Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The historical process’s particularities that delineated Jojutla, Morelos’s territory, from its foundation as a colonial town to the present, have given rise to profound environmental degradation. A problem intensified in the 20th century, especially after the Mexican Revolution and the public policies implemented in the 1950s aimed at incorporating ejido and communal lands into urbanized areas, causing a sustained demographic increase, greater demand for housing and services, and changes in productive activities. One of the most apparent impacts of these transformations has been the alteration of the region’s water potential, with significant repercussions on the quality of life of the local population. Thus, the article’s purpose is to present a critical discussion about the historical construction of water, as a threat to the inhabitants of Jojutla, in terms of long duration and from an analysis based on political ecology. We performed qualitative research supported by documentary and ethnographic information collected between 2018 and 2021, whose reflections show a metabolic fracture in the dialectical interrelation between human beings and water in a scenario of increasing capitalist exploitation, with particularly negative effects on particular social groups, exposed and vulnerable.

This article aims to examine the socioeconomic factors that influenced the inhabitants of a protected natural area in Chiapas, Mexico, to adopt reforestation practices within the framework of an inter-institutional project that promoted the restoration of their forest estates affected by hurricane Barbara in 2013. We carried out a qualitative and statistical analysis through a Logit model with the information collected in the fieldwork between 2014 and 2015, obtained through direct observation and data from 51 surveys. The results show that people’s willingness to reforest decreases as cattle ranching represents their primary occupation. In addition, the population that most likely reforest is the one that has the greatest participation in forestry activities, is motivated by intrinsic factors, and resides permanently in the place. We conclude that the socioeconomic aspects of local productive activities affect the decision to reforest.

The works on traditional knowledge of the landscape are relatively less compared to the rest of the studies on traditional environmental knowledge. We can corroborate this by the number of publications and the existence of scientific societies on topics related to ethnobiology and ethnoecology. Additionally, the linguistic dimension in studies related to traditional knowledge of the landscape has been relatively little studied compared to practical aspects, such as local environmental suitability and agricultural management. This article aims to clarify the importance of the local language in studies on traditional knowledge of the landscape. We conduct a bibliographic review using search engines and conventional databases to establish the scopes and limitations of traditional or indigenous knowledge about the landscape within the framework of traditional environmental knowledge. We then analyze the role of language in works on traditional knowledge of the landscape based on the field and academic experience of the first author, whose native language is chinanteco. Next, we indicate the particularities related to the linguistic dimension immersed in the traditional knowledge of the landscape, including a brief description of a study in the region of Chinantla, Oaxaca. Finally, we conclude with a balance around the problems related to using the local language in studies on traditional knowledge of the landscape.

This article analyzes the relevance of “bioconstrucción mingas” as alternative community projects with the capacity to generate ecologically sustainable and participatory housing solutions. We carried out intensive fieldwork in the suburban areas of the cities of Mar del Plata and Santa Clara del Mar in the period 2019-2020, which supports this study. Within these “mingas”, occupations have developed that account for cosmovisions and symbolisms that configure a particular lifestyle that favors participation and community work. In turn, around the natural construction of houses, various activities are configured that promote people’s autonomy and care for the environment and their health in an integral sense. The groups that carry out this activity mainly consist of young adults from different trades and professions, both men and women. We propose this text as a contribution to the study of lifestyles in our contemporary societies, with their consequent potentialities for formulating public policies (health and housing, among others).

Craft activity represents one of the clearest manifestations of the relationship established by human societies with their natural environment. However, there are limited proposals for analyzing the energy and material exchange processes that support this relationship, whose imbalance puts not only the continuity of the activity at risk but also the conservation of nature itself. The objective of this work is to propose an analytical framework for the study of the craft activity, which allows, from the environmental complexity, to estimate its metabolic process. For this, we carried out a critical analysis of the bibliographical collection, exploring different theoretical and empirical contributions of complexity, environmental complexity, social metabolism, metabolic process, and the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM). Subsequently, applying the method of analysis and synthesis, attention was focused on the importance and scope of those elements necessary for creating an empirical analysis framework. According to the results, the integration of different theoretical-methodological contributions makes it possible to outline a framework for the analysis of the metabolic process of the craft activity, which provides elements to understand its development, challenges, and current situations.

