{"id":57,"date":"2007-06-14T17:17:44","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T21:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=57"},"modified":"2007-06-14T17:17:44","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T21:17:44","slug":"seeds-from-chiapas-mexico-a-lesson-of-sustainability-for-ecologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2007\/06\/14\/seeds-from-chiapas-mexico-a-lesson-of-sustainability-for-ecologists\/","title":{"rendered":"SEEDS from Chiapas, Mexico: A Lesson of Sustainability for Ecologists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainability\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd sometimes it sounds like an <em>ideal<\/em>.  However, on our SEEDS field trip to Chiapas, Mexico, students from the  United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico were able to witness small  cooperatives of indigenous agricultural workers working together with  scientists to make sustainability a <em>reality<\/em>.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd  In Chiapas, we saw indigenous organizations developing, learning, and  teaching sustainable agriculture techniques to researchers and other  farmers. Researchers are working to recover the much valuable local  knowledge and sharing their expertise to develop agricultural practices  that are efficient, simple, and culturally appropriate.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd With a  holistic approach to ecologic problems, farmers and scientist are  conducting experiments to test planting, harvesting, and soil  fertilization methods that are healthy for the workers and the  environment, as well as economically profitable.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd The achievements of  their work are improving the indigenous people\u2019s quality of life and  minimizing the ecologic impact of the agricultural production that  sustains their families and the regional economy.<\/p>\n<p> The  work that is taking place in Chiapas is a huge lesson for Ecology.  Where pristine conservation is impossible, where people are living off  the land and altering the natural environment, conservation or  restoration ecologists cannot work against or in spite of the people:  We must work <em>in cooperation<\/em> with them.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Ultimately, as one of our assisting faculty pointed out, it  is not the researchers at the universities that will be doing the  sustainable agriculture; it is the farmers in the fields.\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd I think  Chiapas taught us that the future of environment conservation lies in  our capacity to realize <em>that<\/em> is our goal.<\/p>\n<p> <em>Contributed by Jessica A. Fong-Cisneros, University of Texas at El Paso<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainability\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd sometimes it sounds like an <em>ideal<\/em>.  However, on our SEEDS field trip to Chiapas, Mexico, students from the  United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico were able to witness small  cooperatives of indigenous agricultural workers working together with  scientists to make sustainability a <em>reality<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}