadillas and chaya fresh water. Everything turned out very nice.
The problems about the dump closure, continued, that’s why I talked to the State Ecology
Institute in Oaxaca, to ask for help because as it hadn’t been closed in a legal way, nor with an
alternative plan to handle the wastes, there was a lot of ignorance about the subject and because
of that, in a community meeting they suggested that kids should go there to play football. It
sounded risky to me.
The local president, the director from the Turtle Center and the representative from San
Agustinillo got together to see what the garbage problem was because they didn’t want it in Tonameca.The agreement they got to was to separate organic garbage from plastic and other wastes.
The truck would come by to take this last one burden —with previous consent— to Zipolite
or Puerto Angel; it was to be seen if the organics were picked up by another truck to take it to
Zapotal to make compost, and the plastics to Pochutla, but under the condition of sending two
persons to help. I considered buying recycled plastic compost bins for the community with the
other money.
November 28th was the first day when separated solid wastes were going to be picked up. A
truck was going to come by and pick up the food wastes to make compost, but some people was
already beginning to do it in their homes. Plastic were to go to Tonameca.
The plan didn’t work.They had to take the wastes back to the community because non of the
other ones wanted more trash. But there was an agreement that in six months Mazuntle, Zapotal,
Ventanilla and Arroyo Tres should already have a plan not to bring it to San Agustinillo again.
39
December
At San Agustinillo all the wastes were being disposed in the garbage dump without dividing it,
and in Tonameca there was almost no interest in helping. Isis payed, with the support money, a
hire to take the plastics to Puerto Escondido and start the vacation season with empty containers
and with a clean San Agustinillo.
Tonameca has already a fenced place to keep the P E T s and I asked the communities to
which I gave a container to call the council to pick it up. I spoke to the garbage truck rider, and
he and his helpers are amazing, because without earning any extra money, they are picking trash
even on Sundays. I’m also talking to the local president’s secretary, Mr. Mardonio, for them to
keep it up, because they can’t leave the plastic much time under the sun because no one’s going
to buy it after that.
The young people from the church have been successful with their first compost and they are
very excited and I along with them. They’ve achieved their first fertilizer and this is going to be
for the church’s gardeners.They decided to make their next compost in an upper land to fertilize
the parish’s studio surroundings.
2008 has been a good year, full of surprises, but the most important thing that happened:
people, they are starting to feel convinced of the importance of plastic collection. The big handicaps are clear and those are the big challenges: the authority has to have a positive reaction.
There’s a long way to go, but it’s not the same as before anymore; now they know that there
are many of us who want to improve the environment and we’re collecting PETs. They’ll have
to do something about it and we’re going to keep insisting in a thousand ways until we convince
them.That’s why I think that the best way of ending this script is with the list of the communities
that are already collecting plastic:
Cerro de la Cruz, San Jose, Agua Dulce, Piedra Sepultura, Piedra Ancha, Arroyo La Puerta,
Tarangutin, El Tigrero, Rincon Bonito, El Tule, Agua Blanca, Soluta,Tilzapote, Guapinole, Union
del Palmar, Barra del Potrero, Samaritan,Ventanilla, La Florida, El Huizache, Llano Grande, Santa
Elena, Escobilla, Macahuite, San Isidro, Mazunte, San Agustinillo, Zapotal, Santo Domingo, Coco,
La Florida, San Bernardino, Escobilla and Arroyo Tres.
This project can’t be stopped anymore. Thanks for offering this opportunity.
40
Numbers
Education numbers
Teachers
188
Students
2,757
People from the community
629
Schools in which Yo Soy… operates
63
Projects resulting from Yo Soy…
15
Plastics, a program that emerged from a workshop
Plastics, a program that emerged from a workshop
48
People participating in this program
150
Installed containers
100
Local governments involved
3
41
Communities we work in
Community
Local
nment
Council)
gover(Town State
Project
Agua Blanca
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Arroyo La Puerta
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Barra del Potrero
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Caulote
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Cerro Gordo
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Cerro la Cruz
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo soy…
Coco
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Cuajinicuil
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Cuatode
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
El Cuarto
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
El Huizache
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
El Tigrero
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
El Tule
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo soy… /plastics/family
farming
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo soy…
La Culebra
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
La Florida
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
La Frutilla
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
La Obscura
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Llano Frío
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Llano Grande
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Los Horcones
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Macahuite
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Estado de México
Workshop Yo Soy…
Chila de los Bajos
Escobilla
San Pedro Mixtepec
Tonameca
Guapinole
Juquila
Malinalco
42
Santa Catarina Juquila
Malinalco
Mazunte
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo soy… /plastics/family
farming
Paso Lagarto
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Piedra Ancha
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Popoyote
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo Soy…
Rincón Alegre
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Rincón Bonito
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Puerto Escondido
San Pedro Mixtepec
Río Grande
Tututepec de Melchor
Ocampo
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo Soy…
Río Seco
Huamelula
Oaxaca
Workshop Yo Soy…
Samaritán
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
San Agustinillo
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
San Antonio
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
San Bernardino
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
San Isidro
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
San José
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Santa Elena
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Santo Domingo
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Soluta
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Tarangutín
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Tilzapote
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Tonameca
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Unión del Palmar
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Ventanilla
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
Zapotal
Oaxaca
Plastic collection
43
Testimonies
Joining efforts with environmentally concerned organizations.
Selva Negra-Telephone Foundation
Environmental workshop Yo Soy…
It is very important to Telephone Foundation to contribute with projects such as the workshop
Yo Soy… in which an awareness about our natural environment is raised. One of the paths we
must follow is the one already
pointed out by Selva Negra.
What a better way of changing our environment than
through environmental education for our children —who
are the future of society— and
where communities can get
actively involved.
Our achievement is for
children to reflect upon the
past and present of their environment: if we don’t take
good care of the Earth, what
will happen? How can we
Workshop Yo soy… aimed at teachers in Escobilla, Oaxaca.
prevent it from decaying? And
how can we reverse its deterioration today?
Yo Soy… has become a huge satisfaction: to see that through simple and dynamic actions it is
possible to generate an environmental culture for more than 500 people; and to leave a renewed
perception for the newer generations.
We value the big effort made by the whole team —which has been formed through Selva
Negra— to meet the objective of workshop Yo Soy… and we specially value their contribution
to improving the natural environment.
Elia Karina Mata Bravo
Projects CoordinatortMexico Telephone Foundation
44
Every person and community has a right to make decisions.
Every corner in Mexico has already been touched, even if on different levels, by technological
development. For this one to take place, there must be several forces that intertwine and modify
one another: political, scientific, technological and economic forces. It becomes increasingly necessary to include an ecological view now that the deterioration of our environment is evident
and there is not enough formation geared to an eco-friendly technologized world: we don’t
know how to take care of our present and future world on a community level. Nowadays, it is a
fundamental task for us to discover the world we want, and the one that makes us who we are;
and to get to know the strategies and techniques necessary to achieve it. Workshop Yo Soy… of
Selva Negra’s foundation joins the range of these efforts with the conviction that every person
and every community has a right and can choose a better way of being in the world.
Francisco Morfín
Academic General Director t I T E S O
45
The Guide
Mireya Hernández Arreola
Preliminary report on the Guide to be used for the workshop Yo Soy… t August 2008 — January 2009
Among the actions carried out by Selva Negra as part of the workshop Yo Soy…, there is the
making of a guide which aims at the possibility of re-conducting this exercise in different contexts so that the experience may be multiplied in a self-organizative manner, without depending
on Selva Negra’s direct interventions all the time.
The following actions have been conducted to develop the guide:
1. Checking and transcribing the recordings from Escobilla’s workshop Yo Soy… which was
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
conducted in May; this, with the purpose of drawing information to include in the guide’s
contents.
Interviewing people in charge of conducting the workshop and Selva Negra directives; this,
with the purpose of clarifying what the guide’s objectives and scopes are, as well as clarifying
some doubts pertaining the contents identified in the recordings.
Checking other materials and guides that have been developed for similar purposes, in order
to identify the best options for the guide’s structure and design.
Conceptualizing the guide’s structure.
Participating in Malinalco’s workshop Yo Soy…, with the purpose of showing what mediation style will be promoted within the guide; and to identify any missing information relevant
for its development.
Describing what the guide’s definite contents are.
Designing a final proposal for the guide’s structure.
The work that’s been done has allowed us to enrich the original guide proposal and to make
progressions towards its conceptualization. As a result, it is suggested that the guide be designed
and developed according to the following criteria:
r
r
r
r
46
That it be sufficiently understandable and accessible as to constitute a mediation in itself; this
is to say, that it doesn’t need other people or other types of mediations in order to achieve its
objective.
That it can be used by any person interested in reproducing the workshop, regardless of his/
her profession, particular context, or whether he/she has taken the workshop already.
That it be designed according to three dimensions: informative, didactic and awareness.
That it includes two materials: a printed booklet with clear explanations for the reader as to
how to conduct the workshop; and an audiovisual product which allows him/her to become
r
familiar with the contents in order for him/her to be able to manage and teach them with
ease and efficacy.7
Even though these materials are complementary, they can be used independently.
We plan on carrying on with the guide’s development and completion as follows:
1. Early February. To present the guide’s structure proposal to Selva Negra’s team.
2. Late February. To deliver a first draft corresponding to one of the workshop’s work units for
it to get feedback from, and approved by, Selva Negra’s team.
3. March. To test this first unit in one of the workshops being conducted in Oaxaca in order to
improve and make necessary changes to the guide’s structure before developing the rest of the
sections.
4. April. To finish and deliver the printed booklet’s text, and to begin the process of layout and
design.
5. May. To conceptualize and deliver the proposal to develop the second part of the guide, the
one corresponding the audiovisual support product.
7
The fact that the guide is formed by the aforementioned materials does not exclude the possibility of developing as well other support
material if they are specifically asked for to be used in different fields. An example would be the basic education field, for which the guide
could be accompanied by a file with activities for the teachers to relate the contents of the workshop to the curricular program.
47
Yo Soy… My experience
Asunción Javier Jiménez Pacheco t Susana Torres Ortiz.
Río Grande, Oaxaca, February 2009.
From an educational standpoint, and calling it by a single term, we decided to study “ecology” and we carried out some very isolated actions. Rightly doing so, we planted trees, making
students responsible for their care; we also started separating organic from inorganic trash and
making compost out of wastes to have an organic fertilizer; and in some schools such as Primary
school Lazaro Cardenas we avoided garbage burning. Nevertheless, there are 30 primary schools
in the area and not all of them were doing these actions; some were complying partially and others weren’t at all. Anyway, there were workmates who were very concerned about the environment situation both in their towns and in their working communities. The biggest concern was
that of inorganic wastes, specially plastics that accumulated in schools; we looked for comfortable
alternatives, thinking that somebody else would easily solve our problem.
Fortunately, during the 2008 summer break, Selva Negra Foundation conducted a workshop
called Yo Soy… to improve the environment. Several of our teachers from School Zone 106 in
the community of Rio Grande, Oaxaca, participated in it. It is worth highlighting that environmentally concerned teachers attended voluntarily, thinking that this foundation would give
us the solution to our schools’ plastic problem. The workshop didn’t directly solve the problem,
though; but it did raise awareness to try and solve it. How so? It wakes our creative abilities up,
both in teachers and in students; and it places us as part of nature and as responsible for it. We arrived to the conclusion that it is us who can make big things through little actions.
As teachers we can say that the workshop is a complete offer, for it includes conceptual,
procedural and, specially, attitudinal contents, which are easy to reproduce with students because
there are many artistic and recreational activities that enhance a brainstorming of suggestions and
commitments for taking care and protecting the natural environment. Some examples of these
are reforestation, garbage separation, paper recycling, reusing containers, using returnable glasses
and dishes during school breaks, taking care of lagoons and rivers as well as of endangered species,
and painting murals.
The group of committed teachers who attended the workshop Yo Soy… has come to immediately form part of an organization whose project is named: “Garbage… final destination.”
Its aim is to adequately handle all the inorganic waste accumulated in schools. It’s first goal it to
look for ways of recycling or treating water and soda plastic containers (P E T ), for the landscapes
of our communities overflow with these. The group has set to acquire a plastic compactor and
adapt a physical space for the storage of plastic packages with the aid of voluntary members of
the group and people from the community. Besides this, they have made the necessary negotia-
48
Closure ceremony of the workshop Yo Soy… aimed at teachers in Escobilla, Oaxaca.
tions with the community’s authorities, who got excited about the project; and, even after many
bureaucratic difficulties the machine was finally acquired and will start working in a few days.
