SMA PROGRAMS: Biocultural Conservation:
From the Field: The Heart of the Sierra Madre Alliance

Essay by Randall Gingrich

Standing on the northern rim of the 6000-foot-deep Barranca Sinforosa, we await a delegation of Tarahumara crossing the immense canyon from a place known as Choreachi, one of the most traditional Tarahumara communities and the last pueblo to sustain life in an ancient forest in this part of the world.

“When we awake in the morning, the birds sing and we are happy.  The birds call the clouds which bring the rain.  If we cut the forest, the birds will disappear and the rains will stop.”The contrast between the heavily deforested canyon rim where we stand and Choreachi is intense. Flanked by three major canyons, no roads penetrated Choreachi until 1991, so the area still possesses old growth pine oak, 26 threatened and endangered species, and a cultural tradition guided by ancient shamans that has changed little over the centuries. The Barranca Sinforosa region has been declared a national priority conservation area, but perhaps its greatest conservation value is the cumulative biocultural resources preserved by the Tarahumara: a megadiversity of plants, wildlife, native crops and a wealth of traditional indigenous knowledge.

Sierra Madre Alliance (SMA) and our Mexican associates arrived in Choreachi a year after the first road was built in 1991, and thanks to our support, the community still contains most of its original forests.  Their forest habitat has enabled them to sustain intimate knowledge of wildlife, birds, and plants that is increasingly forgotten in areas of secondary forests or heavily deforested regions.  This knowledge ranges from the mystical realms to practical knowledge of wildlife and habitat management.  The Tarahumara soul is one with all life around them.

“When we awake in the morning, the birds sing and we are happy.  The birds call the clouds which bring the rain.  If we cut the forest, the birds will disappear and the rains will stop,” stated Prudencio Ramos of Choreachi at a border region environmental conference in 2000. Near Guachochi, a young shaman claims that her grandfather warned the community 40 years ago that they should leave the tallest trees which attract the clouds which bring rain.  Today, her community has lost most of its forest cover, has suffered 15 years of drought, and many of her people have migrated or fallen to alcoholism and despair.

Francisco Ramos, Prudencio’s father and a great peyote shaman, laments that few deer are seen as traditional management is not respected.  Tradition, largely forgotten outside Choreachi, calls for Tarahumara to ask the favor of Onoruame (God) and the community prior to hunting deer and then must share his prey with Onoruame and the community.  These Tarahumara are all calling for forest and wildlife management based upon traditional values.

Over the past five years, SMA and our funders have invested over a $250,000 per year in biocultural conservation, training and education.Returning from the canyon edge, we met the Tarahumara delegation from Choreachi at the log cabin of Alberto Lareco.  Inside the cabin, cumbias in Tarahumara language by a local artist named Makawi were blasting over the radio.  The small family, two women, and a young girl (in colorful traditional dress) and an elder were merrily dancing, a moment of pure joy for a family with no food, no income, and little hope of ever climbing out of extreme poverty.  Along with thousands of other families throughout the Sierra, their day begins with the joy of songbirds and ends with a dance of life that celebrates the spirit of traditional indigenous culture, the earth, native plants and wildlife.

Makawi and Prudencio Ramos are among the most advanced barefoot conservationists in the Sierra Tarahumara today. They have benefited from training, funding, and technical support provided by SMA over the past decade. Today, they are helping educate 24 Tarahumara in biocultural mapping and community planning, and organizational processes.  Working with a team of young ecologists, they are helping communities restore watersheds, riparian areas, and developing plans to protect remnant areas of old growth forests.  Their work affects 15 communal forest ejidos covering an expanse of nearly a million acres. One day, they hope the region is designated a Biosphere Reserve.

Yet Prudencio’s land, a place where the shamans maintain the balance between man and nature, is threatened. Like his neighbors in San Carlos and Coloradas de la Virgen, the Tarahumara of Choreachi are fighting for their lands, their basic rights to manage their natural resources. These communities, supported by a network of lawyers and anthropologists and other advisors funded by SMA, are not only defending their community rights, but are beginning to help organize and inspire other pueblos.  Meanwhile, a young anthropologist, Daniela Ramirez, is capturing the knowledge and message of the ancient shamans of the region on video, to serve as a permanent guide to restoring land and culture.

As forested watersheds and wildlife decline throughout the Sierra, the mission of Prudencio, Makawi, and SMA is to revive traditional indigenous knowledge to protect and restore the sacred forests and diversity of life in the Sierra.  By reinforcing traditional cultural values, training indigenous leaders, stabilizing watersheds, and planning economic alternatives such as ecotourism, we create opportunities for the Tarahumara to remain on their lands.

Over the past five years, SMA and our funders have invested over a $250,000 per year in biocultural conservation, training and education.  We have invested an equal amount in defense of indigenous rights, community organization, and planning. We create conditions where wildlife is free to migrate—and humans are not forced to do so.