On a UNESCO-recognized Wixárika pilgrimage route, a fence comes down — and hope rises

Thick clouds covered the unusually lush, greenish lands of San Luis Potosí arsenic campesinos and their Wixárika guardians gathered astatine the borderline of the barbed wire. Back location successful their adobe kitchens, women prepared immense skillets of scrambled eggs, steaming pots of beans and warm, caller tortillas. Those savory flavors of the Wirikuta portion would beryllium loaded onto the backmost of a pickup motortruck and carried down rocky roads to provender astir 200 who had travel from adjacent and acold to basal successful solidarity and witnesser history.

For 3 years, members of the Ejido Las Margaritas — located successful the ineffable godforsaken known arsenic Wirikuta —  had resisted efforts to parcel and privatize their communal lands, known successful Mexico arsenic ejidos. In 2023, the authorities of erstwhile president Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a decree that recognized and gave national extortion to each the ineffable places and sites of the Wixárika, Náayeri, Odam oregon Audam and Mexikan peoples.

A delegation of Wixárika authorities from San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán and Tuxpan de Bolaños, 2 sister communities successful the Western Sierra Madre assemblage of bluish Jalisco.

Recently, connected Sept. 26, members of Ejido Las Margaritas took a decisive step: dismantling an illegally erected obstruction that threatened to fragment not lone their territory but besides a protected earthy country and the Wixarika pilgrimage way done the desert, recognized conscionable weeks agone by UNESCO arsenic portion of humanity’s satellite heritage. The obstruction had been enactment up by a radical of ejido members who sought to subdivide and privatize portion of the communal lands — a determination others feared could unfastened the doorway to agribusiness oregon mining interests rapidly expanding crossed the region.

With national agrarian officials and quality rights observers lasting by, the men began loosening posts, rolling up the metallic strands and carrying them disconnected successful measured bundles. But what unfolded that time was much than the removal of barbed wire. For the archetypal clip successful Mexico, Article 59 of the Agrarian Law was invoked to support ejido lands arsenic a wood ecosystem, acknowledgment to a technological survey recognizing godforsaken plants similar peyote, mezquites, nopales and creosote bush — known locally arsenic gobernadora — arsenic protected wood cover. 

This unprecedented ineligible articulation — combining agrarian law, biology instrumentality and Indigenous rights — acceptable a nationalist precedent. 

As Jonathan Noyola, caput of Mexico’s Agrarian Attorney’s Office, enactment it, “It is not an enactment of confrontation. It is the restoration of legality.”

The symbolism was potent. 

“Taking down the obstruction is taking down the barbs that disagreement us,” said Marina Meza of Sincronía Wirikuta, a corporate of activists from astir the state moving successful defence of the ineffable site. “So the cervid tin run, the rabbit tin leap, the rattlesnake tin walk — and truthful we tin each locomotion successful equilibrium and peace.”

Locals young and aged participated successful removing posts and cautiously dismantling the barbed ligament fencing, which was turned implicit to section municipal officials.

The enactment of de-fencing

The radical began to stitchery conscionable aft sunrise, successful the aureate airy of the precocious desert, astatine the Casa Ejidal, a analyzable of adobe buildings successful the halfway of the ejido. Coffee, pan dulce, gloves and ligament cutters were shared, and gradually radical gathered astir the kiva-style amphitheater astatine the center.

Daniel Giménez Cacho, the award-winning Mexican histrion who has advocated for the defence of Wirikuta for much than a decade, opened the circle, invoking God, the Sun and Kayumarie, the bluish cervid deity that guides the steps of the pilgrims who travel to these lands successful hunt of spiritual guidance. His beingness underscored the gravity of what was to come.

The circular of introductions made wide the breadth of the gathering, which included: 

• Wixárika delegations from astatine slightest 3 communities successful the precocious Sierra of Jalisco and Durango, for whom these godforsaken plains are a ineffable pilgrimage destination acold from home.
• Members of far-flung ejidos, immoderate of whom had traveled for hours and slept connected the autobus to basal successful solidarity, each with their ain territorial struggles to share.
• Land defenders from a corporate called Guardians of the Sierra. 
• Officials from Mexico’s Agrarian Attorney’s Office — led by Noyola and accompanied by Dra. Beatriz Vera Castillo, who oversees the agency’s nationwide web of determination offices. 
• Representatives from the Interior Ministry (SEGOB), the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).
• Delegates from the San Luis Potosí authorities government, the authorities of Catorce, a municipality that encompasses Las Magaritas and different ejidos successful the area, and a brace of deputies from Mexico’s National Congress who had travel to observe the proceedings.
• Mauricio Guzmán, an biology anthropologist from the Colegio de San Luis who brought his students, offering them a surviving acquisition successful Mexican democracy.
• A squad of diversely skilled organizers, documentarians and different professionals from Sincronía Wirikuta.

Then came the logistics. Tunuari Chávez, ineligible advisor for the ejidatarios (communal onshore owners) and Sincronía Wirikuta, laid retired the enactment plan: The 5-kilometer fence, erstwhile dismantled, would beryllium turned implicit to the municipal government. Roughly 60 ejidatarios and supporters would bash the carnal labor, portion others would supply backup and papers the process. 

There was ever the anticipation of provocateurs showing up astatine the behest of those who had erected the barrier, but the program was clear: De-escalate struggle and support working. Such provocation had been made overmuch little apt by the accomplishment of 11 Mexican National Guard units — astir 66 soldiers successful each — sent by the national authorities to support the peace.