Another goal for us it to get students involved in the plastic compression process, always with
the eagerness to reduce it, and not seeing it as a business because ours is a value-oriented formation project.
There are still a lot of things to do, and many people to raise their consciousness; but with
workshop Yo Soy… we acquired many elements to be constant and not to decline.
49
Sea Turtles
It seems like no big deal: a female turtle comes out of the sea, in a hurry to make a nest, to lay her
eggs under the protection of the sand, humidity, the sun… It is night time; let’s suppose she’s an
Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys Olivacea) and this is her first clutch; let’s suppose she’s thirteen
years old, and very likely she’s the only one to reach that age of the eighty little hatchlings who
crawled with her on this same beach to which she’s returning to lay her eggs. After thirteen years
of traveling across the sea, an Olive Ridley turtle migrates thousands of kilometers in search of
sustenance, escaping her predators; and finally, today, we’re lucky to see her leaving the sea waters behind to crawl on the sand, going on with her reproductive process. She begins escalating
with difficulty. This one’s lucky that we’re there watching her, she will surely not be attacked by
dogs; it’s not strange for sea turtles to get killed by hungry dogs. We have to be patient, not making a noise, not turning on a light; if she gets scared before laying her eggs, she might turn back
—drawing a curved line in the sand— and go to the sea, awaiting for a better moment, hours or a
day later, to fulfill her function as a mother. It will take her many minutes to find the precise place
to lay the eggs, but in the end there it is: she prepares the nest; this is to say, she laboriously digs
with her flippers, impelled by an acute, 200 million years old instinct. Once in a while she stops,
exhausted; we’re so near her that we can hear her agitated, heavy breath… If we have a sensitive
spirit, we’ll find it pitiful. When she’s done digging the hole she remains very still, half-closes her
tearful eyes, opens her mouth (impossible to write down: “snout”), and one by one starts laying
the eggs. Now we can move closer… We haven’t met anyone who hasn’t been impressed by seeing one like this: face to face. There are many things that seem to be concentrated in a sea turtle:
time measured in eras, nature’s strength and frailty, our fears and guilts, and some strange and
special anxiousness that makes us feel as though we have to do something for this turtle who is
breathing so effortly, and for the earth that seems to be absolutely represented by this animal that
might become extinct before our eyes. It seems like no big deal…
Estimations may vary, but lets take a very common number, we won’t be telling nonsense:
human beings have been on Earth for a million years; but let us be complacent and leave it in ten
— 50 —
million years thanks to a very human exercise which we could call “wide range of natural history,” and in which everything longer than five thousand years is infinite, this is to say: it is a lot
and it is nothing. Ten million years since human beings inhabit this planet; well, a hundred and
ninety years earlier sea turtles were already tracing paths in the oceans.Today we’re hassled by this
certainty: if the man-turtle relationship continues to be as it is today, chelonians will very soon
stop accumulating years to their earthly stay; and we will hardly make it to the fifty million years
in the role of the main species if we continue at this rate.
Sea turtles are a measurement for time and life. Suddenly, they can appear to us on a beach
at night, to remind us that our eternities are barely but a manifestation of the ignorance with
which we think ourselves to be at the center of the cosmos; to remind us of the irresponsible way
we have made use of everything that surrounds us. Because turtles are this and something else: a
very special, unique and individual sensation at the moment we see them lay their eggs. They are
the articulating axis for Selva Negra’s search and acting. Nobody can remain untouched by the
devastation of the environment after witnessing what it takes for a sea turtle to follow its instinct
in order to try and preserve its species, going against everything, and specially today, against human beings.
It’s very clear to us, even in this era of technological illusions there’s something about sea
turtles that concerns us intimately: a mysterious thread comes out from them and enraptures us
with old myths, wraps us with a suspicion that life was born in the sea, ties us up to the ancient
and renewed safety of the shell upon which rests the world. Thus, in order to understand them,
to save them, it is indispensable that we understand and start saving ourselves.
Selva Negra’s turtle camps are the space in which we fight for the survival of turtles, while
aiming at putting into practice a different way of being human. Biologists, veterinarians, technicians, volunteers, communities and students who collaborate in Platanitos and in Chila, Nayarit
and in Palmarito, Oaxaca, watch over the Olive Ridley, the Black Sea Turtle and the Leatherback
species. The Telephone Foundation, the University of Guadalajara, the Benito Juarez Autonomous University, staff from the National Committee of Protected Natural Areas (C O N A N P ),
as well as students from the Ibero-American University who are giving their social labors also
colaborate with this. And not only this, but they are all rescuing as well a human aspect that cannot exist without nature and whose danger of being extinct is directly related to that of many
animal and vegetable species.
Selva Negra’s camps are the meeting point where not only people of plural backgrounds
arrive; but also concepts arrive which aim to render the turtles protection into a learning opportunity, and a place to practice a nearly forgotten civism nowadays. Above all, they are the place
to try and understand why others —the others— do what they do and are the way they are:
behind every nest that’s been plundered and behind every turtle that’s been sacrificed, lies a different story and a similar situation of poverty; a different personal pursuit and an equally ignored
marginal culture.
51
Turtle camps in the Oaxacan coast are inhabited by members of the Navy, people from Profepa, biologists, veterinarians, volunteers, some persons from the community… It is some experience to spend the night and live with them, and not understand how they come to share a roof,
but for the fact that some of them have a tiny idea of how important it is to be there. From the
outside, it is impossible to imagine, to feel this team work —formed out of different entities. Even
for those who are there it is hard to explain, other than they stay there because of an immediate
sense of responsibility. Nobody questions it; but orders are followed and a command is complied
with: to look after the beach. To look after it and preserve it from who? To draw a line? To forbid
the entrance for those who have lived there and survived thanks to it for decades? These question
have led us to an attempt at building the ideal camp so that every person related to this issue can
live it, learn from it with respect, awareness and the value of knowing our role in the world.
To Selva Negra, camps are at the center of our job. Turtles have brought us to communities;
communities which have proposed doing family farmings in search of a different means of production and sustenance in order to reverse the plundering that’s been going on in the beaches.
The beach is a place full of opportunities and learning processes for the communities and for us;
everything being articulated through Selva Negra’s educational standpoint.
Mexican Turtle Center (Centro Mexicano de la Tortuga, CMT)
Selva Negra has worked for the sea turtles’ protection since 1997. That year, we worked in two
camps in Jalisco, where the most prominent species is the Olive Ridley turtle; and a little bit later
in Platanitos beach in Nayarit. In 2003, the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources
(Semarnat) invited us to visit the Mexican Turtle Center (C M T ) in Mazunte, Oaxaca; their
proposition was: let’s save it! This way, together with three enterprises we attended the Secretary’s
call. The Center was in very bad shape: animals in captivity were dying; the staff made huge efforts to keep it going; everything was afflicted by an understandable hopelessness which created
a dense atmosphere at the “museum” (as the C M T is called by the nearby communities); visitors came with the sole expectation of seeing some neglected aquariums in which the exhibited
turtles seemed like pathetic imitations of what they are in the wild.
The Semarnat’s initiative sank, along with the board of trustees that was created: the Mexican
Board of Trustees for the Sea Turtle Protection —of which Mari Carmen Casares was president
and Augusto Chacon the treasury director. What remained from that experience was Selva Negra’s interest to step in at the C M T.This way, since late 2003 we set off on a journey— which we
now realize —was about learning and growing up, as persons and as an institution. The physical
and administrative structure of the Center needed not just an intervention, but to re-conceptualize its function, its raison d’être. Closely located to what used to be the turtle market, and prior
to the 1990 federal banning, the museum created expectations since its birth: it would provide
52
Olive Ridley turtles, ready to be set free in Palmarito, Oaxaca.
with employment, tourism, education. Even as it was, submerged in bureaucratic labyrinths and
with lots of difficulties, it complied with its touristic function by receiving thousands of visitors.
As if it were not enough, it was held responsible for three turtle camps: Escobilla camp (world
privileged beach which still functions as an arrival port for thousands of Olive Ridleys coming
to lay their eggs during a few days, several times a season); Barra de la Cruz camp (it specially
protects the most threatened species of all: the Leatherback turtle); and Morro Ayuta camp (it
receives not so many turtles as does the beach of Escobilla, but they are enough arrivals to set it
as internationally relevant).
In the midst of this we set ourselves to make some changes in the Center. Our first drive
came from rage and disbelief because of the conditions turtles in captivity were kept in; and besides, it came from something that we deemed evident: the important role the Center could play
in educating visitors and people from the communities. Surely enough, this was not something
we could face on our own; the authorities responsible for the Center gave us free pass to see what
we “could do.” Cuauhtemoc Peñaflores —who was then the Center’s director and one of the
most important specialists in sea turtles— kindly accepted to collaborate. We also approached the
53
Child’s Kite Museum (Papalote Museo del Niño), for we reckoned they would have a notion as
to how to put our idea into action.They accepted, and, in 2004 we made a trip with a group from
Papalote for them to visit the C M T, and they did recognize its enclosed potential. Nevertheless,
a few months later they embraced a very big project in Mexico City and thus had to decline our
offer. Driven by they same idea of calling for someone knowledgeable of museums and education through an exhibition space, we thought of the National Autonomus University of Mexico’s
(U N A M ) Universum Interactive Museum.
Selva Negra was marked by Universum; not just because of how much the CMT project
would grow, but also regarding the direction that we as an organization took since then. Its director —also director at the U N A M ’s Popularization of Science Office (D G D C )— Julia
Tagüeña, didn’t hesitate about it: she sent a team to visit the museum and thus be able to make
a proposal.8 After a year’s work and a million pesos invested (contributed by Alfredo Harp, Banamex, Selva Negra and C O N A N P ), we obtained blueprints, museography and remodeling
sketches, as well as an estimation to carry out a master plan.
Meanwhile, in September 2005, the Chamber of Deputies —through its Committee for
Ecology— opened us the doors to present the project, just when they were getting prepared for
the 2006 budget assignment. Selva Negra and Universum met with the legislators and convinced
them to direct resources not just to the C M T, but to sea turtles in general. When the federal
budget was approved, both the National Committee for Natural Protected Areas (C O N A N P )
and the U N A M received an unprecedented budget. Particularly the Program for Turtles Protection had never had so much money before. This allowed us to go forth with the U N A M ’s
master plan to redesign the Center: five million pesos were invested; it seemed we were not far
away from “laying the foundation stone.”
But reality not always fits our plans. The master plan was carried out by the Engineering
and the Architecture faculties and Universum, from U N A M 9, Development Center, from the
S E P 10, and by U N A M ’s Energy Research Center (Cenidet) which presented a study to pro8
Dr. Tagüeña was part of a specialized work group to make a diagnostic visit to the C M T. This group included Dr. Careaga, also from the Science Popularization Office, who helped her coordinate the project. The assessment group was formed
by:
r Dr. Gabriela Alvarez Garcia, specialist in thermal design from the National Research and Technological Development
Center (C E N I D E T ).
r Architect, Maria del Carmen Alvarez del Castillo, specialist in museums, from D G D C , U N A M .
r Biologist, Carlos J. Balderas Valdivia, specialist in reptiles and species in captivity, also from D G D C , U N A M .
r Dr. Claudio Estrada Gasca, specialist in Solar Energy, from the Energy Research Center (C I E ), UNAM.
9
The objective of this visit was to offer a restructuring and improvement proposal geared to facilities and services; all with
the main purpose of permanently integrating all scientific, local and labor communities towards the protection and proper
use of sea turtles. (Mexican Turtle Center Restructuring Project, U N A M , D G D C , October 2005).
10
It is presenting a study on thermal charges in the Mexican Turtle Center (C T M ) buildings, in Mazunte, Oaxaca; aiming
at diagnosing the thermal behavior in these buildings and suggesting alternatives for them to be comfortable. (Study on
Thermal Charges in the Mexican Turtle Center buildings, S E P, Cenidet, November 2006.)
54
vide the C M T with energy from renewable sources: wind, sunlight.11 It was a great job and we
were proud; nevertheless, one of the results indicated that almost all of the buildings presented
structural damage, and that it would be necessary to demolish them (let’s remember that in 1997
hurricane Paulina had devastated the Oaxacan coast, and the Center’s facilities suffered its consequences). And this was not it: as time went by, C O N A M P ’s president judged that the master
plan would fail. This was a major surprise for all of us: C O N A M P took the lead and endorsed
U N A M ’s positionings.Thus, we remained with a useless project —to some of us at least— having spent not little money just to end up at the starting point three years earlier: the Center degrading in every way. Few things are as difficult in this country as team work.
