Mexico - Indigenous Peoples Profile

Document of The World Bank FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY CONFIDENTIAL Reno.rt No.: 18899 ME MEXICO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES PROFILE February 10, 1999 Mexico Country Management Unit Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Sector Management Unit Latin America and the Caribbean Region This document has restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the performance of their official duties. Its contents may not otherwise be disclosed without World Bank authorization. FILE COPY CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS Currency Unit = New Mexican Peso (N$) US$ 1.0 = N 10.04 (February 7, 1999) FISCAL YEAR January 1 to December 31 WEIGHTS MEASURES Metric System MAIN ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ARIC Rural Collective Interest Associations (Asociaci6n Rural ISMAM Indigenous Organization of the Sierra Madre of Motozintla Independiente Campesina) NAFTA North America Free Trade Agreement BANRURAL Rural Credit-Bank (Banco de Cridito Rural) NGO Non -Governmental Organization IDB International Development Bank OAS Organization of American States CCI Independent Peasant Organization (Central Campesina OCIHV Independent Peasant of Huasteca Veracruzana Independente) (Organzactdn Campesina Independiente de la Huasteca CEPCO Coffee producers' cooperative in Oaxaca (Coordinadora Veracruzana) Estatal de Productores de Caf6 de Oaxaca) OEFP Union of Ejidos (Union de Ejidos (Maya Yucatan)) CIESAS Center for Research and Studies in Social Anthropology ONU United Nations Organization (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en PARE Pilot Program for Rural Education (Programa Piloto para la Antropologia Social) Educacidn Rural) CIOAC Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants PAREI Pilot Program for Indigenous Education (Programa Piloto (Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos) de Educaci6n Rural para Indigenas) CNC National Peasant Confederation (Confederactdn Nacional PIDER Integrated Rural Development Program (Programa Integral Campesina) de Desarrollo Rural) CNJCI National Confederation of Indigenous Youth & PRI Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Communities (Confederaci6n Nacional de Jdvenes y Institucional) Comunidades Indigenas) PROCAMPO Farms Support Payments Program (Programa de CNOC National Coordination of Coffee Organizations Apoyos Directos al Campo) (Coordmnadora Nacional de Organizaciones Cafetaleras) PROCEDE Program for the Certification of Ejido Rights (Programa CNPI National Council of Indigenous Peoples (Consejo Nacional de Certtficaci6n de Derechos Ejidalesy Titulaci6n de de Pueblos Indigenas) Solares Urbanos) CONACYT National Science and Technology Council (Consejo PRODESCH Socio-economic Development Program of Chiapas Nacional de Cienciay Tecnologia) (Programa de Desarrollo Socioeconomico de los Altos de CONAFE National Educational Commission (Consejo Nacional de Chiapas) Fomento Educativo) PROGRESA Program for Education, Health, and Food (Programa CONAPO National Population Council (Consejo Nacional de de Educaci6n, Saludy Alimentacidn) Poblaci6n) PRONASOL National Solidarity Program (Programa Nacional de CONASUPO National Food Support Program (Compalia Nacional Solidaridad) de Subsistencias Populares) RAN Agrarian National Register (Registro Agrarto Nacional) CREFAL Latin American Regional Center for Basic Education SAGAR Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural (Centro de Educaci6n Bdsica Regional para Amdrica Development (Secretaria de Agricultura Ganaderia y Latina) Desarrollo Rural) CSRT Supreme Council of the Tarahumara (Conse)o Supremo SCT Secretariat of Communication and Transport (Secretaria de de la Raza Tarahumara) Comunicaci6n y Transporte) CTL Movement for Land and Freedom (Campamento Tierra y SECTUR Secretariat of Tourism (Secretaria de Turismo) Libertad) SEDESOL Secretariat of Social Development (Secretaria CZL Lancandon Community (Comunidad Zona Lacandona) de Desarrollo Social) EAP Economically Active Population SEMARNAP Secretariat of the Environment, Natural Resources and ejidos Land reform blocks created in the 1930-1960 land reform Fisheries (Secretaria de Medto Ambiente, Recursos EZLN National Zapatista Liberation Army (Ejercito Zapatista de Naturales y Pesca) Liberacidn Nacional) SHCP Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaria de FAO Food and Agriculture Organization Hacienda y Crddito Publico GEF Global Environmental Facility SRA Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (Secretaria de Reforma GIS Geographical Information System Agraria) HIV/AIDS Infectious Disease and Auto-Immune Deficiency SURI Unified Society of the Indigenous Race (Sociedad Syndrome Unificadora de la Raza Indigena) ILO International Labour Organization UAIM Independent Women's Agricultural Unions (Unidades ILS Indigenous Language Speaker Agrartas Independientespara la Mujer Campesina) IMSS-Coplamar Mexican Institute for Social Health Security UGOCM Union of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social) (Unidn General de Obreros y Campesinos de Mexico) INAH National Institute for History and Archaeology (Insttuto UGOCP General Labor, Peasant, and Popular Union (Uni6n Nacional de Antropologia e Historia) General Obrera, Campesina y Popular) INE National Institute of Ecology (Instituto Nacional de UNAM National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Ecologia) Nacional Autdnoma de Mxico) INEGI National Institute of Geographic and Statistics Information UNESCO United Nations Cultural, Scientific and Educational (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografla e Informitica) Organization INI National Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nactonal Indigenista) UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund INMECAFE The National Coffee Marketing Board WHO World Health Organization Vice President Shahid Javed Burki, LCR Country Director Olivier Lafourcade, LCCIC Sector Director Maritta Koch-Weser, LCSES Sector Leader Adolfo Brizzi, LCCIC Task Manager Augusta Molnar, LCSES MEXICO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES COUNTRY PROFILES TABLE OF CONTENTS EX EC U TIV E SU M M AR Y .............................................................................................. ii 1. DEMOGRAPHY, IDENTITY AND MIGRATION.................................................1 2. ECONOM Y AND M ARKETS ................................................................................. 11 3. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK....20 4. EDUCATION, HEALTH AND CULTURAL HERITAGE ..................................29 5. SUCCESSFUL MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT ..................................................36 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................40 ANNEXES 1. Maps and Statistics 2. Chiapas: State-level Indigenous Profile The Highlands or Altos (Tzotzil and Tzeltal Profiles) 3. Huasteca: Regional Indigenous Profile Teenek Teenek or Huasteca Indigenous Profile 4. Oaxaca: State-level Indigenous Profile Chinanteco: Chinantecos Indigenous Profile 5. Yucatan: The Peninsular Mayas Regional Profile The Maya of Campeche Indigenous Profile 6. List of Background Studies Bibliography This report was prepared by a joint working group of Mexican government agencies and a World Bank team, based on background reports prepared by Mexican consultants. The World Bank team included: Augusta Molnar (team leader); Concepcion del Castillo (MSNED); Shelton Davis (LCSES); Juan Martinez (LCSES); Salomon Nahmad, Consultant; Tania Carrasco, Consultant; and Kathryn Johns Swartz (LCSES). The consultants included Mario Humberto Ruz and team, Ron Nigh and team, Augustin Avila and team, and Alvaro Gonzalez and team. The Mexican working group was headed by Carlos Zolla (INI), Hector Cortez (SHCP), Maria Teresa Franco (INAH), and (CIESAS). Peer reviewers are Harry Patrinos (HDNED) and Osvaldo Feinstein (OEDPK). The Sector Director is Maritta Koch-Weser, the Mexico Country Director is Olivier Lafourcade and the Mexico Sector Leader is Adolfo Brizzi. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background 1. Mexico has an active portfolio of Bank-financed projects, which aim to alleviate poverty and support the improved well being of the urban and rural population, including a significant population of indigenous peoples. While there are a number of studies that assess the situation of indigenous peoples in Mexico and make recommendations for their future development, there is no succinct analysis and compilation of information across sectors. 2. To fill this gap, the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Sector Management Unit (LCSES) and the Mexico Country Management Unit (LCC I C) initiated a sector study, in collaboration with the Mexican Government, which aimed to: (a) compile existing social scientific information on indigenous peoples which previously was only in dispersed form; (b) compile government statistics and information from studies and reports on indigenous peoples' development issues; (c) organize this information in a geographically- referenced, interactive data base, to facilitate its use by diverse actors both within the Bank and Mexico; and (d) summarize key issues, lessons and best practices relating to poverty alleviation and development among indigenous peoples and their communities. 3. The wider purposes of the LCSES/LCC1C study were to: (a) provide a basic set of information for Bank task managers and government agencies, thereby reducing the investment in individual social assessments; (b) make available this set of statistical and analytical information to diverse actors, including NGOs, academic researchers and indigenous communities; and (c) make recommendations for addressing indigenous peoples concerns in the existing Bank portfolio and for the identification and preparation of new Bank- financed projects affecting indigenous peoples. 4. The study was initiated by a joint Working Group in the Bank and the Mexican Government. The Working Group is coordinated by the National Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nacional Indigenista, INI) and the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaria de Hacienda y Cridito Publico, SHCP), with participation of a Steering Committee that includes the National Educational Commission (Consejo Nacional para el Fomento Educativo, CONAFE), the, National Population Council (Consejo Nacional de Poblaci6n, CONAPO), the Center for Research and Studies in Social Anthropology (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social-Occidente, CIESAS) of the National Science and Technology Council (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia, CONACYT). Additional input has been provided by the sectoral ministries of education, environment, agriculture, and health. 11 Study Design and Methodology 5. From the initiation, the idea was to produce both a national profile of the situation of the Mexican indigenous population and a complementary series of regional and ethnic-specific profiles. A methodological decision was also made to hire Mexican social scientists with specialized knowledge of particular regions and indigenous peoples. Each social scientist managed a regional team that produced a regional profile, an ethnic profile for a major group, and shorter profiles for the remaining indigenous groups of importance in those states or regions. 6. The Working Group selected four regions for study based upon poverty indicators, high concentration of indigenous peoples, and the existence of Bank-financed investments. These regions were the Yucatan Peninsula (Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo), the state of Oaxaca, the state of Chiapas and the Huasteca region (San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, and Hidalgo). Within the regions, the four main ethnic profiles are for the Mayas of Campeche, the Chinantecos of Oaxaca, the Tzotziles and Tzelzales of Chiapas, and the Teeneks or Huastecos of the Huasteca. In addition, two anthropologists, who at the time were based in the Mexico Country Management Unit, prepared a national indigenous peoples profile. The national profile summarizes separate information about indigenous peoples from all parts of Mexico, as well as key information from the separate regional and ethnic profiles. 