Tracy L. Barnett

The mural Mariel García was creating, more than a year in the planning and execution, is a tribute to Mexico’s long struggle to protect the country’s more than 1,000 native maize varieties from contamination by genetically modified corn.

After four years of struggle, the Wixárika community of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán in Mezquitic, Jalisco, will directly receive federal resources to manage amongst themselves without the intervention of local officials or political parties.

The different speakers in the Sacred Earth series are deeply active and involved in addressing many of these issues and thus have an important message to share regarding the way that their culture, and indigenous culture in general, play a key role in generating solutions to environmental collapse.

After nearly 17 years of creative resistance and six visits from the man who is now Mexico’s president – three of them in recent months — the tiny colonial town of Temacapulín has become a model in the resolution of water-related conflicts.

As Mamo Camilo Izquierdo said, “The destruction of nature produces illness from the diseases that we see today.” The wellness of all beings — including the living water that springs from the earth — is essential for our own well-being.

Balance and harmony are so fundamental for the Misak people’s way of life that they are willing to go to the streets to fight for it, if necessary – but always peacefully, and with their face masks firmly in place.