Aside from the making of a master plan, we had kept on working in the area. Along with
C M T ’s director, Manelik Olivera, we visited the turtles’ neighboring communities. We got to
understand how plunder works; what the relationships with the authorities are like; and we clearly
saw how the Center is perceived by the local people’s imaginary and what it represents to them.
We were certain about the importance of getting different human groups involved —not only
experts— in the turtles’ preservation endeavors; and about the prominent role that camps could
play if their staff had the intellectual tools and the civic and professional disposition to include the
communities —which, as strange as it may seem, are part of the chelonian’s biology— through
their work. Manelik’s endeavors to represent with dignity and efficiency the authority responsible
for the environment still remains, but will faint with time: the gap between governors and citizens increases every day, causing the quality of life of thousands to deteriorate, and, we can assert,
threatening the sea turtles survival.
At Selva Negra’s request, both the president of C O N A N P as well as the Secretary of the
Environment visited the C M T, and to our surprise it was the first time they did this. We guided
them through it, and they could notice the bad shape it is in: very quickly degrading, it barely
seems to be but a geographical trace in the middle of communities. Furthermore, we’re currently
monitoring it along with the National Office for Special Projects, with whom we’re in the process of creating a plural council for the c m t.
We can put the results of our work in the C M T in two separate columns. In the first one
we have a very expensive but useless project; a years long effort without any progress in the sense
we were looking for; the donations we gave in 2007: a motor water pump for the well in Morro
Ayuta Camp (since the federal government couldn’t buy it), and a computer to enter data about
the camps (data which we haven’t seen). In the second column: a group of extraordinary persons
11
The research was based on electrical analysis procedures to undertake a level III energy audit. The main goal was to identify electricity consumption patterns and the most demanded electrical charges in order to suggest alternative procedures
and the equipment necessary to achieve a thrifty and efficient use of energy.
The energetic study considered an analysis and proper use of regional renewable resources, with the purpose of suggesting
energetic projects based on solar and wind energy. (Energetic Study for the Mexican Turtle Center, U N A M , C I E , December 2006.)
55
and communities, which have given us a lot and make us keep hope up: Julia Tagüeña, Sergio
Montaño, Georgita Ruiz, Cuauhtemoc Peñaflores, Manelik Olivera, Marcelino Lopez, Elisa…,
Rio Seco,Ventanilla, Escobilla, Barra de la Cruz, San Agustinillo, Mazunte.
The Mazunte museum is an emblem to Selva Negra because of several reasons: we see it as
the thermometer that indicates us the health condition of how the struggle to save the sea turtles
is going. Right now it’s in a critical condition: the C M T is not generating knowledge nor the
statistical data on turtles so as to better direct the effort of all of us who don’t want to lose any of
the species (people, universities, governments and civil society organizations). A good administrative, biological and social management by the Center will be an indication of a new relationship
between authorities and those who live in natural areas presenting some kind of environmental
conflict. The moment the C M T gets involved with the communities that look up to it, then it
will be a sign that education is indeed responsibility of us all; and that it can be rekindled from
our preferred perspective, which is our emblem and which we know is fruitful: Through reason
and feeling, I modify.
56
Platanitos Cam
Sea Turtle Protection and Conservation Center
Platanitos Camp, Nayarit. CONANP-Selva Negra 2008 Season
DVM Miguel Ángel Flores Peregrina
Platanitos Camp Director
The program in this center has been working for over 20 years. Whereas initially there was an
average of 250 clutches a year, today there are 2,500 clutches registered each year, all from Olive
Ridley species. This center was pioneer in the state, where —under its work scheme and with
subprograms which made the species protection stronger— new beaches began working for their
care.
Today this program is being administered by the C O N A N P, and has grown stronger
through collaboration agreements with the Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation, to carry out activities together in order to achieve the program objectives and goals with the implementation of
strategic lines which contribute to the species and its nesting habitat preservation.
One of the lines that have strengthened the program has been the environmental education,
where big results have been achieved for the benefit of conservation, since now there’s an interest from the nearby communities to participate in hatchlings release events and in the different
operation and conservation techniques used in the camp.
Almost all of the interested people are young people who have got information from the
camp and its activities trough educational talks we develop at schools; this, thanks to the big interest teachers from every school levels have shown, who ask for our visits to give educational talks
about ecologic subjects to their students.
In the fishing sector, day by day the program gains more accomplices for conservation; there
are those who report nestings, or hand over nestings found at nearby beaches and even report
people who commit environmental crimes of any kind.
Currently, the turtle protection program goes from being an imposition to an acceptation;
and they even see it as a need and as a medium term benefit that will generate employments
which protect the natural sources under a sustainable use.
Inspection and vigilance
Looted or stolen nests rates have decreased (from 25% to 35% in the period between 1990-2000,
to 6% to 8% nowadays). This has been achieved with the Secretary of Navy’s support (Secretaría
de Marina, Semar); through patrols conducted by Selva Negra and C O N A N P ’s staff; and
57
through giving diffusion and environmental education. Nevertheless, the environmental crime
aforementioned still persists and is usually committed by people with mental issues, alcoholics
and drug addicts.
The Playa Protegida program, has had excellent results concerning species recovery in Platanitos camp, especially with the Olive Ridley species, in which there’s been a sustained increase
since 2002 to today from 10-15% a year.
Although conservation results are seen in their biological aspects, there also are social, political, cultural and economic procedures to accomplish that.If until now the camp results have been
positive, this also indicates us we’ve made huge advances in conservation education, by motivating
the interest from communities, the state and the federal government, N G O s and other environmental groups to work together for the natural resources conservation and their appropriate use,
which will guarantee the survival of future generations.
2009 Planning
For this season we aim to strengthen the program through promotion, diffusion, and by training organized groups from the communities of Platanitos and Otates. The ultimate objective is
that they be able to undertake conservation actions, attain a proper handling and protection of
the species and its habitat (nesting beaches restoration activities), while, at the same time, creating
income sources through an ecologic tourism that is abided by the norms.
We’ll create an ecological educational program to be applied as a first step in all schools and
school years from the communities of El Llano, El Espino, Otates, San Isidro, Ixtapa, Zacualpan
and Las Varas. The goal is to reach one thousand students and 25 teachers.
We’ll intensify night patrolling for the collection of nests, hence getting to protect 2,800 nests
through qualified people from the communities which will get benefits by the Temporary Job
Program (Programa de Empleo Temporal); and also through technical staff from Selva Negra and
the coordination by C O N A N P ’s camp staff.
58
Chila Camp
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5FBDIFS#MBODB"MJDJB#PKØSRVF[t$6$#"6EF(
In January of 2002, she contacted Maná’s vocalist, Fher Olvera, attempting to join forces with the
University of Guadalajara in the work they undertake with native Huichol communities since
1997. At that moment we were invited to participate in the Sea Turtle Protection Program from
the Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation, which is hosted by the most famous rock band in Guadalajara; we gladly accepted this proposal.
In the summer of 2002, we went for the first time to the Chalacatepec camp installations in
Tomatlan’s town council in Jalisco. We were visiting the camp each month, from July to November, with groups of around five Biology and Veterinary students, mainly. We made our presence
constant from 2002 to 2004.
Selva Negra contacted us through Platanitos camp, in Compostel’s town council, Nayarit,
where we’ve supported turtle protection and conservation activities. We’ve learned from DV M
Miguel Flores Peregrina the skills and techniques necessary to do a good job; these aptitudes
were transmitted to fourteen generations of biologists and veterinarians from the University of
Guadalajara.
Also, upholding the University and Selva Negra’s flag, we were in Majahuas camp from Tomatlan’s town council, and in Mayto from Cabo Corrientes’s town council, both in Jalisco, where
we undertook protection projects between 2004 and 2006.
During the last three seasons (2006-2008), we worked in Playa Chila camp, Compostela’s
town council, Nayarit; where protected nests increased year by year, as well as the number of
freed hatchlings. Also, in a very amazing way, the number of enthusiastic participants increased in
an 80%. Thanks to the accumulated experience and increase in knowledge, now we count on a
solid work team, with lots of expectations and continuously growing up towards new routes of
knowledge.
The program has strengthened due to, most of all, bringing together the University’s economic resources with Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation’s donations. This has made possible to
accomplish the mission and vision of our university center, which includes the protection and
conservation of national flora and fauna species as one of its fundamental tenets. Also, research and
the development of new environmental education techniques have been encouraged through this
program.
In conclusion, this program’s achievements are grately due to the effort of so many students
engaged with natural resources protection. They are an endless source of labor force; and have
59
been able to make the most of living a unique experience for the conservation of this noble and
beautiful species that arrives to the Mexican beaches. Besides increasing their knowledge, these
activities allow them to grow as persons, because team work strengthen them and spiritually
stimulates them, making them better humans each day.
Authorities in our university center have been generous in supporting this project unconditionally; however, we have to acknowledge that the financial resources they provide us aren’t
enough to accomplish the excellent work we’ve been doing it to this day. This has been done,
mainly, because of the support we’ve received from Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation, not only
economically, but also in a moral way.
It only remains for me to thank Augusto Chacon Benavides, director of Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation, and his work team, for trusting us and giving us the chance of working in this
wonderful project.
60
Palmarito Camp
Background
DVM Elpidio Marcelino López
Palmarito’s beach has always been an important nesting area for Leatherback, Black Sea and
Olive Ridley turtles. Since fifteen years ago, in 1993, and because of the drastic drop manifested
in Leatherback turtle nestings in the turtle camp at Barra de la Cruz, we conducted a series of
researches with our mates —that back then were working in Barra de la Cruz and La Escobilla
camps and at the Turtle Mexican Center— along different coast beaches: from Barra de la Cruz
to La Tuza; we covered beaches from Cimatan river, all the small bays up to Copalita river, Santa
Elena beach, Puertecito beach, Barra de Colotepec beach, Palmarito beach, Cacalote beach, and
from La Palmita beach to La Tuza.
At Palmarito beach we found a bigger number of clutches; and we also found traces that
Leatherback, Black Sea and Olive Ridley turtles had been slaughtered; we also saw dead Black
and Olive Ridley turtles which were attacked by dogs.
Explorations were made each week during the nesting season which starts in October and
ends in March. It’s important to mention that this is a very long beach and we made these explorations by foot due to a lack of economic resources and equipment. Because of this, the only
thing we knew about was the number of turtles nesting each week; and we also registered the
number of looted and preyed upon nests along with the dead turtles.
Nests of Leatherback, Black Sea and Olive Ridley species which were found during the surveys were protected with logs to avoid their predation.
During the 2003-2004 nesting season only three specimens of Leatherback turtles nested in
the Barra de la Cruz camp. During explorations made in Palmarito for the same season —from
October to March— ten Leatherback nestings were registered, from which only two were protected, thanks to the Profepa’s support, who lent us a quad bike for the night trips. From these
two nests, only one was productive, with a total of 22 hatchlings out of 54 eggs, while all of the
other embryos died at different phases.
During the 2003-2004 season, 72 Leatherback females nested. With Profepa’s support, who
lent us the quad again for a short time, we could barely protect fourteen nests.
Para la temporada 2003-2004 anidaron 72 hembras de tortugas laúd. Con el apoyo de la
Profepa, que otra vez nos facilitó la cuatrimoto por un breve tiempo, apenas pudimos proteger
catorce nidos.
For the 2005-2006 season, a pilot camp was installed for the first time to watch over the
Leatherback turtle nestings. This project was financed by the Banamex Ecologic Fund, in coor61
Patrol squad and turtle release at Palmarito, Oaxaca.
Palmarito beach and the turtle camp.
dination with the Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics School from Benito Juarez Autonomous
University, in Oaxaca; and we called it Palmarito Turtle Camp, in honor of the first camp installed
in this beach 24 years earlier. There was a season when it couldn’t keep on operating because of
the difficult access to the beach.
For the 2006-2007 season, the project didn’t receive any financial help from the Banamex
Ecologic Fund; however, the camp was installed and received aid from the organization Animal
Alliance and veterinarian Beltran Robledo.
62
For the 2007-2008 season, and after several conversations with Maricarmen Casares and Augusto Chacon —Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation’s directives— it was possible to consolidate a
financial aid for the nesting season; and we were also given the suggestion to provide the visitors
with information, and to link our program with Selva Negra’s environmental education program.
With the same formative, educational and diffusion intention, and with more volunteers and
more appropriate installations, we are still co-working in this 2008-2009 season for the protection of nesting females by moving their clutches to the incubation farmyards in front of the camp
so we can give them a better surveillance and have a better control of the hatchlings when they
are born.
At this Palmarito beach, which is 22.5 kilometers long, three sea turtle species nest: Leatherback, Olive Ridley and Black Sea turtle.