7. Complementary to the regional and national profiles, a team of geographers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universdad Nacional Aut6noma de Mixico, UNAM) produced a geographically referenced database that includes demographic, socio- economic, cultural and ecological information regarding indigenous peoples. This data has been layered into an inter-active Geographical Information System (GIS) which will eventually be available in diskette and CD-ROM form. The later will be jointly maintained by UNAM, INI and the Secretariat of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales, y Pesca, SEMARNAP). Major Findings 8. Demography. One of the most significant findings of the profiles is the changing demography of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Depending upon the definition of who is an "indigenous person," the government estimates that in 1995 there were between 6.8 million (National Inter-Censual Survey) and 10 million indigenous peoples (INI extrapolation from the National Survey). Both figures are based upon linguistic criteria; however, the former figure only counts actual speakers of indigenous languages over 5 years of age, while the latter includes all indigenous speakers over 5 years of age, their spouses (even if they don't acknowledge speaking indigenous languages and their children). 9. More significantly, between the censuses of 1970 and 1990, there has been an increase in the percentage and absolute number of Mexican citizens who identify themselves as "indigenous." Demographers note that the population of indigenous peoples is no longer declining, but growing at 2.7 percent annually, compared to an annual growth rate of 2 percent for the general population. The concentration of indigenous population is increasing not only in rural areas, but also in urban or peri-urban municipalities. The Maya profile for the Yucatan Peninsula, for example, shows that 42.3 percent of the total indigenous population of Quintana iii Roo is urban; and, the national profile indicates that, by 1980, there were 322,668 persons who identified as "indigenous" in Mexico City speaking 39 different indigenous languages. 10. Indigenous Community Structures and Identities. The second finding is the strong persistence and adaptation of pre-colonial communal structures and identities. Communities and ejidos are administered through a communal system of decision-making. This socio/political system has adapted to the pressures and opportunities from outside, but retains its original essence of a prestige economy drawing upon sophisticated allocations of community time and labor to meet community and family needs. In areas of heavy outmigration, these systems have adapted to absorb remittances and redefine the communal rules without breaking down. In the destination areas of permanent migrants, they are recreating themselves in a new form. 11. Extreme Poverty and Social Marginalization. The official and ethnographic figures in the profiles, along with the results of informal interviews, confirm a continued pattern of poverty and social marginalization. The profiles document that more than half of indigenous children are malnourished in all the geographic regions. There is a spreading map of infectious disease, such as gastro-intestinal infections and cholera, that is poverty-linked; and, a skewing of mortality and morbidity statistics away from the causes predominant in the overall population and towards ailments linked to long-term malnutrition. 12. The CONAPO and National Institute of Geographic and Statistical Information (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Informatica, INEGI) municipal statistics on poverty indicators do not permit a thorough understanding of the situation of indigenous people, especially as urbanization increases and creates enclave indigenous populations within municipalities, whose poverty no longer becomes visible. According to the profiles, infectious disease rates, malnutrition, and HIV/AIDs rates are double or triple the CONAPO and INEGI figures for indigenous municipalities. Both as a response to limited formal health care and their efficacy, there is a wide use of traditional medicines and recourse to traditional medical practitioners in all the indigenous areas. Unfortunately, there has not yet been adequate cooperation between Western medical services and indigenous services. This is an area of great potential which could significantly reduce morbidity and mortality rates in indigenous areas. 13. Educational Services. There is a strong desire to educate children in all of the regions profiled. The profiles document that indigenous children suffer very low-grade attainment, inaccessibility to higher-grade levels, and high dropout rates. There are multiple causes for this situation. Teachers are poorly trained, union and governmental regulations prohibit flexible hours to accommodate agricultural calendars, and few curriculums have been updated and tailored to reflect indigenous children's realities and needs. Furthermore, in the same region, there may be three or four different educational philosophies competing in local schools, without the parents having a clear definition of the goals and advantages of each. As a result, indigenous children are not acquiring the necessary educational background to pull themselves out of poverty or to find a place in modern Mexican society. 14. Linkage between Indigenous Settlements and High-value Natural Resources. There is a strong relationship between the areas of indigenous settlement and the concentration of natural resources of high environmental and biodiversity value. More than 30 percent of the major protected areas in the country have indigenous populations living in or around them. The majority or sole populations in the more marginal areas, such as extremely arid or mountainous iv land, are indigenous peoples. The humid tropics are being colonized by indigenous and non- indigenous groups that do not possess traditional knowledge or farming systems adaptive to this region. Government policy has recently recognized the important role that indigenous populations can play by remaining in their traditional territories and conserving their productive systems and knowledge of natural resources. 15. Declining Agricultural Productivity. Increased population pressure has led to more intensive use of agricultural lands, without a commensurate increase in agricultural productivity. Prior to the agricultural reforms of the 1990s, the government extended low-interest credit to farmers for fertilizer, improved seed, pesticides, and herbicides designed to increase productivity and alleviate poverty. Unfortunately, these inputs were not always appropriate to the soils, investment capacity, and labor availability of the indigenous regions, especially in central and southern Mexico. Soils deteriorated; investment capital was insufficient to sustain purchases of hybrid seed and recommended ratios of inputs; and, low productivity increased outmigration and reduced the available labor for local agriculture. Traditional indigenous agriculture has retained a high diversity of farm products, despite low yields of primary products, such as maize. In contrast, monocropped areas have generally not produced a commensurately higher yield or provided protection against fluctuations in climate or natural disasters. 16. Limited Access to Credit, Capital, and Technical Advice. Indigenous farmers have had little access to formal sources of credit, capital and technical advice. In the continued absence of formal credit, farmers rely on two kinds of informal loans. In most indigenous communities there are wealthier mestizos and some indigenous persons who lend at high interest rates for crop inputs, working capital, emergency loans; they often temporarily purchase livestock at a discount and then resell it to the original owner, once the owner has the needed liquidity. There are also informal systems of in-kind lending in indigenous communities and ejidos. These systems cover a wide range of needs, including the transferring of breeding stock from one household to another under a quasi-credit arrangement. 17. The most recent and best known experience with respect to revolving credit funds is the INI Regional Solidarity Funds program created by the Secretariat for Social Development (Secretaria del Desarrollo Social, SEDESOL). The Regional Solidarity Fund experience has demonstrated that communities and ejidos are effective managers of such funds, exerting sanctions similar to those applied to the informal credit sector to achieve high repayment rates. The Agricultural Ministry (Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Desarrollo Rural, SAGAR) program, Alianzapara el Campo, is experimenting with a similar mechanism, but it is too early to fully assess the ability of such fund to maintain solvency under conditions of agricultural investment risk and limited rural savings. 18. Successful Models ofIndigenous Production and Community Mobilization. There are a number of innovative, productive experiments taking place in indigenous communities across Mexico, which blend traditional values and modem technology and marketing. These models promote organic agriculture, indigenous coffee cooperatives, community forestry enterprises, and nature or culture tourism enterprises. Many of these models are the result of partnerships between indigenous communities and development NGOs or churches: communities provide internal reflection, labor and organizing efforts; while the partner has provided participatory planning techniques, seed capital, or technical advice and marketing assistance. These successes are characterized by the following features: (a) they improve livelihoods while retaining cultural v values; (b) they help conserve imporitant natural resources; (c')th y frequently include the provision of seed capital which may be more effective than the provision of credit and/or that of a full subsidy; and (d) they provide new models for resource management that have lessons for non-indigenous areas. Why have past programs not worked? 19. The profiles document that the majority of past development programs directed at indigenous communities have not worked as a result of a misperception of the needs and problems of indigenous peoples. The problems of indigenous peoples have often been treated as a special type of "poverty issue" and hence solutions have been sought through the provision of technological information and social services to achieve "poverty alleviation." In contrast, the authors of the profiles suggest that the problems of indigenous peoples are historic in nature and result from the continuing unequal power relationships between ethnic groups and local, non- indigenous elites and between the State and indigenous communities. The mere provisioning of goods and services has been unable to affect these power relationships. Moreover, development agencies have advanced a vision of a better future that is not consistent with the vision and aspirations of the indigenous people themselves. The result has been a significant transfer of financial resources to areas of indigenous settlement without a sustainable impact on the social and economic conditions of indigenous communities. 20. In line with the above, the profiles document five areas of disconnect between indigenous needs and interests and development strategies and activities. First, there is a strong incongruency between Mexican society's historical desire to integrate indigenous peoples and the persistence of indigenous languages, cultures, and identities. The famous Mexican anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil in his award-winning book, Mixico Profundo (Profound Mexico) argued in the 1980s that mainstream Mexican society has been enamored with assimilation since colonial times in the hope of achieving a culturally homogeneous society. Despite ample evidence of profound cultural differences among the indigenous peoples, and decades of anthropological research, citizens and policy makers perceive indigenous peoples as becoming increasingly "Mexicanized." They have failed, therefore, to notice that indigenous ethnicities remain quite distinct, making adaptations to the surrounding national culture, rather than being absorbed or assimilated by it. Bonfil and related thinkers make the observation that the concept of assimilation has carried with it the implicit assumption that indigenous cultures are inferior and that one role of education is to take the indigenous person "out of' their cultural identity and, thereby out of "poverty." 