por ALBERTO AZCARATE VARELA
THE BAJA POST/EDITOR
Mexico´s native communities have to be the spearhead to implement actions that help reverse the problems faced by forests, such as deforestation, while the institutions must complement this work to ensure that it complies with the Law, but always taking into account the point of view of its inhabitants.
Víctor Jurado, community member of Santa Ana Tlacotenco and Daniela Moreno Cabello, representative of the Young community organization members and Milpa Alta’s members, participate in the panel “Community and autonomous work for forest conservation, defense of the mother earth and the territory of Milpa Alta”.
During the virtual summit made by education and training for the sustainable development, in the forest month season and its given by the environment bureau government office, the speakers exposed about how the forest in Mexico city must be taken care of ‘Cause is a 60% on Mexican soil and that’s why is fundamental for sustainable projects and protect life.
They stressed it is necessary to dialogue with the people who live in these ecosystems, since they are the ones who face the daily problems that have derived from the fracture that the human being had with nature and that was defined by a worldview was considered the spirit of the forest.
Víctor Jurado said that the true community members have a horizontal relationship with the forest, since they consider it a brother, so when they take something from it they pay them back. However, in recent years there has been a change of mentality and these spaces are only seen as a commodity, so they end up exploiting them under a vertical vision in which the human being take place himself on nature.
He recalled the situation that Milpa Alta faced after a meteorological phenomenon caused the fall of several trees in 2010, so, to avoid fires, with the approval of the Ministry of the Environment it was determined to take advantage of the wood from fallen logs.
This resulted in an occasion for living trees to be cut down, while many of the fallen logs remain on the ground were unused. Daniela Moreno talked about the work of the institutions has only been limited to simple intervention, without caring the perception of those who live with the issue, so far from favoring the participation of people, they only try to apply measures that don’t help.
Plus the believe about women don’t have rights like landlords, that’s why Milpa Alta only has 30% of female landlords in this community even when they have a lot to give. She took Santa Ana community to realize how “if we weren’t spearhead, it’s not going to have sense” and that’s their most recent actions. As a result, Víctor Jurado assured that logging has been reduced by up to 70% and announced that with the help of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection, the problem will be stopped 100%, but without any arbitrary intervention. The key, he said, has been to reconstitute the communal fabric and the objective is to rescue this vision in which man considers himself part of nature, so a constant dialogue with it must be maintained to guarantee a healthy and balanced response.