This season the camp was installed in late September to watch over the Leatherback and the
Black Sea turtles’ nesting phase, from October to March.We think of taking it away in the middle
of May, when the raining season starts and trips become more difficult because groins are opened
to drain their water into the sea.
Everyday three trips are made parting from La Colorada Camp to the El Vigia hill, and from
there to the camp. The first one starts at 20:30hrs, the second one at 23:00hrs and the last one at
4:00hrs, depending on the circumstances.
Starting this nesting season until today, March 20th 2009, 15 Leatherback nests have been
protected, from which 8 hatched clutches have given a total of 445 hatchlings with a 76% revival rate. From 25 Black Sea turtle protected nests, 20 of them have hatched, from which we
released 1,014 hatchlings, with a 72% revival rate. And from 740 Olive Ridley protected nests,
566 hatched, giving a total of 44.513 released hatchlings, with an 83% revival rate.
Manelik Olivera, Cuauhtemoc Peñaflores, Elpidio Marcelino López, from the Turtle Mexican Center, and Mari Carmen
Casares in Palmarito. Incubation farmyard view..
63
Ruperto Ortega “El Huatulco” working at the incubation farmyard and straddling a Leatherback turtle in Palmarito beach, Oaxaca.
Today four people are working full time during the whole nesting season, along with a biology school intern from U N A M , who develops his thesis research in order to obtain his degree.
It’s important to mention the support we receive from Telephone Foundation, which has
collaborated for some weeks of the season with its volunteer teams. Besides getting to know the
different turtle species and the regional fauna, they make the night trips with us; they contribute
cleaning the beach; they collect plastic —the main pollutant in the planet, which is stored in bags
and after that we send it to the recycling center—; volunteers also help in the iguanary, where
they clean and provide the litters and young ones with food, among other activities.
Thanks to the yearly installation of this camp, the looting of nests by men and their predation
by dogs and wild animals have decreased. Activities to raise awareness over the sea turtles conservation in the surrounding communities have increased; every day in the afternoon, complete
families come to witness the three species’ hatchling release in this beach.
Also during vacation season,Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics School students from the
UA B J O come to support the camp’s activities.
Today, this camp holds the third place in Oaxaca state in Leatherback turtle nesting and the
first place in Black Sea turtle nestings.
64
Testimonies
We’ll learn to be respectful to our environment
Héctor Hiroshi Saishio voluntary’s testimony
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«I’ve acquired a high level of environmental responsibility in the roll we play on the environment’s damage healing. I understood that as we become more and more aware about our acts and
attitudes in our home and work places, we’ll be able to do a little something about this concern
in an easy and simple way, such as saving energy, water, recycling; with these measures way we’ll
learn to be respectful to our environment.»
It is also my responsibility to try to do my bit
Guillermo Raúl Arévalo Sánchez’s testimony
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At the beginning I didn’t know what to think of this experience, though it just took me a a little
while to realize that we were in the right place to give back a little something of what nature
and our planet have given to us. To be in the middle of a technology-free environment and to
be around people whose real concern is saving the environment taught me to be a little more
conscious about my own actions and to realize how these actions directly and indirectly affect
my surroundings. For me, to see how these people are focusing their whole lives into saving the
nature, makes me think about my responsibility to contribute as well, by trying to do my bit.
In the camp we experienced everything: fun, resting and a lot of learning. The recreational
and cultural activities were great; besides, Selva Negra’s attitude towards us was excellent. Definitely, it was one of the best experiences in my life, and, of course, I would recommend it for
everyone to live this kind of experiences; they will change the way you think forever. Once you
live this experience you won’t be the same. In my case, I’m more concerned in not using products
that can damage the environment, in being more careful about my attitude towards my fellowmen and in educating my son in the values of respect and awareness over the environment.
If I had any chance to work with Selva Negra again over any subject related with the environment’s care and nature’s protection, I wouldn’t think it twice. Now, I understand more the
saying: «Many hands make light work.»
65
I became totally trapped in the love of turtles
Julia Tagüeña
Energy Investigation Center, UNAM
Selva Negra, and the Popularization of Science Office (D G D C ) from the National Autono-
mous University of Mexico (U N A M ), February 2009:
One of the projects that I enjoyed the most as the general director of the Popularization of Science Office from the National Autonomous University of Mexico was to work alongside with
Selva Negra, an organization sponsored by Maná band. I met Mari Carmen Casares and Augusto
Chacon in 2004, when I had less than a year as the D G D C ’s director. It was a great deal to
me to see how U N A M has contributed with this great organization on the environmental
education since 2008. Before working with Selva Negra, I was involved with the importance of
sustainable development and the environment care. Nevertheless, I must say that thanks to a visit
we made to Mazunte I became totally trapped in the love of turtles. Mari Carmen and Augusto
transmit their enthusiasm for the causes they fight for; and it’s very encouraging to see the social
compromise held by rock bands, like Maná, because they have a great impact on the youth of
the world.
From a formal point of view, Selva Negra-D G D C (U N A M ) signed an agreement to improve very important actions such as: “mutual concern programs; collaboration and academical
exchange activities in technology, science, professional and academic update, research; and the
popularization of science, editorial, bibliographic and audiovisual material”. One of the fruits
from this collaboration was a document that took part as the Mexican Turtle Center’s restoration project in Mazunte, Oaxaca. In this project, the main exhibition gallery sketches, as well as
the integration of internal and external ponds were presented. Another product that is about to
get concluded is a three TV miniseries about Environmental Educational, where Maná’s music is
present, and it is patent Selva Negra’s commitment with taking care of the planet and of the living beings who inhabited it. In order to carry all this out, the financing obtained by Selva Negra
was essential; but even more essential was their enthusiasm to work. With out any doubts, Selva
Negra has been the driving force behind these projects.
66
Numbers
Teachers
4
Students
2,280
People from the communities
530
Schools we worked with
8
Protected species
3
Olive Ridley protected nests
5,027
Black Sea turtle protected nests
24
Leatherback protected nests
19
Number of Olive Ridley eggs
476,297
Number of Black Sea eggs
1,904
Number of Leatherback eggs
1,168
Released turtles
Olive Ridley
374,240
Black Sea turtle
1,331
Leatherback
604
Looted nests
Palmarito
28
Platanitos
397
Chila
287
Active nests by beach
Palmarito
5
Platanitos
30
Chila
29
Voluntaries by camp
Palmarito
19
Platanitos
9
Chila
78
People who participated in turtle releases, by beach
Palmarito
300
Platanitos
280
Chila
1,856
67
World Environment Day 2007, in Morro Ayutla, Oaxaca.
Leatherback turtle in Barra de la Cruz, Oaxaca.
68
Community Development
Since 2003, each one of Maná members was named Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and
Agriculture Organization (F A O ); and after that, the same year, the band made a donation of
185 thousand dollars to develop a very interesting alimentary project: The Growing Connection,
leadered by the F A O ’s Senior Liaison Officer in Washington: Robert Patterson.
The Growing Connection consists in taking family farmings to women and their children, so
they can cultivate tomatoes, lettuces, beets, onions, etc., at home. The sowing system starts with
the Earth-boxes, plastic boxes —very handy, easy to handle— allowing very productive harvests,
with an 80% water saving. Besides, it tries connect the different participants for them to share
experiences and to socialize knowledge through the internet so that finally, as Bob Patterson
suggested, we would build the certainty, in each individual, that they can take the tools and the
knowledge on their own to fulfill, at least, their basics needs. This way it would be possible to
build a community —underneath, aside from governments and organizations— united by an
ancestral movement: agriculture.
Since The Growing Connection started, Selva Negra promoted it and adopted it as its own.
That way, we invited the University Center for Biological Agricultural Sciences (C U C B A )
from University of Guadalajara (U d e G ), with whom we signed an agreement. Immediately
we took the “boxes” to the Wirrarika (Huichol) area in Jalisco. With the support and knowledge
of teachers Blanca Bojorquez and Jose Sanchez and their students’ strength and disposition, we
installed a greenhouse (essential because of the meteorological conditions of those mountains),
of course, after agreeing with the Haitmatsie community leaders, (indeed, if anyone wants to get
to one of the groups of this ethnic group, these kind of agreements are insurmountable). But besides that, with a doctor from the same university, we made measurements of the kids’ nutrition
level: we wanted to know whether after adding vegetables to their diet, their health would have
a tangible benefit. Three months later, they gathered their first harvest: carrots, beets and lettuces.
Blanca and Jose taught them how to cook them. Many didn’t know carrots, and beets even less.
The “boxes” and the greenhouse caused a big impression among Wirrarikas: it was a blessing for
— 69 —
On Ventanilla’s marsh island, Oaxaca, after releasing crocodiles.
them that they could have a warm space, full of green and that with much less water than any
other cultivation, they would grow so much even in the coldest winter; over there, water, as food,
are limited goods.
Soon enough we took the project to Hacaretsie and to Tenzompa, also in the Wirrarika area.
Then we went to Tuxpan, a Nahuas region at the South of Jalisco. To give you an idea of what
this sowing method means, we’ll tell you what just happened to a group of twenty ladies with 46
boxes: their first harvest gave a half ton of tomatoes.
But getting to this point wasn’t just about importing the boxes from the United States, nor
Bob Patterson and Mickey Linch coaching a team of professors and researchers from U d e G .
Thanks to C U C B A , Blanca and Jose, a research also developed along with of our project in
the communities: With which substrate would the system work better? What sowing method
to use? How much light? What about fertilizers and pesticides? At the beginning, we used one
of the experimental greenhouses from the university center; after that we built one of our own,
in which researchers and students still make experiments, but not only to increase scientific
knowledge, but for this to be useful to the communities: from experiment to daily life. That way
70
we, U d e G researchers, got to the conclusion that coco peat was the perfect substrate and that
earthworm breeding works perfectly for the yield we’re looking for. Both materials are easy to
find and to handle, besides, they’re cheap. One of the consequences of everything that was done
for the project’s sake was that Blanca and Jose wrote a manual that was soon translated to English
and now it’s of extended use.
Unfortunately, component “connection” wasn’t able to run with the same luck: the technological disadvantages and the conditions of the communities we worked with made us abandon
it. But one thing keeps us motivated: kids from Haitmatsie had a remarkable improvement after
adding vegetables to their diet. Where can we see this improvement? In their sight, their skin
(they had many epidermal issues) and in their school performance, as they can pay attention for
more time.
In 2008 we took the project, or better said, program to Oaxaca’s coast; we picked up two
communities, twenty families in each: Escobilla and Rio Seco with the intention of closing the
circle that we think is formed by environment, education and community development. It’s
exciting talking with the ladies, watching them so happy with their “plots”; they come near to
Blanca, to Jose, to us with their notebooks in their hands, to ask a thousand questions, to ask for
more boxes and to learn: the manual is for them a very important tool. Maybe because of the
number of boxes we’ve installed and because of the learning process, and even the change of
culture the sowing method implies, we can’t call The Growing Connection a community development booster.
However, it’s very important to us that the proposal is tested on reality. If we want to save sea
turtles, the environment as we know it, we need to get involved not only in nesting beaches, for
example, or in disappearing woods, but in communities education that are a part of that specific
environment and, of course, it’s essential to pay attention to the quality of life of people. Our vegetable programs is a wink to indicate... There are different ways to make old things! And maybe
there’s a chance of stop doing other things, as turtles predation, if we save the species that moves
us the most: people.
71
Testimonies
History of a vegetable sowing in Nahuas community of Tuxpan, Jalisco, by the
Communities Women Group (Group de Mujeres de las Comunidades)
María de Jesús Patricio
Around 50 women from Tuxpan community (21 from Tuxpan; 15 from San Juan Espanatica and
9 from El Poblado) started a vegetable project, this thanks to Selva Negra Foundation which
brought us the trays and onion and tomatoes seeds, starting our first sowing at June of 2009 with
onion and tomato sowing as Selva Negra brought the plant ready for the transplant. After we
planted onions and tomatoes, women from El Poblado, from San Juan Espanatica and Tuxpan
organized by three people teams to do the watering and plague control which could affect the
plant.