21. Second, it has proven difficult to fully grasp the complexity of the response by indigenous populations to threats to their cultures and to their control over traditional lands and territories. To cope with continuous real or perceived threats to their existence and property, indigenous groups developed coping mechanisms--closed exchange of information, maintaining traditional systems of authority, presenting a public image palatable to outsiders, and maintaining a skepticism of new programs and initiatives. In decades of interacting with political organizations and government officials that have different goals and objectives, indigenous communities have developed defense mechanisms against the intrusive elements of outside society. They have allowed indigenous leaders to emerge as intermediaries, hoping thereby to protect the essence of their communities from outsiders. Many of these intermediaries have ended up exploiting the people they were intended to protect (such as leaders of second and third tier indigenous vi organizations that no longer serve their constituents). In some cases, like in the State of Oaxaca, the existence of a legal framework more attuned to indigenous people, has facilitated the development of greater autonomy among municipalities as an alternative to traditional political control. Similar movements in Guerrero and Chiapas have been more problematic, also because of the limited legal support provided. 22. Third, government and non-governmental programs have tended to provide piecemeal resource transfers to indigenous communities through distinct programs without paying sufficient attention to the social impacts of such transfers and their overall impacts on cultures and communities. The multiplicity of organizational arrangements and norms required for eligibility to a multitude of programs has contributed to management inefficiencies at the community level. 23. In the past, development agencies have assumed that these organizations are independent of traditional social structures and new forms of social capital. In fact, much of the induced organization has tended to weaken existing social capital, by undermining the ability of traditional authorities to plan in an integrated way, and by dispersing development activities across a wide range of organizations and committees. Also, in some cases, committees may have developed with limited representativeness of their leaders, undermining community cohesion and acceptance. For example, the Huasteca profile documents a community where 175 adults are represented in the Community Assembly, and are responsible for filling 115 positions between those required by government development programs and the traditional cargo system of community service. The recent initiative taken by five Ministries (SAGAR, Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (Secretaria de Reforma Agraria, SRA), SEMARNAP, SEDESOL, and Secretariat of Communications and Transport (Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transport, SCT)) to promote better institutional coordination for the development of priority regions, goes in the right direction. 24. Fourth, the quasi-exclusive control of markets by private sector intermediaries (the "coyote" system of rural Mexico) continues unabated. All of the studies document a marked dependence of indigenous producers on agribusiness and other processing industries (sugar cane, sawmills, etc.) for working capital and market sale of their crops. Marketing patterns reflect geographic dependency relationships established during colonial times. Few community organizations are able to mobilize alternative sources of capital for transport or bulk purchase. Even in the indigenous regional markets, large-scale purchase and resale of products are usually in the hands of non-indigenous merchants. There are exceptions like the San Juan Nuevo Forestry enterprise in Michoacan or the CEPCO coffee producers' cooperative in Oaxaca. Effective strategies should be sought for replicating these experiences. 25. The emergence of a multi-party system in Mexico has provided new avenues for public debate and networking of indigenous political organization. It has also helped to reduce the traditional allegiances of indigenous communities and their organizations to regional political bosses and their access to government programs and resources. At the state level, however, many indigenous remain dependent on non-indigenous intermediaries. 26. Lastly, more attention and effort should be devoted to prepare communities to manage their own process of development. Most government and non-governmental programs have funds for capacity building, but courses and technical assistance are usually designed by vii outsiders. Similarly, relatively limited use is made of the growing number of indigenous professionals living and working in the country. Increasingly, the successful indigenous communities are training and hiring their own technical specialists in agriculture and forestry. These specialists have greater ability to respond to community values and interests, while providing modem expertise. Many of the most successful indigenous communities argue that development agencies have a false sense of time, imposing their own goals and vision and expecting organizational capacity to develop overnight. PATHS TO SUCCESSFUL INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT 27. Despite the above experience, there are successful models of indigenous development, both internally and externally induced. The profiles also document the strong interest of all the indigenous peoples investigated to adapt their societies and cultures to new needs and opportunities, while retaining their distinct, cultural identities. There are common elements in the success stories that can be applied by government and other development agencies. This however, requires a fundamental change in perspective, on the part of development agencies and agents as well as modified timeframes and indicators for measuring performance and impact 28. In particular, the profiles highlight the following fundamental lessons which can put these communities on a path to positive change: (a) meet indigenous communities on their own terms, respecting their cultural values, including their traditional social organizations as reflected in recent changes in legislation; (b) make organizational capacity building a free-standing component as an objective in itself, and provide the needed time and space in a given project for that capacity to develop rather than rushing activities through existing channels; (c) decentralize and channel resources directly to communities, developing more participatory systems of controls to see that money is used as planned and broadening the menu of possible interventions; (d) disseminate information about indigenous peoples to policy makers and government and non-government personnel to counter misperceptions and open new spaces for dialogue and negotiation; (e) explore opportunities to complement Western health care systems with traditional medicine and indigenous systems of treatment; (f) invest in training and hiring of indigenous professionals, including assisting indigenous university students and tailoring specialized curricula to indigenous community development needs to the needs of non-indigenous professionals planning to work with indigenous development; (g) incorporate knowledge of indigenous resource management and traditional farming systems into applied research and management strategies, focusing particularly attention on marginal/fragile environments and conservation of biodiverse areas; and viii (h) identify issues involved in indigenous communities' control of nature and culture tourism, including new legal relationships to their physical patrimony and opportunities for more balanced partnerships. 29. Several recent Government programs with strong poverty focus are being implemented, for example: Rural Development in Marginal Areas, Basic Education Development, and Community Forestry, all with World Bank support. They contain strategies for decentralizing decision making, working with community and inter-community structures, and recognizing that indigenous peoples may not make the same choices of technologies or enterprise decision- making as other rural people. This requires that an awareness of this difference be reflected in monitoring and evaluation of the extent to which principles established in program design will not remain on paper, but translate into measurable action. This also requires that government programs learn from the lessons of the past, take more into account indigenous values, and be willing to relinquish control over the development process. Next Steps (a) develop a plan of action that reflects the needs of a diverse indigenous population, by expanding the profiles to other rural and urban populations, and by reflecting the lessons in on-going and new operations; (b) seek creative ways of promoting indigenous development through innovative financing of targeted indigenous projects and activities; (c) disseminate the information generated by the profiles widely, both the reports and the GIS data base, by investing in creative products including seminars, diskettes, CD-ROM data presentation, internet links for larger communities, etc.; (d) expand the capacity-building initiatives being piloted in the Institutional Development Fund Grants to other communities and concentrate as well on supporting the advancement of indigenous professionals who can work in indigenous projects and programs; (e) promote a dialogue with the Mexican Government and counterpart agencies on the findings of the profiles and their implications for future action. ix 1. Demography, Identity, and Migration Who are the Indigenous Peoples? 1. There are 56 recognized indigenous groups, speaking 75 distinct languages or dialects, and making up approximately 10 percent of the 95 million total population in Mexico. Many of these peoples still live in proximity to the 36 main ceremonial centers from pre-Hispanic times. Concentrations of indigenous peoples are found in 2,315 of the 2,428 municipalities in the country, with the greatest concentrations in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, Yucatan, and Mexico City (see Table 1). The next most populous are the more dispersed central and northern populations of Nahuatl, Teenek, Huichol, and Tarahumara of Chihuahua. The most well known are the Nahuatl, descendents of the ancient Aztec rulers. The presence of indigenous groups in northern Mexico is markedly different than in the southern states. In the north, there are concentrations of indigenous peoples, but often within municipalities that are mainly non-indigenous, and a great dispersion in the arid and semi- arid areas. Internal migration towards the northern commercial agricultural areas has also created a mixing of indigenous groups in Baja California and parts of Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, creating new communities with indigenous identities in municipalities where these traditionally did not exist. The largest groups are the Maya and related language groups of the south, such as the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal, Mixe, and Chol, the Otomangue linguistic groups of Oaxaca including the Zapoteco, Mixtecos, Mazateco, and Chinantecos. Table 1. Indigenous Population by State in the Study (1995 Census) State Occupant of household where head of Indigenous Language household or spouse is Indigenous Speakers 5 yrs and > Language Speaker (ILS) Campeche 89,180 642,516 Chiapas 447,764 3,065,100 Oaxaca 1,027,847 3,228,895 Quintana Roo 157,770 703,536 San Luis Potosi 2,113,717 2,200,763 Veracruz 590,829 6,737,224 Yucatan 545,902 1,556,622 Source: National Institute of Geographic and Statistical Information (INEGI) 1995. Table 2. Indigenous Population by Ethnic Group in the Study (Comparing 1990, 1995) Ethnic Group 1990 1995 1995 Occupant of household where head of Indigenous language household or spouse is an ILS speakers 5 yrs and > Chinantecos 109,100 143,847 171,188 Maya 713,520 994,090 1,404,263 Teenek or Huastecos 120,739 156,557 188,617 Tzeltal, Tzotzil 490,287 728,262 695,856 Source: INEGI, 1995; National Indigenous Institute (INI) 1990 estimates Page 1 Demography 2. Mexico is unusual relative to other countries with indigenous peoples, in that there has been an historical tracking of the numbers of indigenous people in the population through the national census and collection of other official statistics. For purposes of planning and identifying priority regions, census data has recorded whether or not an individual over five years of age speaks an indigenous language (recorded as the maternal language) and has classified municipalities according to the percentage of population that speaks an indigenous language. In addition, the National Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nacional Indigenista, INI) has made its own adjusted estimates in light of the census data, based on estimated population in households with indigenous language speakers (ILS) and extrapolation of total population including children under 5 and resident spouses. The salient categories in use are municipalities with 0-29 percent indigenous population, 30-69 percent, and 70 percent and above. Recently, in an attempt to bring official statistics more in line with the reality being extrapolated by INI, the 1995 Inter-Censal period for the first time added new criteria to the interview sheet as to whether the individual lives in a household in which the head of household or spouse is an ILS. Under the original criteria there are 6.7 million persons over 5 years of age who are indigenous (7.4 percent). Under the second criteria there are 8.9 million persons over 5 years of age (9.8 percent) (see Table 3). Table 3. Indigenous Population Estimates by Year Population Estimate 1990 1995 1997 Total Population 81,249,645 91,158,290 ILS 5 years of age and older 5,181,038 6,755,585 Occupant of household where the head 8,989,895 or household or spouse is an ILS Indigenous population 8,701,688 10,040,290 10,597,488* (INI adjusted estimate) *Population projection estimated on the basis of a growth rate of 2.7 percent (Valdez, 1996). 