<
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/oaxacas-low-tech-climate-solutions>
"Around a hundred people live in Llano del Triunfo, one of nine villages in the
municipality of Santa María Yucuhiti, in Mexico’s Oaxaca state. Accessible by a
bumpy dirt road and nestled at 8,500 feet above sea level, the village’s
concrete homes and wooden buildings disappear and reappear amid fog that drifts
across rocks and fields and hilltops.
“The weather changes a lot here during the year due to the high altitude,” says
Leoncio Espana Lopez, a local farmer, as he guides us across his land. Like
most people who live here, he uses the surnames of both his parents. In winter,
he says, high villages like this one suffer freezing cold weather, and in March
and April, drought is a challenge.
Since most of its people make a living from agriculture, in 2012 Santa María
Yucuhiti authorities identified climate change as a challenge that needed to be
addressed. Today, Llano del Triunfo is one of the villages where people
implement low-tech solutions to address the problem.
To help identify and implement these solutions, the municipality approached
Espacio de Encuentro de las Culturas Originarias (A Space for Meeting of
Original Cultures, or EECO), an Oaxaca-based organization that has been
supporting Indigenous and rural communities for the past 15 years.
Subsequently, EECO members visited all the communities in the municipality,
which is part of Oaxaca’s La Mixteca region and is home to about two-thirds of
Mexico’s Indigenous Mixtecs.
“We held meetings and workshops, and based on what we saw and heard, we put
together a plan on how to combat climate change,” says Tzinnia Carranza Lopez,
a director of EECO. Through this process, the organization learned that one of
main issues communities wanted to solve was water scarcity. According to
Conagua, Mexico’s water agency, in March 2024 more than half of Oaxaca
municipalities were experiencing drought, creating the need for more water
storage.
Espana Lopez shows us various projects that emerged from working with EECO.
Right by his house, for example, is a concrete rainwater collection tank.
“These 10,000-liter water tanks were built in the first phase of cooperation,”
says Viviana Ibeth Lopez Jimenez, who lives here and has been working with EECO
as a field technician in the municipality for the last seven years. These water
tanks are now part of the scenery in Santa María Yucuhiti communities. One can
find them by houses, on coffee plantations, and close to gardens, where locals
can use the stored water for irrigation."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-oaxaca-low-tech-drought-fixes/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