We think we made everything as we were told to, because the way of planting by using trays
was something new and over all, the attentions we had to take. It was a new experience to us because there were doubts popping out during the plants development; there existed hard to answer
doubts, because the one who assisted us was never there and we asked for information to another
person we knew, who was advising us about handling with plagues, and after the fruit was given,
it didn’t give us the best results, as we didn’t prune, we watered a lot and we didn’t know what
to do with the canvas because a biologist visited us, to whom we asked about our vegetables and
he told us the canvas wasn’t necessary because it took the sun away, and sun was necessary for the
plant growing and for it to give us fruit and that this was the reason why it was full of plagues,
because it had lots of shadow; we told him that the person who advised us told us to put it; we
kept making everything as we were oriented and that way the harvest started, it was a bit poor
in relation to what we were expecting and not all the plants gave fruit at the same time because
there was a smaller plant and another one that was bigger, maybe because they were planted ion
a different time. Onion didn’t grow up, it kept being small, they say that’s because we watered a
lot.
Women from El Poblado and San Juan Espanatica communities took the plants and the material, they found where to take everything and in their communities trays arrangements and the
plantation were made, they organized in the same way Tuxpan women did to water and take care
of the plants, they too were told to put the canvas so the results were the same than in Tuxpan.
Mates from El Poblado put them under a roof, and that’s why some plants dried up and gave
poor fruits. It was something new for us, and because of this we were scared of things going out
wrong and we screwed the plant up, this is why we only stayed attached to what was told to us
during the training, which resulted a bit different during the vegetable planting.
72
Recently we seeded romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, chard, beet, cabbage and spinach seeds.
The first ones were born and the one that wasn’t born was the spinach.
One month after the plants were born we transplanted them in the same trays we used for the
tomatoes and the onions, letting the soil rest only for fifteen days and just after that we planted
chard; lettuce is still very small and cabbage is starting to get a plague: a small animal over its leaves
underneath, it has the size of a mosquito which bites strongly which we call “jejen.”
As a conclusion we can say this experience has been important promoting the women organization for the healthy and nutritious food production, which don’t contain pesticides nor
chemical fertilizers; however, we think production must increase for the project to have more impact, which implies a better and more qualified consultancy, because the most prominent mistakes
we made happened because we followed the advices that were given to us (canvas collocation)
and because of how hard conversation can be.
Organic vegetables production program, review and results 2008
Luis Javier Arellano Rodríguez t José Sánchez Martínez
Blanca Bojórquez Martínez t Ana Luz Ávila Mora
This program comes up in 2004, with United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(F A O ) in its Washington D.C. Headquarters, and is brought to the University of Guadalajara by
the Selva Negra Ecologic Foundation.
We have been working uninterruptedly for four years and a half, in which we had the chance
of working in communities from Jalisco, Chiapas and Oaxaca, a school in Estado de Mexico and
in Dominican Republic, where earth-boxes are already installed.
r Nine trainings were given for organic vegetable production, two in Oaxaca, two in Chiapas,
one school in Estado de Mexico and one for kids in a school at DF.
r The number of persons directly participating in the project is 503.
r Families who get benefits from the project are 272
r People who get benefits from the project are: 1,363 approximately
Monitoring has been given through camp trips towards every community for several days,
depending on each one case, besides of telephonic interviews and via e-mail.
At C U C B A there’s a scientific project being developed called Substrate Tests, with the participation of three agriculture students and six professors (five from the agriculture area and one
from biology).
73
2008 Experiments
1.
2.
3.
4.
Preliminary evaluation of homeopathic fertilizer in tomatoes cultivation.
Homeopathic fertilizer evaluation about the tomatoes yield (at process).
Onion in coco peat substrate mixed with two levels of jal particle size evaluation.
Gel evaluation in chard cultivation associated with tomatoes (at process).
Participation at congresses
r XXII National Congress and II Fitogenetics International Congress from September 21st to
26th in 2008, carried out in Chapingo, Estado de Mexico, Mexico.
r Chemical Fertilizers Transformed into Homeopathic Evaluation over Broccoli and Onion by
the Earth Boxesfel Project from F A O s “The Growing Connection”
Mrs. Laura’s garden, family farming project The Growing Connection with FAO in Rio Seco Oaxaca.
74
Perspective
It’s expected that in a no more than a year space Earth-boxes similar boxes could be elaborated in
Mexico, because the current cost in dollars isn’t sustainable; once this happens, it will be possible
to extend the project to many more marginalized communities in the country and to grow in
the ones we’re currently working in.
We’ve given a special tracking to the nutrition aspect in native Huicholes kids, as in 1997
there was an epidermal illness detected, critically presented in kids younger than 12 years old;
according to a doctor from C U C B A at University of Guadalajara which assessed this fact, this
suffering was caused because of avitaminosis. In the year of 2000 it was developed a social diagnosis in Himatsie community, finding then the poor food variability in their diet, that’s why we
started a vegetable production proposal with a system used then in our school called “vertical
cultivations”, we started in 2001 giving not so successful results, for being cultivations which
demanded lots of water.
In 2004 we incorporated the vegetable production system, in the Earth-boxes, covering a bigger number of cultivations (broccoli, cabbage, spinach, chard and beet were added). Since then,
we could notice with satisfaction that the general aspect in Haimatsie and Hakaretsie children
skin is getting better year after year, which fills us with great satisfaction, besides of counting with
the assessment of the doctors assigned to each community by the S S A . It’s because of these successful results we hope to establish the project in as much native communities and marginalized
communities in our country as possible.
In the same way, the research project carried out in C U C B A can give us key aspects to
accomplish a better and more efficient production in communities which lack of the vital fluid,
That’s why we’ll keep it going.
75
Communities and numbers
Communities
Vegetables (Except for Majahuas, in all harvest was verified)
In Jalisco
1. San Miguel del Zapote, Techaluta Town Council, South area
2. Tenzompa, Huejuquilla el Alto town council, North area
3. Haimatsie, Huejuquilla el Alto town council, North area
4. Hakaretsie, Mezquitic town council, north area
5. Tuxpan, seat of government council, South area
6. San Juan Espanatica, Tuxpan town council, South area
7. El Nuevo Poblado, Tuxpan town council, South area
8. Puerto Vallarta, seat of government council
9. Mayto, Cabo Corrientes town council
10. Majahuas, Tomatlan town council
11. C U C B A , University of Guadalajara, Zapopan city
In Oaxaca
1. Escobilla, Tonameca town council
2. Rio Seco, Huamelula town council
Participants
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
»
12
20
100
12
40
20
20
83
12
12
25
20
20
Chiapas
1. San Juan Chamula, Tonameca town council
2. Oxchuc
Estado de Mexico
Huixquilucan, Casa de los Niños de Palo Solo
Montessori School
Totals
People assisted at the communities:
Favored people:
Students who participated:
Schools under Family Farming program:
*Head of family, project thinks about families.
76
371 (272 families)
1,363 approximately
120
5
Schools
Haimatsie, Jalisco (Environmental Education and Family Farmings)
Haimatsie District Elemental School
Contact: Professor Artemio.
Haimatsie District Preschool
Contact: Professor Rosy.
Hakaretsie, Jalisco (Environmental Education and Family Farmings)
Contact: person in charge of Casa de la Salud, Mr. Amado.
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco (Family Farmings)
Contact: Liliana Bojorquez, Armando Soltero Macias and Bartolo Cruz Romero.
Puerto Vallarta Regional High School, University of Guadalajara
Contact: Professor Blanca Bojórquez.
(Sea Turtle, Environmental Education and Family Farmings)
University Center for Biological and Agricultural Sciences
Family farming, from project with FAO and The Growing Connection, in Rio Seco, Oaxaca.
77
FAO
History
Collaboration between Selva Negra Foundation and The Growing Connection started in 2004.
Mexico’s top Group Mana — founder of the Selva Negra Foundation — donated a portion of
the proceeds from its USA tour of concerts to support T G C .
Maná has been named International Goodwill Ambassadors for f ao .
The Selva Negra Foundation has worked closely with c u c b a (Univ. of Guadalajara) on
rural development and environmental education projects. t g c /f ao was introduced to c u c b a
and the University President in September 2004.
Thanks to generous support of Mana t g c was able to expand its activities not only in Mexico but also in Africa, the Caribbean and in other countries of Africa and Latin America.
Testimonials
From students
r I am happy with the knowledge I have gained and have shared it with my parents and my
friends. I have enjoyed receiving my share of the produce and the money that was shared from
sales. — Kwesi Debrah, Student, Ghana.
r Throughout this program I have grown and changed. My eating habits have changed. I have
gone from eating nothing but junk to eating a salad every night with dinner. I now know
why it is important to eat healthily. Lot of health problems and diseases may be cured by adding herbs to your diet. — Marissa Emerizy, Student U S A .
r «I really liked talking to the students from Ghana on the computer… They had a lot of good
questions and even answered all of ours. They have been growing with EarthBoxes for a long
time so my class can learn a lot from them.» — Yonis Amaya, Seaton Elementary School,Washington, D C , U S A .
r «This was my first time getting my hands deep in soil and getting them very dirty.» Joanna
Bui, Cardinal Bevilacqua Community Center, Philadelphia, P A , U S A .
r «It’s very beautiful to watch how from a seed the life of a new plant begins. I watched how the
little seeds grow into a new plant and how through watering it and feeding it, it grows. And
with the passing of days this seed transforms into an adult plant and after flowers grow and
from them the new fruits. Also I like sharing my experience with my other friends and how
we are learning together.» — Diana Yareli Arellano Zaragoza, T G C Program at the University
of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico.
78
r
r
r
r
r
r
r
«The most interesting subject for which I have learned so many things about is the agricultural sciences. I have learned how to grow and care for vegetables like cabbages, carrots,
garden eggs (small white eggplants), tomatoes, hot peppers, green peppers and so on, without using chemicals on them.» — Bernard Arko, Cape Coast School for the Deaf, Cape Coast,
Ghana.
«We are very hopeful that by the time we will complete our school, we will become independent modern agriculturalists». — Prince Abieku, student, Cape Coast School for the Deaf, Ghana.
The knowledge gained made me offer myself voluntarily to stay on campus to take charge
of the farm, though school was on vacation. I have always received my share of the produce
and the money that was shared from the sales, which has made the project very attractive to
non-members. I am therefore urging my friends from other parts of the world to be members
of The Growing Connection Project. — James Botchwey is a student at the Cape Coast School
For the Deaf in Ghana.
I’m Omar and I’m 10 years old, I participate in U N ’s project, in the picture there’s me with
my dad when we planted in the boxes, I would like to tell you my experience. I’ve learned
that fruits and vegetables are very healthy, but it isn’t easy for us kids to eat them. It’s not
normal to see a kid by the street eating a carrot and to those kids who tell us “eat an apple or
some other fruit”, I really thank them. Second thing I’ve learned: How to plant and to harvest
and I learned how important vegetables and fruits are.
I’m going to tell you some more things, about how kids from 2004-2005 are and how I
think 2006-2007 kids are going to be; kids today are greedy, we eat junk food as chips, sweets,
chocolates, etc. And I picture kids from the future healthy and strong.That’s why F A O is the
best in world’s feeding. At school I told them something about the project, what is the FAO,
how’s the project, who are making it possible... and my classmates thanked me very much,
they said that if there was any more information, I should tell them. Thank you all, eat well
and soon I’ll tell you more things — Omar Alejandro Posos Parra, TGC program in University
of Guadalajara, Mexico.
I enjoy agricultural science activities in the school farm so much and I bless all those concerned with the success of the programme (T G C ). — Joseph Amissah, School for the Deaf,
Cape Coast, Ghana.
I liked the experience because I have never really talked to someone from another country. I
am excited to talk to them again and see how their plants are growing. — Marlenie Ortega,
Seaton Elementary School,Washington, D C , U S A .
Hi, my name is Diana Yareli and I’m 11 years old. I’m very happy because they invited me to
participate in this project. It’s very nice to see how from a little seed a new plant life is starting. It’s like when my little brother Jhesua Emmanuel was born. I first saw how my mother’s
belly was growing and then after that, how it became so big and how it moved. An then a day
arrived when I already had my little brother in my arms, he’s so cute that watching him is like
79
r
watching God himself, so peaceful, without any malice, a cry that calms you down. It’s like a
miracle of nature. In the same way I’ve seen in plants how from the little seed a new small
plant sprouts and how this, as we water it and feed it, grows up. And after we transplant it in
pots we keep watering them and feeding them. And with the passing of time that little seed
transforms into an adult plant and flowers sprout, such as new fruits. It’s a very nice experience. I also have learned that food is very important. I like it when they teach us how to sow
and when they teach to those who don’t have resources so they themselves can produce their
own food.
I also like socializing with my other little friends and how we learn together. I like socializing
with kids with no resources, to teach them what I’ve learned and for them to practice it and
get excited as I do.This Christmas I wish there’s no more malnutrition in the world.That rich
countries transform their weapons into food. May God always be with us — Diana Yareli
Arellano Zaragoza, from T G C program in University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
This is the first time that I have planted food that we would be able to eat… I’d like to know
what the kids in the school in Mexico and the other kids are going to do with the food they
grow. — Brittany Coffield, Cardinal Bevilacqua Community Center, Philadelphia, P A , U S A .