3. There are several important demographic problems in estimating trends in the indigenous population. First, municipal data is difficult to compare over time because of shifts in municipal boundaries and the creation of new municipalities in growth centers. Second, there are a number of ethnic groups that do not retain their native language, despite a strong ethnic affiliation. Third, with urbanization, the percentage of indigenous population per municipality is less salient a category, because the urban indigenous population may be more significant numerically than that found in traditionally indigenous municipalities. Fourth, the recent social trend throughout Latin America to revalue one's indigenous identity has led a number of indigenous people to reassert their identity as indigenous speakers or as ethnically distinct. 4. The current official data shows an increase in absolute numbers of indigenous population in Mexico, in contrast to the statistics over the past few decades that showed a decline in absolute and relative numbers. Demographers take a 20-year interval from 1970 to 1990 to even disparities in data and calculate a growth rate of 2.7 percent of the indigenous Page 2 population compared to 2 percent for the population as a whole over that period. Of the 2,315 municipalities with indigenous population in Mexico, 1995 statistics show that 1/5 have more than 70 percent ILS, and 1/10 have 30-69 percent ILS. There are a total of 201,138 settlements in Mexico, 12,000 (6 percent) of which have more than 70 percent indigenous population, 5,500 (3 percent) have 30-69 percent indigenous population, and 22,000 (11 percent) have less than 30 percent indigenous population (see Table 4). Table 4. Indigenous Settlements in Mexico Settlements 1990 1995 Total number of settlements in Mexico 156,602 201,138 Settlements with over 70 percent ILS 13,179 11,924 Settlements with 30 percent to 69 percent ILS 4,359 5,523 Settlements with fewer than 30 percent ILS 26,680 22,419 Source: Settlements identified in the Population Census, INEGI. Migration 5. Migration is an increasingly important demographic factor shaping the distribution of indigenous peoples in Mexico and outside. In 1980, 10 percent of the indigenous population resided outside its region of origin, and Mexico City registered 322,668 indigenous language speakers of 39 languages. Migration takes two forms: temporary and permanent migration. Temporary Migration 6. Temporary migration occurs to take advantage of labor opportunities in commercial agricultural regions, in two distinct calendar periods, or for non-skilled and domestic employment in the urban centers. 7. A longer migration is evident one analyzes the information about birthplace and place of residence. This focus shows the paths of migration throughout individuals' lives. In 1990, a total of 456,090 indigenous language speakers lived in a place different from that of birth, or 8.7 percent of the national indigenous total. Within this global migratory stream, the State of Oaxaca shows the most migrants with nearly one third of the total (141,831), and Yucatan shows slightly over one sixth (81,177). Seen from the perspective of the poles of attraction, Mexico City predominates (92,454), followed by the State of Mexico (8,755) and Quintana Roo (77,476). 8. The largest outflows are from Yucatan to other states within the peninsula. Fifteen percent of the total national migration is from Yucatan to Quintana Roo (8.0,800 people). This reflects the pressures of out-migration, but the preference of Mayans to stay in their own region. Oaxaca migrants, by contrast, are found where ever there is an opportunity: Mexico City (34,400), the State of Mexico (43,000), and Veracruz (32,000) contribute to 70 percent of the out-migration from Oaxaca. Page 3 9. Several temporary streams of migrants follow the agricultural cycle--moving from the center and northwest to the sugarcane harvest in Morelos and Puebla, to Mexico City, and onward to Baja and eventually Guadalajara. From there migrants move to Zacatecas, Durango, and Chihuahua to the city of Juarez or from Zacatecas to Nuevo Leon and onward to Tamaulipas and even into the United States. Permanent Migration 10. Compared to temporary or cyclical migration, permanent migration is less significant, and is generally directed towards tourist zones along the coasts or state capitals where indigenous peoples settle in colonies according to their place of origin. Employment is in service or construction, domestic service for women, and some are factory employees or engage in commerce. These activities are made possible and continue through the social networks established by family or community of origin. Mexico City is one of the largest poles of permanent migration. 11. Colonization of new lands is also associated with permanent migration and occurs mainly in the southern states of the country, such as Chiapas and the Lacanadon Jungle. Around 1950, this region received an influx of internal migrants consisting of Choles, Zoques, Tzotziles, Tojolabales, and Tzeltales. The same area has also received population from Veracruz, Zacatecas, Jalisco and Michoacan. Migrants from the northern part of the country and Purepeche populations from Veracruz and Michoacan have settled in the States of Campeche and Quintana Roo. In the State of Tabasco, the expansion of the petroleum industry and colonization projects also became poles of attraction. A series of new colonies were established permanently in the Huasteca region, attracted by the vibrant agricultural and livestock activities. The Concept of Indigenous Identity-History 12. From colonial times through the periods of independence and revolution to the present, there has been a great debate over the definition and characteristics of an indigenous person of Mexico. When the Europeans came into contact with the native populations, they ascribed the category of indios to those peoples who maintained their own identity and cultural specificity. This presumed a category of people who were different and inferior from a racial, cultural, linguistic, intellectual, and religious viewpoint and served to justify and rationalize the colonial domination and the privileged position of the conquerors.' The indio concept no longer exists officially, but the ethnic cultures continue to be considered inferior to mainstream culture in popular belief. 13. The construction of a society that is inclusive and democratic would presumably result in a replacement of the colonial categories with an affirmation of a pluri-ethnic society 1Jean Casimir "La Cultura Oprimida". Nueva Imagen, 1981. Mexico. Enrique Krauze. Mexico Biography of Power a History of Modem Mexico 1810-1996. New York, Harper Collins, 1997. Chapter 1: The Legacy of Cortes. Donna lee Van Cott. Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America. Chapter 1: Indigenous Peoples and Democracy, Issues for Policy Makers. New York, Inter-American Dialogue, 1994. Page 4 of wide cultural and ethnic diversity.2 What complicates the current identity is the lack of political space in which to define what is ethnically unique among groups that have each followed their own path of adaptation to Spanish and Mexican culture and history. There is a great spectrum of indigenous peoples in Mexico ranging from groups with solid ethnic identities and large populations to a few more remote groups existing at the margin of extinction. However all have demonstrated their long persistence within a territory where they were once autonomous and in which they aspire to maintain separate cultural systems. Below are some alternate definitions of "indigenous," reflecting international and national, as well as self-definitions. Definition of Indigenous: Legal Definition in the 1992 Mexican Constitution Article 4. The Mexican nation has a multicultural composition based on its original inhabitants. The Law will protect the development of their languages, cultures, customs, resources, and specific forms of social organization, and will guarantee its citizens the effective access to the state jurisdiction. In legal decisions and agrarian related processes that they are a part of, their special practices and legal norms will be taken into account in terms established by the law. Article 27, Section VII, Second paragraph. The law will protect the integrity of the lands of the indigenous groups. Definition of "Indigenous:" International International Labor Organization Convention 169 Pertaining to Indigenous Populations. Part 1: General Policy Article I 1. The present convention applies to: Tribal groups in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sectors of the national society, and who are governed totally or partially by their own customs or other special legislation; Peoples in independent countries considered as indigenous by the fact of descent from original inhabitants of the country or one of its specific regions during the colonial period or colonization, or from the establishment of currently existing state borders, and that retain, regardless of their judicial status, their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions or parts of them. 2. The self-recognition of their cultural or tribal identity should be considered as a fundamental criterion to determine the groups to whom the present convention applies. 3. The use of the term "peoples" in this convention should not be interpreted in the sense of that which implies rights to the use of such a term according to international rights. ILO Provisional Acts, Seventy-seventh Meeting, Geneva, 1989--Incorporated in the National Mexican 2 Guillermo Bonfil Batalla. Pensar Nuestra Cultura. Mexico Alianza Editorial. Mario Humberto Ruz. Historia de los Pueblos Indigenas de Mexico: Un Rostro Encubierto, los Indios del Tabasco Colonial. Mexico, CIESAS-INI, 1994. Serge Gruzinski. La Colonizacion de lo Imaginario: Sociedades indigenas y occidentalizacion en el Mexico espanol. Siglos XVI-XVIII. Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1988. Page 5 Self-Definition in Mexico Self-Definition of Indigenous Community and Identity A territorial space demarcated and defined by possession A common history, communicated orally and from one generation to the next A variant of a language of the original peoples with whom we identify An organization which defines the political, cultural, social, civil, economic, and religious A communal system of defining and administering justice In order to understand each of these elements there must agreement on what constitutes communal, collective, complementary and integral: The earth as mother and as our territory Consensual assemblies for decision-making Free services by authorities in the service of the community Collective work as a recreational and social act Rites and ceremonies as expressions of communal rights (Diaz, 1997) Relationship of the State to Indigenous Communities 14. The identity of the indigenous peoples in rural Mexico is strongly linked to the institutions of indigenous communities (comunidades), which are land and social units with customary, communal forms of government, and ejidos, which can be indigenous, mixed, or non-indigenous and are land reform units containing individual agricultural and household parcels and collective commons. Depending on the history of a particular region after independence, indigenous settlements were either recognized as comunidades or established as ejidos. The Government of Mexico developed a policy during the 1930s for support to the ejidos and communities recognized or newly established, beginning during the administration of President Cardenas. The policy included explicit respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, their lands, their rights to social justice, and to economic advancement. As part of this policy, the National Indigenist Institute (INI) was established in 1948, after several alternative administrative options in existing agencies had proved inadequate. The original idea of INI was to provide indigenous peoples with the necessary social, economic and educational skills to incorporate or assimilate into Mexican society. INI's mandate included ethnographic study of indigenous peoples, promotion of their concerns, and advisory services to government, combined with programs of local assistance to indigenous peoples. Based on theories of acculturation then prevalent in anthropology, the original founders of INI, many of whom were among the most famous Mexican anthropologists, developed a theory of "indigenist" action which called for setting up Indigenist Coordinating Centers in the so- called "regions of refuge" where most communities had originally, or as a result of conquest and colonization, lived. INI established the earliest of these Regional Coordinating Centers in San Cristobal de las Casas to serve the large Tzotzil and Tzelzal populations of the highlands of Chiapas and in the northern state of Chihuahua to serve the Tarahumara population (World Bank, 1994). 15. Much of the growth of INI's activities occurred in the 1970s under the Echeverria and Lopez Portillo governments. During this period, INI was able to draw upon the resources of several rural development programs existing at the time-the Integrated Rural Development Page 6 Program (Programa Integral de Desarrollo Rural, PIDER) and the General Coordination of the National Plan for Degraded Areas and Marginal Groups (Coordinadora General de Plan Nacional para las Zonas Deprimidas y Grupos Marginadas, COPLAMAR)-and thereby extend its influence to new areas of the country. Between 1972-80, the number of regional centers increased from 11 to 78; the agency's annual budget rose from 85.7 to 2.056 million pesos and the size of the population attended increased from 1.6 to 2.7 million people (about one sixth of the indigenous population in 1980). 16. During this period of growth, INI invested heavily in social and productive infrastructure and channeled agricultural inputs financed from other programs to indigenous peoples, organizing over 2,000 groups of indigenous ranchers. In education, INI expanded the network of indigenous boarding schools from 25 in 1972 to 1019 in 1979. Indigenous attendance at primary schools also doubled in this period, and large number of bilingual indigenous promoters were trained by INI. 17. After the 1981 financial crisis, INI was unable to maintain its program and indigenous communities had not been prepared to administer their own programs. Today, the Regional Coordinating Centers have limited budgets, many are dependent on international sources, and have fewer professional staff. In response, INI began to promote a more organic approach to development, with participation of indigenous communities in all stages and tailoring of support to indigenous knowledge and institutions and local investment capacity. INI also realized that rapid expansion and training of large number of "promoters" without attention to their impact on small-scale indigenous society, had created a potential class of leaders, who in some cases began to consolidate power and function as "caciques." Cultural Identity-The Present 18. The national and regional profile studies substantiate a strong persistence of distinct cultural identity of a significant indigenous population in Mexico, which is based on individual ethnic identity related to language and to identification with a sub-group based on residential community or sense of place--whether original or acquired. The following table provides the common name and self-given names of 56 ethnic groups. Page 7 Table 5. Typology of Names of Ethnicities Common Group Name Self-given Name Meaning 1. Tojolabales Tojolwinik'otik Legitimate or true men 2. Tarascos Pur6pechas Person or people 3. Chichimeca, Jonaz Ezar Indians (Indios) 4. Triquis Tinujei My brother 5. Zoque O'deptit People of the Language 6. Popoluca Homshuk God of Corn 7. Tzeltales Winik atel Working Men 8. Tzotziles Batsil winik'otik True Men 9. Mochos Mochos o Motozintlecos ...... 10. Huasteco Teenek Those who live in the fields 11. Nahua Macehuale Farmer/peasant (Campesino) 12. Otomi Hila hilu Otomi speakers 13. Huicholes Wirrdrika The People 14. Kikapi Kikaapoa Those who walk the earth 15. Mazahuas Mazahuas Where there are deer 16. Mazatecos Ha shuta enima People of Custom 17. Mayas Mayd Name of the Territory 18. Matlazincas Matlazinca Those who make nets 19. Mayos Yoremes The people of the Shore 20. Mixes Ayuuk The People 21 Chinantecos Tsajujmi People of the Old Word 22. Chatinos Kitse cha'tnio Work of the Words 23. Coras Nayeri 24. Huaves Mero ikooc The True Us 25. Seris Kon kaak The People 26. Tarahumara Rarimuri Runners on Foot 27. Tepehuanes Oddmi People 28. Zapotecos Istmo BinnzA People who come from the Clouds 29. Zapotecos de Valles Ben'zaa People of the Clouds 30. Zapotecos Sierra Norte Bene xon People of the Clouds 31. Totonacos Totonacos Man of the Hot Country 32. Tlapanecos Me'phaa He who is Painted 33. Chochos Runixa ngiigua Those who speak The Language 34. Choles Winik Men or Milperos 35. Yaquis Yoremes Man 36. Amuzgos Tzjon non People of the textiles 37. Chontales de Oaxaca Slijuala xanuc' Inhabitants of the Mountains 38. Chontales de Tabasco Yokot' anob The Yoko Speaking People 39. Guarijios Macurawe Those who Roam the Earth 40. Mames Mam Father, Grandfather or Ancestors 41. Pimas O'ob People of the Desert 42. Pipagos Thono o'otham People of the Desert 43. Pames Xi'ii People of the Rain 44. Mixtecos Iuu savi People of the Rain 45. Lacandon Hach Winik True men 46. Kumiai Kumiai 47. Cucapa Cucapa 48. Paipai Akwa'ala 49. Cochimi Cochimi 50. Kiliwa Kiliwa 51. Ocuilteco Ocuilteco 52. Popolocas Runixa ngiigua 53. Ixcatecos lxcatecos 54. Chuj Chuj 55. Jacaltecos Jacaltecos 56. Tepehua Tepehua Page 8 19. Cultural identity includes many things: linguistic affiliation, forms of communal life, oral traditions, specific relationships to nature and to territories, and medicinal and traditional knowledge. Indigenous peoples continue to attribute (as in pre-colonial times) to their priests and shamans special gifts of knowledge. The indigenous peoples construct symbolic systems where their own unique cosmogony is hidden under a layer of Christianity, but wherein they continue to communicate with their ancestral deities as well as those of modern Christianity. Traditional social and political institutions interact with government and civil society structures to maintain a discrete identity, while permitting evolution towards a changing future. 20. There is an extreme gap between the internal processes of reinvention going on in indigenous communities and the majority perception of Mexican society that "indigenous identity" is reactionary, static, anti-modern, and a cause of persisting poverty. The majority perception is of a continuous process of assimilation by indigenous peoples into a Mexican cultural identity, where traditional values have no place. An example of this is the recurrent theme in articles since 1994 in the Mexican newspapers attacking the Zapatista movement and other indigenous peoples for continuing to promote a communal form of local governance, viewing the system of traditional authorities and communal decision-making as inherently anti-democratic and inherently anti-modern. A contrasting view of a possible Mexican future is reflected in interviews with mestizos sympathetic to the Zapatista movement who view the resurgence of specific ethnic identities and the development of those populations as indigenous as a reaffirmation of the plural cultural roots of the whole Mexican society from which these mestizos have come--i.e. an enriching opportunity for the future rather than a step backward (Stephen, 1997). With the increasing democratization in Mexico, there is greater political space for indigenous peoples, at the same time, persistent intolerance of indigenous differences at the local level can limit options for change or generate unmanaged conflict. Identity and Social Structure 21. The distinguishing feature of indigenous communities is an internal social organization based on an economy of prestige and social responsibility. This organizational structure governs both religious and political life. The community or indigenous ejido is governed customarily by a group of appointed officials holding positions of responsibility or cargos for specific tasks required by the community. One set of tasks are religious- responsibility for organizing a series of religious rituals in the annual religious calendar. An adult male rotates upward through an increasingly onerous set of positions/cargos related to organizing the religious events of the year, until that person "graduates" to a series of civil responsibilities in the council of elders (Consejo de Ancianos). Religious duties include purchase of candles, food, drink, fireworks and associated expenditures that are assumed by the responsible official (cargo) during his tenure. Civic responsibilities include four categories of tasks: consensus building, advisory services, justice and administration of customary law, and administration of communal works. Authorities are involved in the allocation of communal lands, arbitration of land and other local disputes, investigation of thefts and other breaches of justice, and intermediation with other forms of state government. Page 9 22. The system of cargos is both a form of sharing responsibility for community activities that require organization and a means of distributing wealth within the community. A community member selected as a religious sponsor in a cargo must balance the tradeoff between increasing individual household savings and accumulating prestige by contributing to religious expenditures. Local traditional authorities work full time without salary. An interesting organizational variation has emerged in Chiapas whereby recently formed Protestant communities, which reject the traditional ritual calendar of Catholic communities, have established a separate system of cargos for a series of secular duties-e.g., management of the primary school association, assistance in locating employment opportunities-which upon completing, cargo holders are appointed to the Council of Elders. 23. The political organization of the community rests with the Council of Elders, including the civic positions plus the Community Assembly, made up of all heads of household. The Council meets several times per year and in special sessions as needed. Depending on the ethnic group, there is a differing emphasis, but the business of the community is decided by a system of consensus building rather than majority vote. To illustrate the seriousness of the value of consensus, the successful forestry enterprise of the Purepecha in Michoacan state presents its annual budget and work program to the Assembly in a 8-12 hour meeting every year and no one leaves until everyone present is satisfied. 24. The social organization also regulates collective work at the community level and between households for productive purposes. At the community level, there are different types of work-tequio, faena, fajina, etc.-for school building and repair, maintenance and establishment of roads or water systems, and repair and maintenance of parks and playgrounds, which act as a system of local taxation. Households that choose not to provide labor must provide a paid laborer when requested. 