Green areas provide environmental and social benefits and services to the population; however, they are generally unevenly distributed in cities, linked to an unequal provision of such benefits, with implications for environmental justice. Based on a cartographic and statistical analysis, we evaluated the endowment and spatial distribution of public urban green areas in Xalapa, Mexico, and its relationship with the Urban Marginalization Index of the National Population Council (CONAPO, by its initials in Spanish). In Xalapa, the distribution of green areas showed a clustered pattern; 47 % of the neighborhoods in the city do not have green areas, and the lower number and area of green areas were related to high rates of marginalization. As in many other cities in Mexico, the previous indicates a lack of distributive environmental justice in the city and a need for viable design and redesign approaches to achieve a less heterogeneous endowment of green areas in the city.

Reseña del libro de Fernanda Matos e Alexandre Carrieri (orgs.) (2022). Água e gênero: Perspectivas e experiências, vol. 1. MG, Brasil: Editora Barlavento. doi: 10.54400/978.65.87563.32.9

The Potosí plateau is in the northwestern portion of the State of San Luis Potosí in a semi-desert zone with a dry temperate climate. Towards the end of the 19th century, this region was divided into large estates dedicated to extensive cattle production. The Cruces ranch was one of the largest ranches that based its livestock production on waterwheels (norias) to extract shallow subsurface water for cattle watering. This research aimed to document the existence and characteristics of waterwheels in that region. For this, we consulted documentary and historical information available in the state of San Luis Potosí. Also, we collected information in the field, including photographic surveys and planimetric and architectural measurements of all the waterwheels. Our results corroborate that the hacienda’s agricultural activity relied on the few shallow areas and beds of intermittent runoff, and the main economic activity was raising sheep to obtain wool. The ranch had 38 waterwheels with a daily storage capacity of nearly 4,000 m3, which could provide a watering hole for 32,000 head of cattle and 741,000 head of small cattle. We conclude that the Cruces ranch based its success on the extensive production of cattle that, in arid conditions, was possible due to a system of waterwheels strategically distributed in the extensive territory. It was an economically viable regime that took advantage of natural resources to benefit a single family.

The inscription in UNESCO of the expression “Places of memory and living traditions of the Otomí-Chichimecas people of Tolimán; the Peña de Bernal, guardian of a sacred territory” is turning ten years old. It is in our interest to build a critical vision from two categories that reflect its multiple contradictions: heritage and extractivism. The general objective is to show how the UNESCO declarations become forms of institutionalized extractivism that, in favor of safeguarding and conserving memory and culture, generate extensive and intensive extraction processes. For this, we expose the results of the research carried out from 2019-2020 to prepare the Queretaro Semi-Desert Safeguard Plan. As a situated analysis, we show the case of the town of San Sebastián de Bernal, municipality of Ezequiel Montes. We close by making an alert call to the groups that carry culture, appealing to their historical protagonism to preserve their cultural expressions, either from the defense of the territory or from their community, local, and self-management initiatives.

Based on the value-belief-norm theory, this study aimed to analyze the relationship between environmental values and attitudes of small handicraft businesses in Oaxaca to delve into the background that could lead them to a more responsible environmental behavior. The focus of the work is quantitative and has a descriptive and correlational scope. We surveyed owners/managers of 76 craft businesses. The descriptive results show that ecocentric values and attitudes are higher than anthropocentric values. However, the hypothesis test showed a significant relationship between the latter and pro-environmental and anthropocentric attitudes. Promoting an environmental education with a greater orientation towards ecocentric values in the business community is necessary; these environmental values can give small businesses in Mexico a greater responsibility for the environment. This work is a pioneer in addressing psychosocial factors in small businesses in Mexico. We conclude that the value-belief-norm theoretical framework is adequate for analyzing the relationship between environmental values and attitudes in handicraft businesses.