Ayala, Marìa de la Luz, and Edith R. Jiménez Huerta. “Traditional knowledge in the Defence of the Cultural Landscape of Tlajomulco, Mexico.” Global Environment 7/8 (2011): 8–37. Republished by the Environment & Society Portal, Multimedia Library. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/7560.
Like other people who live in the older settlements around the city of Guadalajara, the inhabitants of Tlajomulco have a comprehensive vision of their villages and surroundings. They have been living on the land and off the land for centuries. At the end of the 20th century, the cultural landscape of Tlajomulco began its latest transformation. The formerly fertile flatlands gave way to large-scale sterile real estate developments. In the rainy season the waters of the water basin, once used to irrigate crop fields, now flood the houses and roads created by this new urbanization. As the city expands, the forests that supplied timber, charcoal and wood, as well as other goods obtained by hunting and gathering, are diminishing and their biodiversity is threatened. At the dawn of the 21st century, the cultural and environmental diversity that has characterized these villages for centuries is thus in danger of being lost to unplanned urban sprawl. The aim of this paper is to encourage conservation and prevent further deterioration by making more widely known the rich cultural landscape of the traditional villages of Tlajomulco and the know-how of the inhabitants that has contributed to its conservation.
— Text from The White Horse Press website
All rights reserved. Made available on the Environment & Society Portal for nonprofit educational purposes only, courtesy of Marìa de la Luz Ayala, Edith R. Jiménez Huerta, and XL edizioni.