25. While the community authorities-both council heads and councilmen-must be aware of the mandates emanating from the state or federal government, the presence of these governmental institutions is a potential source of conflict within the community. In this sense, cohesion of the community around its traditional authorities serves to limit the transforming impacts of outside influences. Page 10 2. The Economy and Markets Economy 26. The profile study areas cover a wide range of microclimates and ecological zones. As a general pattern, indigenous peoples practice rainfed farming and are concentrated in the upland and more fragile lands, both because of their historical patterns of hillside agriculture based on slash and burn methods and because of their expulsion from more fertile valley areas in colonial times. This trend continued in the twentieth century when a series of large hydroelectric and irrigation dams were constructed in indigenous regions, and the lowland farmers resettled to more marginal areas in the same or neighboring states. At present more than 93 percent of indigenous communities and ejidos practice rainfed agriculture with no source of irrigation, even though perhaps 20 percent of the agricultural lands could be irrigated on a small scale (Mass and Sarukhan, 1988). 27. The concentration of indigenous peoples in the more marginal areas combined with the growth in this century of the indigenous peoples (due to improved health treatment) has reduced holding size and land availability and threatened the viability of most slash and burn agriculture. Unfortunately, the agricultural support programs designed to provide indigenous peoples with alternatives have not fit local farming conditions. They require higher cash investment than that available to farmers, and do not take advantage of the community labor surplus or indigenous knowledge of fragile soil management. While a number of indigenous farmers have high-return, cash-oriented farming systems, most indigenous agriculture is currently neither traditional nor "modern." The insufficiently applied chemical inputs have tended to degrade the land rather than improve it (Martinez, 1994). 28. In the face of low yields and limited local employment, large numbers of indigenous farmers migrate seasonally to other parts of Mexico or, in more limited numbers to the United States. These earnings enable families of temporary migrants and relatives of permanent migrants to balance the household budget. New movements are underway, best characterized by the organic farming movement, that seek to rescue the traditional diversity of indigenous farming systems and thereby evolve a higher return system that is financially and environmentally sustainable, while still raising incomes. 29. A large percentage of indigenous families live in precarious economic conditions. Studies by INI and the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Information (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Inform6tica, INEGI) in Oaxaca record that 48 percent of the indigenous families in the state generate less than two minimum wages annually and consume an average of less than 275 grams of maize per capita per day. Large areas of the Yucatan peninsula are more alarming; in the hemp-growing zone there is chronic malnutrition with the poorest families regularly skipping meals. In Chiapas, more than 50 percent of the population is malnourished and almost 60 percent of the employed population earn less than a minimum wage. Page 11 The Agricultural Productive System 30. Indigenous peoples reside in a wide range of ecological niches, many of which are both remote and fragile: (a) tropical sub-humid; (b) tropical humid; (c) humid temperate; (d) sub-humid temperate; and (e) arid and semi-arid. Although productivity of main crops is quite low in the rainfed areas, there is a wide diversity of products which are grown or collected in these niches, and many of the traditional indigenous areas (the state of Oaxaca and the Sierra Madre, for examples) are the source of very diverse native cultivars, found in cultivated fields as well as in the wild. The Huasteca study records more than 100 foodstuffs and household materials that are grown in the agricultural system or collected in and around the fields. 31. The economic base of subsistence of a typical indigenous community is an area for the production of maize, bean, squash, pepper, etc. (known as the "milpa"). The milpas are divided into as many plots as there are households in the community. The use of plots by each household is permitted as long as the plots continue to be cultivated. If left uncultivated for longer than the period of time determined as permissible fallows (between two and four years), they are reallocated within the community. In the case of irrigated plots the period may be shorter. It is the labor invested in the plots, not their possession, which determines right of use. In addition to foodstuffs, the traditional farming system produces a variety of wild herbs, medicinal plants, fibers, and greens in the milpa. The tropical regions include multi-canopy home gardens, in which fruit-bearing and wood-generating trees provide canopy to vegetables, tubers, medicinal plants and herbs, and spices. 32. Consumption is based on the level of production obtained in the plots complemented by small-scale livestock production as well as fruits and vegetables of the home gardens. The diversity is enormous. Martinez documents 60 species in 5 ecological areas in Totonaca gardens and Alcorn documents 185 in Huasteca gardens, of which 82 are medicinal (Martinez 1994; Alcorn, 1984). Breeding and raising of small livestock is universally considered the responsibility of women, even when male household members are significant sources of labor. Additional goods are obtained through exchange of these products in regional markets, and home plot production is often an important source of cash to capitalize large livestock and full-scale agriculture. 33. The indigenous agricultural system is surprisingly resilient. Despite the introduction of new crops and productive practices, and strong linkage to markets, albeit through intermediaries, indigenous communities retain a traditional social organization based in maize agriculture. A kingpin of their culture is the concept of the land as a sacred good rather than a material good to be possessed or exchanged. The cultivation of the plot (milpa) is both an economic, social, and rational activity, as well as a magical-religious act without which economic production is inconceivable. Land then, is the pillar that maintains the cohesion of the kin group and related extended families forming the community. Land provides individual families with security, the community with group cohesion, and the society with cultural continuity. Page 12 34. In addition to subsistence production, the majority of indigenous communities also have commercial crops, destined exclusively for the market economy, such as coffee, sugar cane, wheat, tobacco, vanilla, citrus, etc. Economic activity related to cash crops is increasing, although such crops have strong cyclical price tendencies, particularly coffee. The Yucatan peninsula profile documents the severe economic depression, which resulted from the decline in the hemp market after World War II and from which Maya farmers in this zone, and their families have not yet recovered. Depending on the region, fishing and hunting are important supplementary sources of income. In the Campeche profile, these two sources of livelihood contributed a major portion of household income for Maya communities in a number of municipalities. Gender, Society and Economy 35. Kinship is the basis of social interaction and the family is the basic unit of social action. Single individuals, whether male or female, have no official status in the community. Therefore, a widow or divorced women must be married to validate her status as an adult, including her right to immovable property. In most ethnic groups in Mexico, women are in charge of home maintenance, child care, small livestock, pottery making, meal preparation, and making the family's clothing, while men are in charge of heavy agricultural labor and house construction. With the high rates of male out-migration, many women engage in an ever-widening range of agricultural activities. However, the traditional division of labor induces many female-headed households to rent out agricultural lands in the absence of males or to adopt lesser value crops that require less cash and labor input. Women's more limited participation in political life reflects both the male domination of traditional ritual and authority roles and an intention to protect village women from potential violence by non- indigenous outsiders. Women in female-headed households and/or who have inherited land play an increasing role in political life, but women are still apt to be ruled against by traditional authorities in a land dispute, and are seldom invited to participate in non- traditional economic activities. Participation of women in society was a major issue raised by women in the San Marcos peace negotiations related to Chiapas, who also identified a number of social infrastructure needs that were not prioritized by male negotiators (Stephen and Collier, 1997). Traditionally, women have played an important role in marketing of products, with some becoming moneylenders as an extension of their role as trader. Traditional Local Natural Resources Management 36. Indigenous knowledge for natural resources management is related to cultural perceptions of other aspects of the natural environment. Indigenous peoples have a detailed understanding of various stages of vegetation growth in the local environment and this knowledge guides decisions about where and when to cut and burn forest cover, how many years to cultivate a specific plot of land, and where to gather uncultivated plants or look for game animals. Each successive stage is identified by observing the height and composition of the flora, by recalling the number of years the plot has been left untended, and by gauging the extent to which it was originally disturbed. Indigenous community members, often intentionally manipulate ecological processes, for example abandoned lands are often maintained in certain stages, because they contain many useful species of plants for food Page 13 consumption, medicinal plants, and may attract game animals out into the open where they can be easily hunted. In many indigenous communities these activities represent a multiple use strategy to ensure food production for the family. 37. Indigenous peoples who manage their forests such as the Chinantec and Zapotec in Oaxaca, know that the forest can be regenerated in many different ways resulting in vegetation types of strikingly different physiognomy and species in different stages of ecological regeneration. When forest cover is slashed-and-burned, the resulting land is called "prepared field." After several years of cultivation, varying according to soil fertility, it is left to rest. Weedy herbs begin to colonize the site, and these fallow lands are called "home fields." After a few years, when fast-growing shrubs begin to cover the sites, they are referred to as "thin lands." Eventually, the area reverts to secondary forest or open forest. In the humid zones, the same basic cycle of ecological succession is observed but there is a greater diversity of primary forest, cultivated fields, and secondary associations. Primary forest may be of three types -closed, dense, or open canopy. In the dry zone inhabited by the Chinantec, Zapotec and many other indigenous groups, the swidden is referred to as slash- and-bum, and cultivated fields are classified as one of many types of secondary forest, most commonly interspersed with coffee, bananas, corn, sugar cane, palms or chili peppers. 38. A number of indigenous communities practice "modem forest management" or natural resources management, combining traditional knowledge of forest ecological systems in their forest enterprises with modem forest management. The indigenous forest enterprises have also entered new markets for high-value, non-wood forest products, like medicinal plants, orchid cultivation, and ornamental palm leaves. It is only recently that conservation agencies are valuing the contribution of human-managed systems to Mexico's overall ecology. Natural Resources 39. The appropriation of the natural resource base by the indigenous communities in the areas they inhabit is characterized by a distinctly non-materialist view of nature inherited from their past. This vision is one of nature as a sacred and living entity with which they interact, dialogue, and negotiate in the process of production. This conception of nature is opposed to that emanating from the urban and commercial areas and the agro-industrial world designed to extract food, raw products, and energy required for maximal production elsewhere. It has also made it possible for indigenous groups, like the Tarahumara or Huichol, to occupy marginal arid lands over long periods, preserving a high diversity of original cultivars. 