From teachers
r «I have moved kids from selling crack to cucumbers —and no one has ever shot another
person over a cucumber.» — Steve Ritz, teacher, U S A .
r «Today, I am very proud to say that people hope for a brighter future has been restored
through the kind courtesy of T C G .» — Aaron Ato-Davis, teacher, Ghana.
r The introduction of T G C into the school had really opened our minds to scientific ways of
making gardening. — Emmanuel Abiew is a teacher at the Cape Coast School for the Deaf
in Cape Coast, Ghana.
From Global Board Advisors:
r «The Growing Connection is growing the next generation.» — Vint Cerf, Chief Internet
Evangelist, Google and one of the Fathers of the Internet.
r «The Growing Connection is on the cutting edge of the type of hands-on learning that
makes education come alive for students, even as it strengthens global understanding and
community.Wow.» — Professor Delaine Eastin, Former California Superintendent of Public
Instruction.
From F A O
80
Training given to students from Tomas Moro School by Blanca Bojórquez and Jose Sanchez for the family farming
use, in Distrito Federal.
r
«Our partnership with Mana and Selva Negra has been a key force, making The Growing
Connection a reality. From the beginning, Mana believed in this project, and Selva Negra’s
organizational work has allowed us to build a network of thousands of young people, all
working together in network green, productive solutions to hunger and poverty.» — Robert
Patterson, f ao Washington, Coordinator, The Growing Connection.
81
Fher Olvera with music students and their teacher, with the instruments Selva NegraEPOBUFEt Maná,
in Escobilla, Oaxaca.
Bob Patterson (FAO) in the greenhouse made by Huejuquilla el Alto high school students, Jalisco.
To the right, Jose Sanchez (UdeG) training Tomas Moro School students.
82
¡Aterrízate!
With the purpose of making good use of the resources solicited by Selva Negra, and as part of
U N A M ’s support for the turtles issue by making use of its 2006 budget allocation -which was
approved by the Chamber of Deputies-, we decided along with Dr. Julia Tagüeña (who at the
time was in charge of DGDC and of Universum museum) to create a series of educational and
popularization of science videos. Through these videos we indented to show how important it is
that every person becomes environmentally aware.There, we presented comments by experts and
images accounting for the environmental deterioration -which is greatly a consequence of the
population’s ignorance and neglect of issues such as preserving and taking care of the environment. Personalities such as Dr. Jose Sarukhan, authorities, members of the scientific community
in our country, enterprise employees and managers allowed us to approach the subject from their
own point of view and knowledge. Selva Negra shows their responsibility for, and consistency
with the work they do, through the voice and presence of Fher of Maná; as well as through the
voice of other members of our organization which are contacted and invited to reflect upon this
subject in order to raise awareness of what every and each one of us must do: take care of the
planet.
Today, the series ¡Aterrízate! has got three videos and our objective is to find support from
other sponsors who want to share the effort to make this initiative grow by media broadcasting
these messages which -in the popularization field- aim to inform in order to be able to modify.
— 83 —
General Motors
The starting point was at Mazunte, from there to Ventanilla, Escobilla and Rio Seco. The education workshop Yo Soy… was getting to be known in that area of Oaxaca, and so, it’s demand increased because schools and teachers who wanted to take it to their classrooms began to ask for it.
Issues such as family farmings, preservation, and the interest to produce a change and undertake
alternatives took us to look for a vehicle of our own for Selva Negra. The necessity of getting to
a bigger number of communities has always been considerable; getting in touch with people from
this place was essential: we couldn’t not reach more people because of a lack of time, namely, the
time inverted in roadways (going along them you can learn about the locals’ daily life and you
get the freshest, juiciest news from the place).
In this continuous search for alliances for the sake of the growth of our program, Selva Negra
got in touch with some car brands, but we couldn’t link to anything attractive according to who
we are and what we want to show. Finally, because of amazing reasons, G M came in with a proposal for their company: they wanted Selva Negra to support them at designing and coordinating
a reforestation in which their employees could participate. We started working, along with the
Forestall National Commission (Conafor) looking for a space near to DF to perform this activity,
and also suggesting what the logistics would be.
We agreed on joining their reforestation on August 16th 2008; and also on recording a message from Maná to G M on the occasion of their 100 anniversary. In exchange they would help
us get a car, manufactured by G M , of course.The day of the event arrived and Juan, Maná bassist,
accompanied us to the reforestation and broke the record of the biggest number of trees seeded
individually. Thank you Juan!
Since that moment, we had our Selva Negra car, transporting us through Oaxaca’s coast, from
Salina Cruz to Chacahua (approximately 300 km from destination to destination) constantly
looking for answers for everything that moves us in the area. And the best part of it: we planted
5 thousand pines by the Nevado de Toluca proximity, in the Santiago Tlacotepec community,
which committed themselves to take care of them.
— 84 —
Panamerican Health Organization
PAHO names Selva Negra «Champion of Health»
Selva Negra is an environmentalist entity created by the members of rock band
Maná, from Mexico.
Founded by the members of the famous Mexican rock band Maná, Selva Negra devotes itself all
around the word to support and promote ecologic and environment protection projects; subjects that are today, April 7th, part of the central subject matter for the World Health Day 2008.
Washington D.C., April 7th 2008 (PA H O ) – Selva Negra Foundation, environmentalist entity established by lead members of the Mexican rock
band Maná, received today from the Panamerican
Health Organization (PA H O ) “The Americas’
Champion of Health”award during the official
World Health Day 2008; commemorative event
that was celebrated today in t h e PA H O ’s regional headquarters in Washington D. C.
PAHO Director Dr. Mirta Roses presents the award
to Augusto Chacon and Mari Carmen Casares, of
Through this award the PA H O honors
Selva Negra Foundation
Selva Negra’s efforts in environmental preservation and social development, causes that are being promoted as part of the 2008 World Health Day campaign, “Protecting Health from Climate
Change”
“I want to congratulate and to thank Selva Negra Foundation for their social and environmental responsibility,” said PA H O Director Dr. Mirta Roses Periago after presenting the
award to Augusto Chacon, Selva Negra Foundation’s general director, and Mari Carmen Casares,
deputy director.
— 85 —
Selva Negra Foundation supports pres-
ervation, environmental education, sustainable agriculture projects and other similar projects in Mexico and in many other
countries in Latin America and the rest of
the world. Their founders, Fher Olvera,
Alex, Gonzalez, Sergio Vallin and Juan Calleros are members of the rock band Maná,
and also are Goodwill Ambassadors of the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (F A O ).
Mari Carmen Casares and Juan Calleros reforestation at
Established in 1995, the foundation was
the foot of Nevado de Toluca, Estado de Mexico.
originally focused on the reforestation of
forests in Mexico and other Latin American
countries. Since then their job has included endangered species protection, such as sea turtles,
recycling initiatives and educational projects, and also supporting communities which have been
afflicted by natural disasters. The foundation also works with young people in violence and substance abuse prevention projects.
One of Selva Negra’s most recent projects promotes initiatives for the construction and
maintenance of small, sustainable and highly productive family farmings in which water is saved,
in order to ultimately, make nutrition improvements possible, specially in kids and women. This
initiative is taking place today in 11 countries, including Ghana, in Africa and Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United States in the Americas.
“Health and environment are two components of the same matter,” Chacon said when he
received the award. “The quality of life of human beings, and of all the species we share the planet
with and the future viability of this planet, at least as we know it today.”
“We learned this not very long ago,” Casares said. “All the environmental work we might
do will be futile if we don’t include human beings interacting with other species and with endangered regions. Today we know it: hope for the sea turtles in Mexico’s seaboards, inevitably
depends on the economic and cultural rescue of each one of the communities which surround
them.”
The PA H O was established in 1902 and is the world’s oldest health organization. It’s the
Americas Regional Office of the World Health Organization and it works with countries to improve health and increase their inhabitants’ quality of life.
86
Common consciousness
At the beginning of 2007 we had a very interesting meeting at the Palacio Nacional (Mexico
City). We showed what we were doing in Oaxaca before a group of public policy decision makers, who had access to economic resources and experience in social and environmental work,
and who had the will of making something for Mexico. The core of what we presented was: It’s
possible to include environmental protection in the development schemes, the condition for this
to happen is to make communities participate in it, both in progress as in ecologic preservation.
We got the best comments, everyone agreed; in consequence they invited us to another meeting,
similar to this one but wider, to formulate pertinent actions. Our answer was: All right, but let’s
change the headquarters, may the next meeting be not at the Palacio Nacional, but at a coastal
community in Oaxaca, so reality doesn’t stay just as a speech. We suggested adding people, to
their own place, surrounded by their atmosphere... We suggested naming and giving texture to
everything that we wanted to include for the economic development, for the environmental
protection. There hasn’t been a follow-up to that encounter.
In October 2007 we took theYo Soy... workshop to the Child’s Kite Museum (Papalote, Museo
del Niño), in Mexico City. The program turned out pretty well, we moved some consciences by
tackling the environment subject in a different way; we know it because some of the participants
(young people coursing the last years of elementary school up to high school) ended up deeply
convinced of the need of doing something in favor of the ecology. And they will, when they go to
the country or the sea, places in which, as they said, the natural environment is found.
In August 2008, after a half an hour walk through the jungle, in a Zapotecan community
called Hierba Santa, in Oaxaca, we arrived to Mrs. Malena’s hut; she’s a potter, and she’s an expert
making “comales”. She says she thinks she’s 78 years old. She separates wastes in an impeccable
manner: organics are given to her hens -which freely mill around (they sleep in the hut, around
Mrs. Malena bed)-, glass has its storage place, so does plastic.
“Why do you separate plastic?” we asked.
“Because they told us to separate it...”
“Who?”
“There.” And she shows there. “Some guys who sometimes give us talks at school...”
“And what do you do with this plastic?”
— 87 —
“I burn it all; that’s what they tell us to do.”
Some days later, in Hierba Santa, Mrs. Malena’s grandchildren (who are women-kids: childhood in their gaze, adult responsibility in their daily life) talk to journalists Agustin del Castillo
and Marco Aurelio Vargas: “If you could ask for something to the authorities, what would you
ask for?”
“A doctor to come to the clinic once in a while. Well, we’d be happy with a nurse; and we’d
ask for medicines.”
Some of the hills which surround this community of one hundred people, many of its hectares,
are dismantled; the jungle goes down, abruptly interrupted, to sow corn. People have to eat.
When we say “Mexico” we refer to an amazing plurality and diversity; although we prefer
to think -for the sake of convenience, or to relieve our consciousness- that by invoking it we’ll
cover everything. It doesn’t work that way. Part of our search is to build bridges between those
particular realities; for them to meet face to face, to get to know each other, but most of all: to
dialogue and to understand each other. We’re convinced this is essential if we really want to pay
attention to the structural problems the country suffers.
That’s the way we do it every day: we go from D F to Guadalajara; from universities, from
big companies, from F A O and the federal government, to Oaxaca’s coast, to the Wirrarikas’ and
Nahuas’ groups; from Maná to the academic spaces, to books... wanting to build bridges. Doing
it this way is a part of us. But it’s not enough, these bridges don’t get to be passable as soon as
we would like. That’s why we thought of putting certain people, companies and governments
together in a same place to pass the message on: there’s a bunch of Mexicos waiting to be heard
and there’s only one way: to all work together. We would take advantage of Maná’s commitment
with Selva Negra and of course, their power to draw people.
We talked about the idea with Reforestamos Mexico, the civil association of Bimbo Group
and they liked it: a Maná concert, very exclusive: we would gather there the most important decision makers and the public power; and at the same time we could raise funds for both organizations.We’d add up Maná’s and Bimbo’s calling power. The concert would only be the excuse: the
main reason would be moving consciences, unifying efforts.
From the president of the country, going through Daniel Servitje, and the United States’
ambassador in Mexico, and through Fher, Alex, Sergio Ulises and Juan (Maná), up to gathering
1,500 people, on April 24th 2008 the concert took place, it was memorable. The music’s energy
and the guests, the will to change things, the love for Mexico, the work of Selva Negra and of
Reforestamos Mexico, traced the imaginary bridge that now we have to build: one that touches
every cardinal point, every social class, every identity, every culture...
The concert and the social and environmental message it left in those who were there, set
some groundings; there’s still much to do. It’s our job, Selva Negra’s and everyone’s job to finish
building the bridge and cross it over from one side to the other, in every sense.We’re working on
this: provided with a never ending commitment.
