I live in Southern California, so this article in Indian Country Times was very interesting to me. There is much agriculture in Southern California, but it depends on massive amounts of water that is brought in from elsewhere. People build homes in valleys and on hills that are vulnerable to wild fires. This is a region that needs to begin to revision itself for a sustainable future.
In one of the most barren regions in the world, an indigenous farmer, Jesus Leon Santos of Nochixtlan, Oaxaca, Mexico, using ancient Mixteca traditions helped to conserve more than 4,000 acres of farmland, prevent massive soil erosion, increase local farm productivity, create more economic growth and, among other things, plant 2 million trees.
For these efforts and others, was awarded the $150,000 Goldman Environmental Prize for sustainable development for 2008. Here is what the award givers have to say:
"Jesus Leon Santos leads an unprecedented land renewal and economic development program that employs ancient indigenous agricultural practices to transform this barren, highly eroded area into rich, arable land,'' according to the Goldman Award press statement. ''With his organization, the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca [CEDICAM], Leon has united the area's small farmers. Together, they have planted more than one million native-variety trees, built hundreds of miles of ditches to retain water and prevent soil eroding, and adapted traditional Mixteca indigenous practices to restore the regional ecosystem.''
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