40. This concept has also helped to preserve the remaining areas of biodiversity that currently make up the state and national protected areas system. Indigenous peoples live in or adjacent to more than 40 percent of the protected areas, some of which are actually secondary forests in former slash-and-bum areas abandoned by the Mayan farmers in pre- colonial times (see Table 6). The closest approximation to the historical tropical indigenous farming system still practiced today is the Lacandona Mayas who inhabit the Selva Lacandona (one of the short profiles in the Chiapas study). Page 14 Table 6: Natural Protected Areas in Indigenous Territories Natural Protected Areas National Total Protected Areas in Indigenous Municipalities with Indigenous Peoples >30 percent Biosphere Reserve 22 8 Special Biosphere Reserve 13 6 National Parks 56 13 Forestry Reserves 16 4 Protected Forested Areas 202 11 Special Fauna and Flora Protected Areas 8 3 National Monuments 3 2 Marine National Parks 3 1 Protected Zones of Marine Flora and Fauna 2 2 Parks 1 1 Total 326 51 Source: Plata, 1994. 41. The strong link of indigenous peoples to biodiversity provides a living knowledge bank for the development of sustainable conservation and use systems for biodiverse resources. Indigenous peoples perceive their own continuity as strongly linked to the persistence of these resources, adding an important constituency for natural resource management. While much local knowledge has been collected regarding plant and animal species and soil management in agro-ecological studies and studies of local medicines, there has as yet been limited adaptive research on ways to apply local knowledge to new productive systems compatible with biodiversity conservation, apart from shade coffee. 42. In very fragile areas, traditional systems of slash-and-bum continue to represent the most sustainable option for long-term management, albeit in need of some adaptations based on modem knowledge. While many traditional slash-and-bum areas have become under too much population pressure to be viable, other areas of shallow soils and steep slopes are best retained under modified, traditional systems. Equally interesting in the marginal arid indigenous areas is the adaptation of man to environment. Comparative studies of the Pima indigenous people in Mexico and across the border in New Mexico and Arizona shows the high incidence of heart disease among the United States Pima, who have abandoned a traditional famine-adapted diet for a low-fiber, high calorie working class diet, in comparison to their Mexican cousins who have virtually no incidence of the disease (Nabhan, 1995). Relationship to Non-indigenous Areas and to the Market 43. The distribution of production takes place at two distinct levels: the first within the households and the communities; the second, at the level of state and national markets. The indigenous areas have traditionally not included non-indigenous populations. The areas have traditionally been linked to magnet centers controlled by a mestizo population with greater power and influence economically, culturally, and socially. Examples of such centers are San Cristobal las Casas in Chiapas, with a network that extends to surrounding communities, Page 15 settlements, and municipalities. As another example, the indigenous population of over three million in the eastern Sierra Madre (Huasteca and east) produces the majority of the nation's crops of: (a) coffee; (b) sugarcane; (c) vanilla; (d) fruit (orange, avocado, papaya, banana, etc); (e) collection of barbasco for the chemical industry; and (f) important production areas of forest crops. Inter-ethnic regions are linked politically in the Huasteca region; the relationships between communities and larger municipalities of which they are a part continue to be characterized by subordination and dependency on non-indigenous individuals or exceptional indigenous "big men." These unequal relationships result in pressures on communities to grow specific crops, to invest in specific forms of informal credit, and to market products through specific channels. 44. All this wealth derived from commercial crops has historically been and continues to be taken to magnet centers where the mestizo population has the buying power and controls the agro-businesses: coffee processing; rice mills; distilleries; sugarcane mills; fruit packing industries; transport of merchandise and passengers; and the related commerce and banking sectors. The best land in these areas and related infrastructure are concentrated in the hands of mestizos along with extensive livestock production. This production and wealth is transferred to larger regional centers and from there to national and international markets. These regional centers are also the site of the formal, government and legal authority controlling the rights of indigenous settlements. From a national perspective, including municipal or district capitals as well as the state capitals and their religious complexes, the historical pattern is that one hundred urban centers have dominated 200 smaller urban centers, which in turn subordinated 25,000 indigenous or campesino communities representing 56 ethnic groups. 45. Isolation and marginalization persist as characteristics of indigenous communities in each micro-region, with indigenous "big men" (caciques) acting either as a buffer between the indigenous communities and the powerful or allying with outsiders to further their own power at the expense of their local communities. The bilingual education programs of INI unwittingly played into the cacique politics by elevating the status of the bilingual indigenous promoters who became teachers and extension agents in their own communities; some of these became modern "caciques" rather than helping the community as a whole to advance. 46. An interesting aspect of this system of relationships is the fact that pre-colonial market centers overlapped with Spanish colonial markets, reinforcing smaller scale indigenous markets at municipal and regional centers, while overlaying these with Spanish urban centers. The indigenous markets contain all products, except maize, which is sold through the National Food Support Program (CONASUPO) or private traders. Markets are held weekly or scheduled around regional religious calendars. Women play a major role in these markets, with the more entrepreneurial women traders advancing loans or buying up products in bulk for resale. Few indigenous organizations or individuals have the capital or skills to manage large-scale marketing of products across regions, so most of the links to regional or international markets are made by non-indigenous traders. Exceptions are the organic coffee cooperatives, some forestry communities and ejidos, and groups collecting high-value non-wood forest products like white mushrooms or ornamental palm leaves. Page 16 Credit 47. Like other rural producers, indigenous communities have limited access to capital from the private or banking sectors. Most traditional sources of credit come from traders and middlemen or agribusiness owners who purchase agricultural products from communities. Interest rates are highly variable in the informal sector-the Huasteca studies document pre- season crop input loans or cash loans from a temporary purchase of family livestock at a cash or in-kind equivalent of 10-25 percent interest per month. Lenders engage in sufficient volume to qualify for formal bank loans that provide them working capital. 48. Inability to pay back loans due to natural disasters or personal problems combined with similar defaults on government loans in the pre-reform period have indebted many farmers. The second tier unions of ejidos, which were formed as one type of producer organization in the 1960s and 1970s to capture government resources, have had problems maintaining organizational strength, since many have fallen irrevocably in debt. They can recover only by disbanding and regrouping into new combinations of members and ejidos, in the hopes of becoming again eligible for credit. 49. The main source of formal financing at present are the Regi6nal Funds, a Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL) program managed by INI which is channeled to indigenous communities. Some of the Alianzapara el Campo (Alianza) funds-for livestock development, for instance-are channeled through INI as a part of this program. Decisions on subprojects to be financed by the funds are made at the level of the Assembly of the community or ejido, with the repayments financing a revolving fund. The community reports four times a year to INI on the status of the funds, with INI reporting in turn to SEDESOL. While one of the important sources of credit, the regional fund program has suffered from: (a) being tied to an annual cycle of SEDESOL funding, limiting institution building in the communities managing the funds; (b) too much intervention by SEDESOL staff in the selection of the menu of subprojects; and (c) politicization of the selection process because it is one of the few sources of resources in remote areas. Until now, the amounts have been very small relative to potential demand, and no mechanism exists to deal with the widespread risk of providing agricultural credit to families who will all face repayment problems in the event of a drought, flood, hail or other natural disaster. The recently approved World Bank Rural Development in Marginal Areas Project is building upon the experience of the Regional Funds, promoting recovery of the Government's share of subproject costs into the local regional fund or its equivalent, to help capitalize this fund (World Bank, 1997). 50. A generalized tendency that is most marked in the Yucatan peninsula, where there has been the largest economic downturn, is the attempt to acquire family loans through lending programs for rural women. Part of the popularity of the Independent Women's Agricultural Unions (Unidades Agrarias Independientespara la Mujer Campesina, UAIM) is the access that women's involvement provides the whole family unit to scarce credit for investment. 51. The majority of the families rely on savings in livestock or other in kind purchases that provides them a cushion in emergency situations, or capital for other investments. In Page 17 kind savings is felt to provide a higher return in the current market rather than simply depositing savings in a bank. Agricultural products are also stored to provide a form of savings against future expenditure needs. Few communities generate the profit required for a healthy revolving fund, although such systems do exist informally. Another informal system is the transfer of breeding stock from one family unit to another, sharing costs of tending the breeding animals, and increasing community stock over time. Migration 52. As explained in the chapter on demography and identity, migration is an important strategy to provide additional income in rainfed areas that have become increasingly poor and low in productive potential and soil fertility. Table 7 summarizes the findings of the national and state/regional profiles on the factors affecting migration patterns in indigenous areas in Mexico, including ecological degradation, insecure land tenure situations, and social and demographic trends. 53. The first migration period is after the harvest and associated religious ceremonies have been completed and the second occurs once land is sown with the next crop cycle. Migration can follow the path of agro-industrial vegetable enterprises, harvest of perennial cash crops, or urban informal services (gardening, construction, or services), both internally and in the United States. Remittances from migrants can be highly significant to local economies. The recorded value of money orders received in Oaxaca from 1984-1988 was about US$ 2 million per year and 13 million in 1991. The latter is equivalent to the total annual budget of the state of Oaxaca. 