88
Reforestamos México
Teamwork increases results!
Ernesto Herrera t General Director
2008 was a year of great accomplishments for Reforestamos México. First, we consolidated our
team, projects and partnerships; and institutionally we made us known and spread out our message in favor of forests and jungles to a large segment of the population.
We must highlight the Maná’s concert we organized along with Selva Negra – an organization that shares our values. Thanks to this great and fun concert our organization got a great
boost. The event not only helped raising funds to install nurseries in schools of urban and rural
areas of eight states, but also promoted the development of local capacities for forest sustainable
management among the Tepehuana’s population of Sierra del Nayarit, Durango.The event also managed to place the important issue of conservation
in a circle of people who have the ability to positively influence our society.
It is noteworthy that after the concert, many asked for our help to develop
programs aimed at promoting environmental awareness and action. The
Mexico City Decefforts were worth it.
ember 2008
Thank you very much, Selva Negra, for helping us to accomplish the
task of maintaining and restoring the trees and forest ecosystems through
sustainable management, environmental culture and the participation of all sectors of society, in
favor of persons and their environment. Teamwork increases results!
Together, we reforest Mexico!
From July 2007 Selva Negra and Reforestamos Mexico joined forces, values and objectives,
forming an alliance that transcended distance.
During April 2008, Selva Negra and Reforestamos Mexico worked together for the first time
to organize an acoustic concert with the band Maná, in order to thank all those people who
supported the projects of the Program Create Forests and El Nayar. In both places, this program
created small school nurseries; the latter in the mountains of Durango. It also aimed to thank the
sustainable forest management program on the coast of Oaxaca.
This alliance —whose initial act was a concert— was in fact the result of converging in the
conviction that music is a useful tool to pass on that conservation and and environmental protection are urgent tasks.
89
Fher at the Selva Negra-Reforestamos Mexico concert.
Alex at the Selva Negra-Reforestamos Mexico concert, Sergio Vallin at his right in the
same concert.
90
An amazing experience of connection with this cause and with the beneficiary communities
was lived at the concert by several groups of society, among which we could count some social
and political influential people.
The results reflected the teamwork developed by the two associations, which helped to
achieve the previously established goals. This made clear that teamwork helps to do more and to
go further.
In this connection we would like to inform about some of the results we attained thanks to
the donations.
Crea Bosques
At a national level, this program produces trees in small school nurseries, which contributes to
promote a forest culture among rural and urban children studying primary school.
Miniviveros escolares apoyados por Selva Negra
Throughout the school year students were sensitized on issues like climate change, the importance of trees and forest ecosystems; as well as in the small nurseries workshops on germination, planting and care of trees, that were supported by Selva Negra.
School year
School
Students
2007-2008
101
7,184
2008-2009
187
11,999
During the past school year, the students brought into life about eighteen thousand trees,
which served to reforest ten parks and forest areas in eight states.
The 2008-2009 school year began with the training of 28 teachers. The goal for 2009 is to
have 250 schools registered.
91
Forestry Development Tepehuano, Sierra de Nayar, Durango
Ernesto Herrera, General Director t Reforestamos México, A.C.
We promoted the sustainable forest management by developing capacities for self-management
of natural resources in local communities. In El Nayar we seek to foster the use of 300 thousand
hectares of coniferous forest through the participation of Tepehuanos’ young people organized
into brigades. The four Tepehuano fellows of this program have produced eight thousand plants
and have incorporated the technique of transplantation of medium trees from hill to hill, relocating1,700 trees to places where they are needed. The coverage and impact of our actions at
Reforestamos Mexico strengthened as we found such a committed and dedicated partner like Selva Negra.
Thank you for your trust and for being part of this great
effort. We hope to continue working together.
It is our conviction that it is everyone’s responsibility to help.
Nurseries with Tepehuanos.
Ana Servitje t Colegio Tomas Moro, Mexico City
Last year Mari Carmen Casares went to the Colegio Tomas Moro to give us a conference of the
Selva Negra Foundation and its projects mainly the one of sea turtles, who swim in our seas. We
got to know the objectives of the Selva Negra and what it has done in recent years; also how did
it came to life and their plans to grow.
Selva Negra is a foundation started in 1996 as a result of Maná’s concern about the environment. It is not only devoted to conservation and reforestation, but also seeks the environmental
education so that there are not only four but many persons concerned about our forests, jungles
and animals.
I think this conference was very fruitful, because now we not only know of this foundation
but it raised awareness in our school and was a reminder of how it is time that everyone contribute to help the environment. That day after the conference, some colleagues and I approached
Mari Carmen because of our belief that it is everyone’s responsibility to help, and in the conversation she mentioned the environmental education program that Selva Negra carries out in some
communities of the country, and invited us to participate in one of the programs.
It’s time we act to protect our planet and Selva Negra is a model for us youngsters; it also
opens doors to participate in their projects, to learn from them and to teach others.
92
Conferences
Date
Place
Conference
04-Jun-07
CUHM
Conservation of Sea Turtles
01-Aug-07
INEGI t Aguascalientes
Selva Negra Foundation’s perspective on
Environmental Protection
X Congress International Engineering and
Design’s keynote:
Development and Science: an engine of
sustainable growth.
08-Nov-07
Univa
23-Nov-07
School of Herpetology t
Querétaro
29-Nov-07
UdeG
School of Social Work at the University of
Guadalajara: from science to civil action.
06-Dic-07
Mexican Association
of Professionals and
Technicians in Tourism,
AC
The Selva Negra’s Path
07-Nov-08
UdeG
Selva Negra Foundation
04-Apr-08
IMAE t Aguascalientes
Selva Negra Foundation
07-Apr-08
World Health
Organization t
Washington
Rescue and environmental conservation
01-Jul-08
Univa
Selva Negra Foundation
31-Jul-08
ExpoJoven t Expo
Guadalajara
Ecological conservation
Topic: From Science to civil action, the
learning of Selva Negra.
— 93 —
Conference at the Centro Universitario Hispano Mexicano in Veracruz.
94
University Community Services
Selva Negra is a very attractive organization for young people; many approach us to join in or to
render their university community services with us. Many students of the University of Guadalajara participate, some as volunteers, others as part of a course; while many others participate by
rendering their community services in Chila camp, Nayarit or in F A O ’s project, The Growing
Connection, with Wirrarika communities. A few examples: Almendra Azpeitia, an International
Relations student of U d e G , worked efficiently for 900 hours in our offices; Leonardo Alvarado
has been to the Wirrarika mountain ranges and to the camps in Oaxaca and Nayarit; Ruben
Hernandez Saldaña, a Biology graduate of U N A M , was in Palmarito for the 2008-2009 season; Laura Martin, of Univer, helped us in the office for almost half a year; students of the Autonomous University Benito Juarez of Oaxaca have too been conducting research in Palmarito.
Marisol Castruita helped us as a part of her academic courses, and as a volunteer, in Chila camp’s
activities, in Nayarit; afterward she joined the team in Palmarito for four months, doing a great
job. We include the testimonials of two students of the Universidad Iberoamericana, who, as this
report is being published, are still with us.
— 95 —
Testimonials
Selva Negra Foundation
Rodrigo Cravioto t Andrés Medina-Mora
Iberoamerican University (UIA), Mexico City
According to our university community services project, we got to go to Palmarito Camp in
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Through the journey we learned about the turtle eggs collection
process in the beach, and how it is that during this process you are competing with “hueveros”,
who steal the turtle eggs to sell them as food.We also had the chance to meet some of the nearby
communities and to understand a little bit of the problems they live with; as well as to know the
main products the communities’ economy is based on, such as coffee, peanuts, chili, sesame seeds
and even cosmetic products.
We decided to focus on some projects that can improve Selva Negra’s establishment and
productivity in the camp as well as in the communities; we think common measures can be
implemented to support them both.
Taking into consideration the camp’s touristic potential, we thought that investing a little
more in that area could serve two main objectives: educating tourists and locals about breeding
turtles and the special care they require; as well as achieving additional and more formal economic returns, namely, to charge a minimum rate per tourist that little by little would help support
and strengthen the camp, hence, creating a more established project.
On this subject, we also think that the camp could probably create a handbook about the care
and collection of eggs.This, upon considering that many volunteer groups that work in the camp
arrive from different organizations, and if they were already well informed, then a lot of the time
for explaining would be saved and they would be able to help upon arrival with specific issues,
both in the community as in the camp.
We also have the idea of creating a merchandiser company through Selva Negra in order to
sell products made by the neighboring communities which would benefit from these sells. This
merchandiser company could have a space in the camp aimed at tourists, as well as a branch in
Federal District in order for the foundation and the communities to achieve bigger national expore, and to possibly increase the flow of tourists.
Furthermore, we also deem a good idea the creation of an eco-tourist center were products
from the area could be marketed. It could be aimed mainly at tourists who are interested in saving
96
the turtles; this way we could have some tourists in the eco-tourist center helping the foundation
with tours, diffusion, etc.
When visiting the camp, we realized just how important this university community service is and some of the ways we can help the camp, being our main objective to help the
turtles. Of course, after visiting other camps, we perceived this one to be an exemplary camp,
as we had been told; however, despite it being exemplary we think there’s still room for it
to improve.
This way, we want to help along with Selva Negra by proposing some projects we have already studied and through which productivity of the place can be increased, as well as helping the
communities because it will be less likely for them to steal eggs if they themselves benefit from
Selva Negra.We think it’s a great opportunity for us to undertake some of the proposals we made
with knowledge we have acquired in our studies.
6OJWFSTJUZDPNNVOJUZTFSWJDF
María José de la Calle t Marisol Campillo
Iberoamerican University (UIA), Mexico City.
The country we live in has in its favor a very wide range of biodiversity. Despite having many
natural areas and unique species in the world, not many people have the chance to live with this
nature; this is why we think that the foundation has a very important role for the development
of natural regions and species inhabiting the same land as us.
It was very important for us to be able to help with our environment. Beside Selva Negra’s
work plan, we considered something to be very important at the moment of making the decision of where to render our university community service: The idea of being able to contribute
a little bit in an environmental preservation organization, and to help people live together with
the different species is very important, for this way, we’ll be able to help in the shift required by
our country regarding its environmental education.
We deemed very useful the opportunity we had of going to the camp because we could obtain a wider idea of what life outside the city is like; we could grasp the magnitude and far-reaching scope that this project is achieving. The impact we experienced by doing the camp activities
was basic for us to have a clearer idea of many things that go on in our country, and for us to feel
more committed to help change the situation.
97
From an industrial engineering standpoint, we have the idea of analyzing the situation lived
in the camp and in the other programs that are part of Selva Negra to later design a procedure or
a guide to help with the implementation of what we want to do in theory. We think it would be
very useful to make diagrams and charts in which the processes that are going on can be reflected;
be them about everything that the camp implies or the workshops. This way, every person will
have a clear idea of what and how is done, even if they themselves are not directly involved with
the organization’s activities. We aim to pass on information in a clear way.
98
Tabasco
In the presence of Gustavo Lara Alcantara, general director of BBVA Bancomer Foundation; Augusto Chacon, general director of Selva Negra Ecological Foundation; members of music group
Maná, with Fher Olvera as the leader; and professor Carlos Briseño, of the University of Guadalajara, the actions that will be undertaken by these institutions in favor of victims of the flooding
in Tabasco and Chiapas were presented.
Thanks to the support and solidarity of the Mexican society, and of civil associations such as
Selva Negra, more than 52 million pesos have been collected and will be used —through agreements with federal and state education authorities, as well as with the governments of Tabasco
and Chiapas— to acquire and renew the furnishing of 600 schools in the case of Tabasco, and for
the construction of three schools in Nuevo Juan de Grijalva’s town council, Chiapas.
Selva Negra Foundation have not just contributed in an altruistic manner with an important
donation, but together with B B VA Bancomer Foundation, is also actively participating in this
educational project; working for education is one of the basic tenets for both organizations.
Selva Negra’s participation and labor is made evident through the music group, Maná, whose
tour will travel across a big part of Mexico, and in their concerts will promote donations through
the B B VA Bancomer Foundation’s account: 0 4 A P O YA M E . Apart from allocating more
than 8 million pesos for the construction of a nursery school, a primary and a jr. high school in
the state of Chiapas, the objective of both foundations is to raise more donations in order to support more education centers.
Education institutions such as the University of Guadalajara have also joined economic efforts to support victims from the states which were affected by the October 2007 flooding. On
their side, the Technological of Monterrey (I T E S M ) and the Tec Milenio University have also
showed their commitment with Tabasco, for they will act as solicitors among the institutions they
are related to so that they too contribute with an important number of computers for public
schools in the state, in order to change the ones that were damaged.
