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000090 Visit since
| Profile
of the Indigenous People of Mexico
Chapter 7 - Economy - Part 3 |
by Prof. German Estrada
November 17, 2002. |
Natural Resources 15.
The appropriation of the natural resource base by the indigenous communities in
the areas they inhabit is characterized by a distinctly non-materialist view of
nature inherited from their past. The indigenous vision of nature perceives it
as a sacred and living entity with which they interact, dialogue, and negotiate
in the process of production. This conception of nature is opposed to that emanating
from the urban and commercial areas and the agro-industrial world designed to
extract food, raw products, and energy required for the dominant enclaves. The
following table shows the characteristics that distinguish indigenous production
from agro-industrial production. Table 7.2
Main Characteristics of Indigenous and Agro-Industrial Production and Natural
Resource Use Characteristic | Indigenous
Production | Agro-Industrial | | | | Energy | Basic
use of solar energy for production | Primarily
dependant on fossil fuels | Scale | Small
holder plots (Minifundio) | Medium
to large properties | Self-sufficiency | High
use of vegetable Fertilizers | High
use of externally produced inputs for production | Labor
Force | Family & Community based
labor | Family and or wage labor | Diversity | Diversified
& Multi-crop production | Specialized
mono-crop production | Productivity
Wastes | Low Labor productivity
Low
waste production | High labor productivity
High
waste production | Knowledge | Empirically
based and orally transmitted | Based
on specialized knoledge systems with writing and other modern communication means | Cosmology | Nature
as a living and sacred entity. Each element embodied as deities whit whom it is
necessary to negotiate for the processes of production | Nature
as a system (or machine) separate from society, whose wealth is exploited through
science and technology |
Victor M. Toledo.
"An Ecological-Economy Typology of Rural Producers." In Economia informa,
No. 243, 1997. 16. The indigenous peoples exploit
the natural resource base through a multiple-use strategy that sustains the ecological
processes and natural life cycles. The same diversified strategy is mirrored in
the productive systems. For instance, multiple crop production, or aquatic resource
use, where the productive systems integrate agriculture, forestry, fisheries,
and small-scale livestock production. Ecological Zones The
indigenous peoples inhabit four broadly defined ecological regions. Table
7.3 Ecological Regions and Indigenous Peoples Regions | Surface
(Hectares) | Estimated Ind.
Population | Estimated Indigenous
Pop.% of total Population | | | | | Humid
Tropics | 28,598,300 | 3,280,159 | 37.0 | Dry
Tropics | 25,598,000 | 2,978,510 | 34.0 | Temperate
Zone | 39,024,00 | 1,953,100 | 22.4 | Arid
Zone | 102 | 489,818 | 5.6 |
(Secretaría
de Desarrollo Social SEDESOL, 1994) 17. These regions
include 45 percent of the forested areas of the country and municipalities with
over 30 percent of estimated indigenous population. For example, it is estimated
that in Oaxaca 90 percent of the state's forest resources are located in indigenous
lands, and many of the environmental changes affecting Mexico today such as increasing
deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and desertification, also are occurring
in regions inhabited by these populations. These changes are the result of the
imposition of economic models that require a high use of fertilizer as well as
of the devastating impact of unsustainable extraction of timber from the forests.
18. The indigenous peoples have accessed the resources
of these diverse ecological regions through systems of customary tenure for hundreds,
and in some cases thousands, of years. The indigenous cultures we see today, is
the result of adaptations to these different natural areas and they are repositories
of enormous banks of knowledge, technologies, and strategies for the appropriation
of nature. The ecological knowledge possessed by these people forms a part of
the national patrimony of the country and must be taken into account in development
project planning and in the decision-making process designating the location of
natural protected areas or national parks. 19.
The native knowledge of specific ecological regions and their productive systems
are not as damaging, from a long-term sustainability perspective, than other systems,
since they operate as allies of nature, specifically looking out for the conservation
of biological diversity and culturally significant landscapes. In
Mexico it is not possible to recognize and safeguard the natural resource patrimony
without respecting, at the same time, the indigenous cultures and peoples who
have given sense and are intimately involved in the politics of conservation of
nature in their regions. Sources: Mexican Government Institutions
(Sedesol) Next week we'll be reading the 4h part of this
chapter on ECONOMY
gestrada@pvnet.com.mx
Prof. Germán Estrada is the
author of the best selling book, "México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told
You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc.,
Books, Books as well as directly from the author by internet. Archives
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