All together for the Jaguar

Poverty and the lack of employment options, as well as a lack of market for his agricultural products: coffee, cacao, vanilla, cinnamon, chili, corn, beans, are the main causes of the ecological and cultural deterioration faced by the inhabitants of the Sierra Juarez, towns like Asunción Lachitxila, San Felipe Arroyo Macho, Cristo Rey La Selva, San José La Chachalaca, and San Mateo Éxodo.

The thin is that these towns have seen themselves obliged to substitute their ancient rural culture for inadequate substitutes, such as keeping cattle. The advance of cattle ranching has caused a conflict between the ranchers and the jaguars that, having their habitat reduced, attack and kill calves, sheep and chicken, they also endanger the inhabitants of the nearby towns.

After the inhabitants of La Selva captured a Jaguar on the 7th. of October of 2004, they turned it over to the Federal Environmental Protections Agency (PROFEPA), which in turn put it in the Yaguar Xoo, (a local zoo of local fauna). The town’s people made a series of petitions to the government, civil society, artists and businesspeople to help them solve the problem. To this end, the non-profit organization “Pueblo Jaguar” was formed and they presented their project called “Nosotros Somos el Cerro” (We are the mountains” as a proposal to work for the conservation of the jaguar and the well being of the towns of the Union Indígena Zapoteca de la Sierra Norte, that seeks to generate funds for the first protected area for these cats in Oaxaca.

The problem started for these people when in 1997 the government imposed a Micro-Regional Development Council and granted the first funds for extensive ranching. A year later in 1998 the price of coffee fell and started the abandonment of the cultivation and immigration. Then in 1999, with the creation of the Regional Fund of the National
Indigenous Institute more credits were given to increase ranching as an alternative to the coffee crisis. Later in 2000, the Union Indígena Zapoteca de la Sierra Norte was born, formed by Asunción Lachitxila and its four satellites. At that time, with a harsh coffee crisis and because of the lack of alternatives the immigrants who returned to these communities invested their money in the purchase of cattle worsening the socio-environmental problem.

The first advances in solving the conflict began at the end of 2003, when with the support of the Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca and the Union de Organizaciones de la Sierra Juárez, a diagnostic workshop was held and the first integral development plan was created establishing the prioritization of support project to stop the advance of ranching and the search for alternatives, which started the following projects: the marketing of dried chilies, exchange and training in the cultivation and marketing of “Pita”, the exchange and training in intensive ranching, and the improvement of the cultivation of corn and beans. Other projects, such as the rescue of coffee, fish farming, agro-forest nurseries and the cultivation of ornamental plants, are still waiting funding.

In the search for a holistic solution to the social and economic problems that cause the destruction of the forests and put the big cats at risk, and as a response to the its demands, thanks to the intervention of Francisco Toledo, Oaxaca was included in the National Program for the Conservation of the Jaguar, called for by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas and the Committee of Priority Species, after which Alberto Cardenas, Secretary of Environment, announced, in Nayarit that 2005 is the year of the Jaguar.

Some of the other actions have been carried out have also been done by the painter from Juchitan, who donated a drawing for the presentation of the products from the Jaguar’s forest and a local for its marketing. Other artists also have joined forces with the community and helped out with art works of their own. On his side the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, (SEMARNAT), requested and granted the first funding for the community of Cristo Rey La Selva, consisting in seasonal work in carrying out a study of and monitoring the wildlife in the community.
Also, during the proposal presented to the civil society, artists and businesspersons’ generate a work program to make the first protected area of the Jaguar’s Forest, the possibility of returning the animal to the forest, but according to the inhabitants of these communities this could be dangerous because the animal is already “ruined”. Also, the video Jaguar de Luz was shown, which was recorded on the 17th. of October, produced by Fernando Guardarrama and carried out by Tonathiu Diaz in Ojo de Agua Communications, when the town’s people of Cristo Rey La Selva turned the captured jaguar to the Federal authorities together with their demands.