— 99 —
Ecological Land Classification
Progress has populated history with wonders andtechnology monsters, but it has vacated men’s lives. It has
given us more things, not more being.
O c tav i o Pa z
Economic and social developments are greatly assessed by the number of public works going
on, by how communicated different regions are or aren’t, by the construction of hotels and golf
fields. A road, a dam, electric wires or the roaring of air conditioning equipments: all these are,
automatically, unquestionable signs of progress.
Why did we chose to incorporate this topic in Selva Negra’s agenda?
The way we have been working, at ground level and serving at the time conversations or the
sunset take place, has allowed us to bump into the victims of modernity: entire communities who,
by being pushed by asphalt and private investments, become invisible along with their culture,
their history, their life.
After some years of traveling along the coast of Oaxaca, trying to understand and to feel
what this land means to the inhabitants of this area, one begins to perceive that development has
just become accessible for these communities through the road, provided by the federal in 2008.
It’s very particular objective was to improve communication between the coast and the center
of the sate in order to encourage productive activities that would bring economic resources. At
first sight, the benefits of this infrastructure work can’t be denied; but, as someone close to Selva
Negra alerted us, if we’re not careful and can’t fully see the implications of this, it’ll end up as
always: this won’t benefit the area and its communities, but once again, we will have done everything exclusively for the advantage of those who have the purchasing power.
The description we made of progress in the first paragraph seem to indicate that we’re
against economic investment. No, it isn’t so. We have the conviction that the predatory instinct
of an uninformed capital can be modulated if we’re capable of integrating the communities and
their people in the planning of a development that they’re concerned with (about this matter,
we quoted Alberto Escobar and Alvaro Pedrosa in the introduction of this report). Better yet, if
we’re capable of giving economic importance to other indicators, both investors and common
people can benefit without one’s welfare being in detriment of the other’s. In Bill McKibben’s
Deep Economy, The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, 2007, it is stated in the
introduction:
100
Baby crocodiles are released at the mash island in Ventanilla, Oaxaca. To the right, an illegal construction; it violated
local and federal norms, threatening the community and nature.
Some of the arguments I’ll put forward through these pages will seem familiar: growth is not making
most people richer; instead it’s generating inequity and insecurity. Growth is pushing towards such
deep physical boundaries —such as climate change and oil reserves— that the economic expansion
might be impossible, and even more: the sole attempt of expanding it seems dangerous. And there is
yet something else, a wild card we’re just getting to understand: new research from many different offices has started to show that even if growth would make us wealthier, greater wealth no longer makes
us happier.12
There are few terms as repulsive for the academic rigor as happiness; any governor would feel
embarrassed even to think of writing down happiness as their management goal in some of their
speeches. But in the end, isn’t it what living is all about, being happy? Of course, we won’t deny
it, it is not a very precise term. There are as many definitions of happiness as there are people; but
it is exactly because of that that we can no longer propose progress, development, growth, coming
from any place calling itself “the center”; at least, not as long as the other is not taken into consideration. The other holds a fundamental element in any notion of progress we’d like to analyze:
land property. But this has always been known, it doesn’t spring from a new perspective, and has
been solved by the means of expropriation —be it negotiated, violent or dishonest.
The Huatulco effect can still be seen in the coast of Oaxaca; it’s floating in the atmosphere
since the 1960’s, and its origin lies on a certainty hold by the big capital: the only obstacle to investment and progress is people. But in Huatulco and in Cancun and in a thousand more places
this was overturned. The only thing that Foundations of the illegal construction that aimed to be
12
Bill McKibben, Deep Economy,The Wealth of Communities And The Durable Future, Holt Paper Back, 2007, pp. 2-3.
101
Cimientos de la edificación ilegal que buscaba ser un hotel. Gracias al esfuerzo de la Red de los Humedales de la
Costa de Oaxaca, la comunidad de Ventanilla y Selva Negra, las autoridades federales detuvieron la construcción.
a hotel. Thanks to the effort of Red de los Humedales in the Oaxacan coast,Ventanilla community and Selva Negra, federal authorities were able to stop the construction. Sprouted among the
dispossessed was rage as if it were weed, climbing up the walls, covering everything, and preventing dialogue and the possibility of trust.
Latin America: ruins, nature and some blurry figures —the hotel’s employees and manager.13
Nevertheless, after such a long digression, the dilemma we faced given the imminent construction of the roadway wasn’t whether to build it or not, but rather: development, yes. But
how to achieve it, by including who? We thought of a legal resource that might be helpful: the
Ecological Land Classification, and we went to federal authorities to suggest it: it was necessary
to go to the area, talk to people and promote the legal implementation of this classification by
the local government. But, what is this classification about? It refers to establishing what the usage
and vocations of an extension of territory should be; this is established after public consultations
and only after reaching wide agreements. The result, we believe, will be that even with all and
the drive of big capitals to grab lands (it is already happening), having a regulation on the usage
of the land according to the will of agrarian communities, communal farmers (ejidos), citizens,
local economic sectors and local governments, will avoid them all —their lives and assets— from
being left at the expense of the highest bidder. But besides this, the task of classifying territory
can be very enriching in itself: they will take over their physical space by describing it, counting
the activities that go on in specific workshops; and if the process is carried out well enough, they
13
102
Octavio Paz, Posdata, Siglo XXI Editores, 1981, p. 65.
Doña Malena, manufacturer of earthenware “comales,” her granddaughters and Mari Carmen Casares in the mountains of Hierba Santa, Oaxaca.
will dare apply for a future that belongs to them and their geography. In conclusion, they will
recognize their vital space as having not just an economic value, but as being part of them, of their
identity, their history, their family and their dreams.
And we made it; we managed to take the cooperative of Escobilla to the secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, Juan Elvira, and to many federal government employees. We
summoned town council presidents of the coast and social organizations and, on August 9, we
talked with all of them about the importance of classifying the territory. All this was carried out
thanks to the great logistics and intellectual collaboration of Inti Escalona, who leads La Ventana,
A.C. The agreements we reached are specified in a digital copy.
After that meeting we held another one, also in the coast, and together with La Ventana, we
decided to address the effort towards those town councils which we perceived as being more
likely to undertake the classification, in the first place. Because of the nature of this task, and the
results we look for, it is not easy that political factors, be they formal or informal, would facilitate
the process nor that they would even agree to do it. We decided to do it in three town councils:
San Pedro Huamelula, Santiago Astata and Tututepec; and we went to see their respective presidents. There was an amazing acceptance in Tututepec and San Pedro Huamelula; but the way
Astata’s town council president conducted himself made it impossible for us to meet him as we
had agreed on. Nevertheless, we will go forth with the plan, and in one year space, in June 2010,
the study will be finished.
103
104
105
What are we seeking to obtain?
We want to propose a balance in which the combined interests are able to boost prosperity in
the area; we want to show that a new development scheme is possible in our country. We depart,
first of all, from imagining what land classification can give us as a society: the possibility to set
an example of teamwork by inviting all the actors involved —civil society, institutions, local, state
and federal governments— to design a model which, without restricting development, allows us
to preserve our species and our surroundings by means of promoting agriculture, considering a
different kind of tourism and much more... And everything coming out of respect for what we
are and what we have, for our plurality and to open growing possibilities in the neediest areas.
A work schedule is presented below, which has been proposed together with Antonio Diaz
de Leon, of Environmental Policy and Regional and Sectoral Integration General Directory; and
Gustavo Perez Chirinos, of Semarnat. It encompasses until August 2010, and as we publish this
report, we’re making adjustments to finish earlier, in June:
Activity 2009
Work proposal
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
X
X
X
First delivery: Integration of available technical platforms
into a geographic information system.
X
Sectoral workshops.
X
Second delivery: Description.
X
Third delivery: Diagnosis.
X
Making adjustments to the diagnosis.
Putting together a mid-term report.
Activity 2010
Work proposal.
First delivery: Model calibration and development of
tendency scenario.
Image aimed for, workshops.
Second delivery: Contextual and strategic scenarios.
Third delivery: Proposal.
Making adjustments to the proposal.
Putting together a final report.
106
X
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Epilogue
2008 was a key year to Selva Negra. Everything that had been made with patience and dedication in the past years, concluded in a luminous and encouraging way during the past 12 months.
In the end, even the most intense dreams come to a happy end when they land on reality and
modify it, and thus claim their right to be part of it. Our achievements of 2008, confirmed us that
it’s possible to suggest a change in the sense of taking care of environmental, social, educational
problems and also to see the results.
But the best part of it doesn’t lie in the numbers paid back by the given effort, nor in the
disquisitions we could do regarding the manner of approaching the work. Instead, the best part
lies in recognizing that what has been achieved so far is a consequence of a process of learning
and constructing a community: precisely we formed the one we see now with people from the
Oaxaca’s coast, Jalisco, Nayarit, Washington; with authorities of the three government levels; with
people from universities, with other NGOs, with enterprises, with friends and close ones that just
for the sake of it, they offered us their support and their intelligence.
No community starts from nothing nor can it be constructed proposing nothing as its destiny.
The “us” which goes through our actions is constituted by a crowd which starts to spread out
from two institutions —Maná and Selva Negra— that besides being institutions, are an ideal and
the imaginary of many people: It is also an “us” built up on the communion of wishes and on
the feeling that acts as our engine and support: the love for this magnificent planet called Earth.
Now, once we look backwards, thanks to the exercise of informing; once we recognize this
learning path and once we see to what extent an idea is capable of raising awareness, we couldn’t
avoid recognizing that the light, the smell, the sounds and the geography of a wonderful country
remain immovable inside us, and that in the middle of our actions there’s the people, Mexico’s
heart.
— 107 —
The future that is already here
What would we like to happen in the growing process of Selva Negra?
Selva Negra is not a common organization with a simplistic search, with feasible and easy
goals. On the contrary, Selva Negra has in its guts an utopia, which is so ambitious that it seems
it was created for an imaginary space and fiction.
Who in his childhood didn’t want -at least once- to be a part of a tale in which the characters
achieve their purposes by wishing them with all their strength? If we recover this strong feeling,
and we are determined things that appear to be impossible, maybe that tale turns to be not so far
from reality; maybe this is what we, human beings, lack today.
That is why we get a picture of Selva Negra as a space which sets its guidelines in creativity,
in reflection, knowledge and in the opportunity of impulsing projects to grow up. In this space
we propose that the individual begins by recognizing its own value. We see the self esteem as a
tool for the community progress, not for destroying it. This is a space in which identity becomes
the most solid platform, the strongest, to construct, using reason, dialogues, recognition and passion.
To point to a new path, to a fairer one; one that respects nature and that is inclusive... one that
catches hope to provide it with citizenship... This, only this is what we want.
The century gets to its end, charged with questions. However, we know something: life in our planet is in
serious danger. Our thoughtless cult to progress, plus the advances in our struggle to dominate nature,
have turned into a suicidal race. From the moment we started decoding the galaxies and the atomic particles secrets, the molecular biology and the origins of life, we have hurt nature right in her heart.
Because of this, whichever are the forms of political and social organizations taken by the countries,
the most immediate and urgent matter is the environment’s survival. Defending nature is defending
mankind. At the end of the century we have discovered we are part of a huge system – group of systemswhich goes from plants and animals to cells, molecules, atoms and stars. We’re a link of “the big chain
of being” as the old philosophers used to call the universe. One of the oldest gestures of men, a gesture
which since the beginning we repeat daily, is to raise our heads up and gaze, amazed, at the starry sky.
Almost always this gaze ends up with a fraternity feeling with the universe.
Octavio Paz
Extract of his Nobel Prize of Literature acceptation speech in 1990.
108
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Alonso Garcia Tames, Julia Tagueña, Sergio Montaño, Alfredo Harp and Juan de Jesus
Taylor Preciado.
Many more people, many institutions, have been near Selva Negra and its activities through
all these years.
Thanks to all of them, to all those who -moved only by friendship, putting their talent and
knowledge ahead and brandishing just a disinterested, generous commitment- have shared so
much with Selva Negra.
— 109 —
Fundación Ecológica Selva Negra, A.C.
Manuel Acuña 3359-C, Fraccionamiento Monraz, CP 44670, Guadalajara, Jalisco
www.selvanegra.org.mx
Cover
Mari Carmen Casares, «Urdimbre», acrylic, 35 x 17 cms.
Translators
Melina Rodríguez Carrasco
Cassandra Rodríguez Carrasco
Federico Ledesma Zaldívar
Editorial Página Seis, S.A. de C.V.
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