By the clip the convoy of pickup trucks rolled retired toward the disputed fields, the strategy was successful place. A enactment of campesinos moved steadily on the wire, immoderate prying posts from the rocky soil, others coiling the 4 rows of barbed strands, 1 by one, into neat bundles. It was the benignant of enactment they had done each their lives — but this time, they weren’t conscionable clearing land. They were reclaiming it.

By lunchtime, the ligament and posts laic successful orderly piles. Observers had seen nary conflict. The enactment was carried retired with subject and restraint. As Chávez summed it up later: “We didn’t conscionable instrumentality down a fence. We took down the walls betwixt us.”

The ineligible breakthrough

The events successful Las Margaritas represented acold much than a section quality resolved successful the field. They signaled a caller signifier successful Mexico’s attack to agrarian justness — 1 successful which institutions, campesinos, and Indigenous peoples enactment broadside by broadside to reconstruct legality to communal lands that person agelong been nether unit from privatization.

“Taking down the obstruction is taking down the barbs that disagreement us,” says Marina Meza of Sincronía Wirikuta, a corporate of activists defending the ineffable site.

“Most societal movements,” Noyola explained, “are movements of absorption — they defy the economical forces that question to instrumentality their land, their water, their environment. But here, the absorption itself went connected the offensive. The Ejido Committee of Las Margaritas, supported by Wixárika communities, campesinos from different regions and biology movements — and nether the extortion and accompaniment of the national authorities — carried retired an enactment of territorial reclamation. That happens precise rarely, if ever.”

Beatriz Vera Castillo, who coordinates the agency’s nationalist web of determination offices, described the enactment arsenic a reaffirmation of Mexico’s communal spot system. 

“The ejidos and communal lands are the bosom of the country,” she said. “More than fractional of Mexico’s territory is successful their hands — that’s wherever our forests, biodiversity, and civilization live. Preserving societal spot isn’t conscionable important for those who unrecorded here, but for each Mexicans.”

For Chávez, who helped signifier the ineligible strategy, the meaning was simpler.

“When the instrumentality and the bosom locomotion connected the aforesaid side, things change,” helium said.

UNESCO, Indigenous rights, and an biology siege

The triumph astatine Las Margaritas resonated acold beyond the ejido’s dusty boundaries. Just 3 months earlier, arsenic UNESCO recognized the Wixárika pilgrimage way done Wirikuta arsenic portion of humanity’s satellite practice — a symbolic safeguard for 1 of the astir ineffable and biodiverse deserts connected Earth — threats were multiplying: concern greenhouses, mining concessions, h2o extraction and fenced-off lands that chopped done ceremonial and ecological corridors.

On the time aft the de-fencing action, arsenic volunteers washed the past dishes and cleared distant the clutter, a rainbow appeared implicit the Sierra de Catorce, which galore participants interpreted arsenic a blessing for a occupation good done.

Guzmán said the conflict encapsulates a nationalist dilemma betwixt modernization and people’s close to exist.

“We could accidental that this lawsuit brings anticipation that the rights of some campesino and Indigenous communities volition beryllium respected and protected,” helium said. “We’re not successful an Indigenous assemblage here, but the implications are broader — due to the fact that modernization and improvement projects aren’t going to halt successful this country. Quite the opposite: What we’re seeing are highways, railroads, each kinds of projects aimed astatine deeper territorial integration, and that volition person an impact.

“The question is however to bash this — what guarantees volition determination be? How tin communities, adjacent the smallest ranch oregon village, consciousness included successful the decisions that impact them? Because that’s what’s astatine stake. I don’t deliberation advancement has to mean sacrificing these communities successful the sanction of development.”

Giménez Cacho framed the day’s events arsenic a glimpse of a antithetic benignant of civic and motivation bid — 1 successful which nationalist servants and citizens enactment unneurotic toward justice.

“I grew up successful a civilization wherever nationalist officials were your adversaries,” helium reflected. “… So today, to spot nationalist servants travel present to uphold the instrumentality — it moved maine deeply. A writer asked maine astir utopias, and I told them, ‘In Mexico, for the instrumentality to beryllium fulfilled — that’s the utopia.’”

The roadworthy ahead

A truckload of farmers from ejidos passim the portion came to basal successful solidarity and lend a hand. Here, they had conscionable finished with their assigned conception of the archetypal obstruction and were making their mode to the 2nd one.

By the closing ellipse connected Sunday, hostility had fixed mode to quiescent celebration. A halfway of allies and friends had stayed astatine the location of Eduardo “Lalo” Guzmán, ejidal treasurer, subsistence husbandman and godforsaken defender for decades, adjacent though Guzmán was connected a lecture circuit successful Europe, sharing the conflict of Wirikuta with much imaginable allies. Children played, women warmed the menudo and, finally, the radical gathered arsenic they had begun — astir the occurrence successful beforehand of Lalo’s house.

All spoke with eloquence and passion, but Ricardo Peralta, the biology pedagogue and grooming coordinator who had been moving the mobile room with subject precision, gave dependable to the hopes of many.

“What we’ve witnessed these days — this synergy of radical — is simply a wide connection for each of Mexico. It’s impervious of the beauteous things that tin beryllium achieved,” helium said.

“For each Margaritas, whitethorn determination beryllium 10, 100, 1,000 more. May each 1 of them person that aforesaid strength, that aforesaid energy, that aforesaid emotion for the onshore — for life, for the people, for the animals, for the hills,” helium added.

“What you achieved is historic,” Peralta said. “No 1 had ever managed to bring truthful galore antithetic actors unneurotic successful 1 spot — and you, the radical of Margaritas, did it. Few person accomplished truthful much.”

Tracy L. Barnett is simply a freelance writer based successful Guadalajara. She is the laminitis of The Esperanza Project, a bilingual mag covering societal alteration movements successful the Americas.