Raices: Roots

On the other side of the mountains to the south and east of Guanajuato, the cuenca (watershed) drains into the Río Laja. As in the West of the U.S.A., water is scarce in the high desert lands of central México. It is a beautiful landscape of gnarled mezquite and huizache shrubs and stately cardón and nopal cactus. But the land also suffers from erosion and soil depletion from a long history of grazing.

Historically, much of the land in this area and throughout México was part of ejidos, communal indigenous properties. In an ejido, members of the community each own their own parcel of land, but they also share a large area in common, and they can all use this land for various purposes, including grazing and gathering nopal and other plants. Decisions about this land are made by a council of ejido members. In recent years, there has been a trend for young members of ejidos to sell their parcels, often to corporate businesses, to reap the financial rewards that offer a respite from dire economic conditions. They leave the ejido; some go to the U.S. to work. But they lose the inheritance of the land where they were born; if they want to return, they have nothing to return to. It is a tough proposition.

We learned about this dilemma during an encounter with Don Chava, a member of an ejido that we met today while exploring the Laja watershed around the town of San Miguel de Allende. It was amazing how much Don Chava's concerns echoed concerns we hear from ranchers in central Idaho - frustration about the prospects for the land he was born on; suspicion about the government's interest in conserving the land. He wanted to be heard.

We were privileged to learn about this landscape from two people who are doing amazing work to protect it, Agustín and Fernando of Salvemos al Río Laja, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of the Río Laja watershed and the communities that depend on it. Their work ranges from planting trees in rural schoolyards (to provide shade for the children, stabilize the soil, and educate the children about the environment), to finding ways to regulate the extraction of gravel from streambeds, to working with members of ejidos to build troughs to catch rain and prevent erosion on depleted hillsides. Truly, their work is embedded in community. In a scientific sense, they are trying to hold the soil in place by building a network of roots through native plant restoration projects. In a human sense, they are working to help people maintain their deep cultural and familial roots in these rural communities by providing viable, sustainable economic development and education.