ABOUT SMA:
Achievements

Achievements 2005-2006

• Sustained suspension of logging in Pino Gordo.

Achievements 2003-2004

• Sustained suspension of logging in Pino Gordo.

Achievements 2002

• Sustained suspension of logging in Pino Gordo.
• Completed Draft Management and Land Use Zoning Plan for the proposed Tarahumara-managed Protected Area for Flora and Fauna in Pino Gordo; developed a plan with Tarahumara promoters for socialization and implementation of the Management Plan.
• Convened a National Indigenous Forum to assist the case of Pino Gordo, with the participation of indigenous leaders, NGOs, academics, and politicians.
• Developed drafts of five bilingual (Rarámuri-Spanish) environmental education and natural resource management manuals.
• Conducted five community workshops to determine conservation and development priorities and action plans in six rancherías with participation of 134 Tepehuan in the Baborigame region; submitted proposals to Mexican and international funding sources to implement indigenous plans.
• Gained suspension of illegal logging of old growth forests and exposed agrarian fraud in Coloradas de la Virgen; assisted two cases before the Agrarian Court (pending).
• Conducted a diagnostic workshop in Coloradas de la Virgen with the participation of sixty Tarahumara to define and prioritize their problems.
• Assisted three Tarahumara who gained PACMYC scholarships for projects in restoration of traditional medicine and dance in Coloradas de la Virgen, and natural resource management in Pino Gordo.
• Gained funding for training in natural paper-making processes for four women from MITYTAC in San Cristóbal, Chiapas.
• Developed an inter-institutional program for neotropical migratory bird studies and conservation in collaboration with Consejo EcoRegional Sierra Tarahumara A.C. and ProNatura Noreste, funded by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; sponsored comparative study of traditional indigenous knowledge and diversity of birds in old growth and secondary forest by Northern Arizona University graduate student, Andrew Miller.
• Assisted in the formation and institutional planning of the regional indigenous organization, Consejo Supremo Ódami y Rarámuri, representing twenty indigenous communities, based in Baborigame.
• Initiated international campaign to protect land rights and prevent violence against the Tarahumara of Pino Gordo and Coloradas de la Virgen.
• Developed a plan and solicited funding for a bicultural community school in Pino Gordo.

Achievements 1999-2001

• National campaign gained suspension of illegal logging in Pino Gordo.
• Uncovered land fraud in Pino Gordo, which denied 162 families rights to their lands and forests.
• Alliance partner, Consejo EcoRegional Sierra Tarahumara A.C., representing COSSYDHAC, presented the Pino Gordo case to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, as part of thirty-six cases in the Tarahumara region.
• Won a decision in the Agrarian Court to grant land rights to 162 Tarahumara based upon an international indigenous treaty (OIT 169) and geographical and anthropological evidence.
• Supported processes to resolve land conflict in Coloradas de la Virgen.
• Submitted official proposal to establish a natural protected area in Pino Gordo; gained local and federal support for the proposal.
• Sponsored studies of neotropical migratory birds, avian diversity, and indigenous knowledge of birds in the Barranca Sinforosa region; registered forty-eight protected species, 123 species of neotropical migratory birds and a total of 224 bird species in Pino Gordo.
• Founded MITYTAC (Tarahumara and Tepehuan Women’s Association), a craft-producing cooperative and women’s support organization.

Achievements 1996-1998

• CASMAC Director, Edwin Bustillos, awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize and the Condé Nast Traveler Environmental Award.
• Supported biological investigations and bird studies in Barranca Sinforosa region which led to designation as a conservation priority site in Mexico (CONABIO, 1999) and provided environmental basis to establish protected areas in the region.
• Conducted feasibility analysis for establishing a large-scale biosphere reserve in the Barranca Sinforosa region, which opted for a network of smaller community-managed reserves.
• Sponsored permaculture training for eight Tarahumara and Tepehuan at the Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico.
• Sponsored a bioregional conservation planning workshop which established conservation priority sites in the entire Sierra Madre Bioregion with broad participation from governmental, nongovernmental and indigenous sectors.
• CASMAC advised development of bilingual primary education program for the Tepehuan.
• CASMAC advised the Chihuahua State Congress Indigenous Affairs committee on Indigenous Rights section of the new State Constitution during the PAN administration of Gov. Francisco Barrio.

Achievements 1992-1995

• Co-founded CASMAC (Advisory Council of the Sierra Madre) with Edwin Bustillos and a group of Tarahumara promoters.
• Supported two regional indigenous forums on forest management, indigenous rights, and development with twenty-two Tarahumara and Tepehuan pueblos.
• Facilitated local conservation proposals for forests of Pino Gordo and set conservation objectives in eight other indigenous pueblos.
• Successfully campaigned to stop the violence that was terrorizing the Tarahumara community of Coloradas de la Virgen in cooperation with Teresa Jardí, Federal Attorney General for the State of Chihuahua.
• Stopped illegal logging in Coloradas de la Virgen.
• Assisted investigations of the assassination of indigenous leaders and other conspiracies, which led to several indictments and five arrests.
• Gained the release of dozens of indigenous prisoners held without formal charges or given extraordinary terms for relatively minor offenses.
• Supported indigenous audits of community forestry operations in Baborigame.
• Supported thirty-six community diagnostic and educational workshops in four communities.
• Founded and supported the Agricultural Training and Research Center in Cabórachi, which trained sixty Tarahumara and Tepehuan in organic gardening and composting (1994-1997). Sponsored five-month training of four local trainers in New Mexico.
• Trained a group of six indigenous promoters.
• Restarted abandoned schools in Pino Gordo and Coloradas de la Virgen in collaboration with the Secretary of Public Education (SEP).
• Produced weekly radio program “Tiempos Cambian” (Times are Changing) for Radio Tarahumara XETAR in Guachochi.
• Generated national and international media coverage of related human rights violations and environmental abuses in the Sierra Madre: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Tucson Citizen, Outside Magazine, Utne Reader, La Jornada, Diario de Chihuahua.
• 110 international organizations endorsed a letter of protest to President Ernesto Zedillo against the violence and forest destruction in the Sierra Madre.