The greening of the Mixteca

Jesús León Santos stands next to a countour ditch -- an ancient method of erosion control that protects soil from being washed away by heavy rains.

Image: Mariana García

In the 15th century, the Mixtec region of Oaxaca boasted a phonetic writing system, the best goldsmiths in Mesoamerica, and an army able to challenge the Aztecs. By the 1980s it held a less envious distinction: Área de Desastre Ecológico [ecological disaster area]. In the previous two decades, erosion had swept away one-third of the fertile soil, and heavy use of chemical fertilizer had ravaged the already nutrient-deficient earth. It was a semi-temperate region but it looked like a desert.

At a time when young Mixtec men were emigrating in droves, Jesús León Santos came back. It was 1983, and the seventeen-year-old León ascended the cattle paths back to his home in San Isidro Tilantongo, Oaxaca, after “working like a peon” in Mexico City.

Three exiled Guatemalans were in the Mixteca teaching farming methods to local campesinos. León liked how they spoke of La Madre Tierra with respect, and he joined them. Their primary goal was to raise the productivity of the farmland, but they soon realized the most pressing problem was the region’s ecological degradation. “We said ‘we need to see a greener Mixteca!’ without knowing how to go about it, but we had the energy to try,” León says.

On April 13, 2008, twenty-five years since León first took up his environmental cause, this Mixteco with a sixth-grade education was one of six people worldwide to win the Goldman Environmental Prize (Green Guide, March 2008). Every year since 1990, the $150,000 prize is given to grassroots leaders for their “sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment.”

Phil Dahl-Bredine, an American colleague of León for the past seven years and now his neighbor, points to the hills across the silent valley under San Isidro. Bright red, yellow, white, and even purple soil is exposed on the slopes and makes a beautiful show of erosion -- but that is now changing.

“That hill used to be eroded like the others, now it’s light green,” Dahl-Bredine says. “That’s trees and vegetation growing. That’s CEDICAM’s influence.”

In 1997, León and other campesinos founded the non-governmental organization CEDICAM, the Center for Integral Development of the Mixtec Campesinos. CEDICAM’s hallmark work is an ancient method of erosion control called contour ditches: trenches measuring half a meter deep, half a meter wide, and forty-five meters long, dug in parallel series on the hillsides like terraces.

Each trench holds 15,000 liters of water that would otherwise wash away the hillside’s soil during heavy rains. A welcome secondary effect of the trenches has been the retention of groundwater—locals are discovering the birth of springs where the contour ditches are present.

The region’s hills are now traced by 160 kilometers of contour ditches, lined by trees planted at a rate of 200,000 per year. That is all the direct work of CEDICAM and the municipal governments and federal agencies that have been adopting CEDICAM’s methods since 1996.

“The best way to confront the Mixteca’s challenges is to support grassroots organizations like CEDICAM,” says Salvador Anta, the Oaxaca head of the National Forest Commission. Anta recently solicited CEDICAM to train campesinos around the state of Oaxaca in reforestation and soil maintenance.

Run by a team of eight full-time and thirty volunteer Mixtec campesinos, CEDICAM now promotes a variety of sustainable practices to over 400 farmers through workshops in fifteen communities. These demonstrations include using natural composts and pesticides; growing native grains and vegetables; preserving local corn seeds; and collecting and storing rainwater for home use.

Campesinos Francisco and Rosario Ruiz, both in their fifties, sell alfalfa in the weekly Jaltepec market. Two years ago, a neighbor invited them to a CEDICAM workshop: they were composts, but set aside a parcel of corn and gave it a try.

Sra. Ruiz, sounding like a recent agronomy graduate, explained the worm and human urine formula they are using to replace chemicals. Three years ago they spread twenty-five sacks of chemical fertilizers over their crops: next year they plan to buy only six sacks.

“Productivity is the same, and our crops are healthier,” Sr. Ruiz says. His wife agrees: “It’s tough work, this new stuff, but it works.”

León is proudest when describing CEDICAM projects that have passed fully into local hands, like the community nursery that grows and then replants 40,000 trees a year. “Teaching people to care about, and why they should care about, the fundamental elements in their lives -- water, soil, trees -- this is CEDICAM’s most important work,” he says.

Phil Dahl-Bredine believes CEDICAM has a lot to teach citizens in richer countries as well. Dahl-Bredine and his wife recently installed a rainwater collection system in their New Mexico home that is similar to the one in León’s house. Dahl-Bredine recently documented the lessons from his Mixtec experience in the book The Other Game.

Convincing fellow Mixtecs to revalue campesino identity and work the land instead of migrating may be the most difficult challenge ahead for León’s team. At a recent meeting Eleazar Jiménez, head of the project to promote agriculture among youth, could not think of one success story. “We want to show them that farming is still a viable option,” León says.

For two weeks in April, León visited San Francisco and Washington, DC for the awards ceremony, news conferences, and meetings with other environmentalists. “The prize doesn’t change anything for me,” he says. “Now I just need to fight even harder.”

León remembers his first trips to the US to give talks at universities: “Back then I didn’t know how to communicate the knowledge I’ve gained. How could people have even believed what I said?”

León now articulates a clear message, and we all have good reason to listen.

Jesús León Santos can be contacted at jls_jesus@yahoo.com. The email address for CEDICAM is itanoni@hotmail.com. Nathan Paluck has lived in southern Mexico and Honduras the past three years. He works for Innovations for Poverty Action.