Victor M. Toledo

Víctor M. Toledo, research scientist at the Institute for Ecosystem and Sustainability Research (Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad), Morelia Campus UNAM, is a Mexican biologist with PhD from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Dr. Toledo has combined his scientific training with studies in economic policies, agrarian cultures and rural sociology. An expert in ethnoecology (the cross-cultural study of how people perceive and manipulate their environments), his studies and theoretical contributions regarding the relations between indigenous cultures and the natural world are recognized internationally. Dr. Toledo served as head of the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) in the administration of Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from May 2019 to September 2020. See also: Victor M. Toledo, Biologist, Ethnoecologist: "Passionate for Life".

Mexico Makes Strides in Agroecology

By Victor M. Toledo, Esperanza Project

Agroecology has arrived at Mexico’s 4T government. It has arrived not as an explicit and coherent State policy, but rather as a set of actions that get better as they are articulated and consolidated.

May 17, 2021

Mexico’s 4T Government in a Global Context

By Victor M. Toledo, Resilience.org

In this perspective, what must be assessed is how much the 4T government is making its mark by advancing the forces of global emancipation, the forces of those carrying out a great war for the survival of the human species and the rest of the living world.

February 16, 2021

Rethinking Democracy From the Perspective of Political Ecology

By Victor M. Toledo, Resilience.org

A good part of Western thought has forgotten or concealed the existence of another democracy, which was prior to the representative one, and which can be described as direct, participatory, radical or local.

December 3, 2020

Houses tucked up against the sacred Tepozteco Massif in Tepoztlán, Morelos. Photo: Reed Brundage

Modern Civilization and Its People Without Spirit

By Victor M. Toledo, Resilience.org

Communality, defined by P. Kropotkin (1907) as mutual aid institutions, was present throughout tribal organization, the village commune, the guilds, the city of the Middle Ages, and today it remains a focus of resistance in communities of indigenous cultures and cooperatives (rural, urban and industrial).

November 6, 2020

The Rescue of the Spirit and of Nature

By Victor M. Toledo, Resilience.org

The two central tasks of every conscious individual are the rescue of spirituality and (re)connecting with respect for nature. Three sectors are playing a strategic role in this: environmentalists, women, and indigenous peoples.

October 21, 2020