54. The main issue raised by remittances is the lack of investment of this cash income into activities or enterprises that alleviate the problems causing migration outside of the community. The traditional lack of access to markets and capital for agro-business development leads migrants and their families to channel remittances mainly to household necessities and education, and to expenditures that increase personal and family prestige through social and religious events that reproduce community cultural identity. Migrants are expected to finance such events, contribute to restoring municipal churches or to other cultural expenditures, rather than collectively channeling the bulk of remittances to community productive enterprises. In Chapter 4, there is documentation of counter- examples, where communities have changed strategies and developed commercial enterprises that have the potential to bring their members out of poverty. This is a relatively new and still limited occurrence. Page 18 Table 7: Factors Affecting Migration Patterns In Indigenous Areas Of Mexico 1. Ecological Factors Region or Affected Indigenous Group Low productivity of land Oaxaca, mountainous part of Guerrero, the Tarahumara Sierra, Otomi and Mazahua (States of Mexico and Hidalgo). Climatological Phenomena: droughts, frosts, Huasteca region, Tarahumara Sierra and the coastal zones hurricanes. of the country. Soil deterioration due to the introduction of YucatAn, Huasteca, Petroleum producing areas (Veracruz, commercial products. Tabasco), and Northern Sierra region of Puebla. Down time in the rainfed, traditional agricultural Affecting all indigenous regions. cycle. 2. Land Tenure Lack of lands and land conflicts due to illegal Huasteca, Chiapas, and the Huichol region of Jalisco. land grabbing. Large scale livestock production requiring Huasteca, Chiapas and Totonaca area of Veracruz. extensive grasslands. Construction of dams, roads, and industrial plants. Petroleum producing area of Veracruz, Isthmus region in Tehuantepec, State of Mexico, the Tarahuamara Sierra I and the region of the Papaloapan River. 3. Lower Prices of the Cash Commercial Crops. Coffee, hemp, sugar, tobacco, cocoa, tomato, Chiapas, Huasteca, Northern Sierra of Puebla, Totonaca citric fruits and others. region of Veracruz, Mazahuas and Otomis of the State of Mexico, the Chontal zone of Oaxaca, Huichol region of Jalisco, the YucatAn Peninsula. Decreasing demand for artisan products such as Affecting all indigenous regions especially the mountain pottery, basketry, textiles, etc.. area of Guerrero, The Tarahumara Sierra, and Oaxaca. 4. Resettlement and Involuntary Relocation Due to assignation of lands to new non- Chiapas, Nahuas of Michoacdn, Mazahuas and Otomis indigenous - mestizo- colonizers. (States of Hidalgo and M6xico) Inter-ethnic conflicts, armed conflict and military Guerrero - mountain area. occupation. 5. Social and Demographic Factors Lack of basic social services Affecting the majority of the indigenous regions, with a focus on the mountain regions of the States of Guerrero, Oaxaca y Chiapas. Demographic Pressure In the majority of indigenous areas with exception of the northern states and their indigenous areas. Religious Conflicts Chiapas, Guerrero, and some communities of Oaxaca and Michaoacan. Page 19 3. Social And Political Movements And Legal Framework Legal Framework and Tenure 55. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they found an Aztec empire consisting of 38 provinces that paid tribute as a loose confederation of city-states. This domination had created a class of leaders, which included religious figures, warriors, and functionaries and a separate class of businessmen or traders. The remaining category of peasants were organized in calpulli, the traditional social or territorial grouping that is now the "community." The Spanish interacted with the diverse ethnic societies as though they were one mass of homogeneous "indios. " There was a constant tension between individual indigenous peoples and the colonial elites and mestizos over territorial land rights, resources, and labor allocation with no differentiation between specific indigenous groups. Indigenous territories were encroached upon to varying degrees. Weaker indigenous peoples were displaced to the steep uplands or other fragile environments, where they adapted to new ecological conditions. Ethnic groups with stronger bargaining power, such as those in Oaxaca or the Yucatan, were able to maintain territories or parts of territories, despite colonial domination. 56. The legal framework governing indigenous peoples rights centers on two pieces of legislation: (a) Article 4 of the Constitution, first elaborated in 1917 with no attention to indigenous peoples, and revised in 1992 to explicitly recognize indigenous peoples' rights to abide by customary laws and practices; and (b) Article 27 of the Constitution, also revised in 1992, which together with other land legislation, establishes the legal framework for ejido and community property regimes. Legislation which relates to these two constitutional articles includes the Agrarian Reform Law (revised in 1992 with the revisions to Article 27), the Organic Law of the Agrarian Tribunals (which establishes the framework for mediating land disputes without intervention of the State Land Agencies), the Water Law, and the Forest Law. In addition, as a response to the 1992 Constitutional and land reform amendments, some states have generated specific legislation, expanding upon the rights contained in the Constitution and the Agrarian Law. 57. State Legislation. Oaxaca has passed Amendments to the state Constitution embodied in the new Indigenous Communities and Peoples Rights Law, which attempts to create state regulations for Article 4 of the Constitution, something which is still lacking at national level despite efforts by a number of organizations. The Oaxaca law bases its content on a national consultation regarding indigenous rights and participation which was held in 1996, as part of a process to propose reforms to Article 4 of the national Constitution and related to the peace accords discussions fomented by the Chiapas rebellion. Particular items included in the law are: (a) recognition of the necessity to incorporate traditional authorities in any decision-making that involves indigenous lands or natural resources, (b) legitimizing indigenous forms of government, including internal judicial systems; (c) recognition of shared labor systems as a form of community tax that can be substituted for other fiscal taxes as warranted; (d) right to protection of living cultural property; (e) provision for access to bilingual and intercultural educational curricula; and (f) protection against discrimination in society or in judicial proceedings. The Oaxaca law is the first state law to comprehensively Page 20 regulate Article 4, although other states are in various stages of presenting similar legislation, and providing support to this is a current priority of the National Indigenist Institute. Recognition of Legal Rights and Land Tenure 58. A combination of policies instituted by President Benito Juarez after Independence in 1857 promoted the privatization of indigenous territories and led to a violent series of uprisings in the areas of greater indigenous resistance, which lasted until 1910. President Porfirio Diaz (1880-1910) favored privatization of indigenous lands and their concentration in productive private estates (haciendas), which further exacerbated the situation. In 1915, as a result of an armed rebellion by both indigenous and peasant groups, the Government passed the Agrarian Reform law mirrored in the 1917 Constitution. In Article 27 of this Constitution, indigenous collective rights to land were recognized nationally and territories were designated either as "communities" (bienes comunales)-a territorial area possessed by a particular indigenous community or as "ejidos"-a land reform block like other land reform blocks which recognized individual agricultural parcels and areas of common grazing, forestry, or other community uses. Much of the implementation of this law was in the 1930s during President Cardenas' administration. The decision of whether to constitute a community as "comunidad" or "ejido" is largely historical and varies by state and region. In the post-revolution period many of the current "comunidades" were upheld, and other indigenous lands were grouped later as ejidos. Despite recognizing the legal status of indigenous lands, no legislation was ever put in place that regulated the indigenous internal arrangements for communities or ejidos, nor was the legal status of these indigenous entities regulated. 59. As part of the 1992 Constitutional revisions, Article 27 was amended to allow more flexibility in agrarian rights regarding comunidades and ejidos. This was done to address problems created by urbanization of lands that had been established as rural ejidos and the lack of political cohesion of ejidos that had experienced fragmentation of land holdings through population growth and that had high rates of out-migration. Article 27 was therefore amended to allow ejidos members to title or sell individual agricultural holdings and to disband, if so desired. It was anticipated that some comunidades would wish to convert to ejidos in response to the modernization of the economy through macro and agricultural reforms. The amendment kept flexibility on this point-ejidos can disband or convert to comunidades in the case of indigenous communities. The reality has been that the indigenous communities and ejidos have both reiterated their interest in a communal form of land tenure and governance. Some indigenous ejidos have expressed interest in becoming comunidades, though none have legally changed their structure to date. 60. In 1993, Article 27 was modified to allow for dissolution of the ejido structure and for movement between categories-ejidos could become indigenous communities and communities could become ejidos. None of this related legislation has ever included specific regulations governing transactions by indigenous peoples in the administration of their communal and ejidal lands. There are a number of proposals by indigenous organizations to clarify the range of governing structures and their legal status for purposes of joint ventures or access to credit. Page 21 Table 8. Hectares under Ejido or Communal Tenure and Number of Beneficiaries State Oaxaca Yucatan Campeche Quintana Roo Total hectarage in the 6,625,741 2, 152 984 1,665 385 1,592,668 state No. of Ejidos 732 664 137 167 Hectares under ejidos 1,561,163 2,152984 1665385 1,592,668 No. of Communities 674 ------ ---- ---- Hectares under 5, 064,578 ------ ----- ----- community tenure Beneficiaries of ejido or 298,391 109,100 14,651 4,396 communal tenure I I I I _I Extra Community Organization and Social and Political Movements 61. The relationship of indigenous political organization to the overall political structure in Mexico is extremely complex and varies considerably by state and region. Indigenous political organization during the colonial and early independence period was primarily rebellion against policies that failed to acknowledge indigenous tenure over traditional territories. Post-independence, indigenous communities created buffers between their traditional systems of authorities at the community level and the parallel structures of elected governance created by the nation state. They turned inward, with few organizations at the inter-community level, and mainly directed at protest movements. The nation State followed a policy of assimilation, ignoring the functioning of the traditional systems of social organization and undervaluing the consensus-building, prestige-oriented society contained therein. Only in the case of ejidos did the State actively promote parallel elected structures, creating parallel authorities that were elected rather than selected through traditional systems, but in both cases the State generally did not support any development of inter-community organizations. 62. As a result indigenous organization post-independence and in the twentieth century, apart from the rebellions which were organized at various moments in Mexican history to fight for autonomy, was no different from other peasant organizational movements until quite recently. In Mexico overall, the national and regional peasant organizations which developed between 1940 and 1970 were largely non- specific in terms of indigenous identity or interests. The peasant organizations, like the rest of the society assumed that, with modernization, indigenous members would assimilate into Mexican society. Indigenous communities and individuals that joined those organizations were unable to convince these organizations to seriously focus on indigenous concerns. In the 1970s, international recognition of indigenous rights issues (embodied first in the 1957 International Labour Organization (ILO) convention) reinforced the growing discontent expressed by "critical anthropologists" and indigenous members of labor movements and non-specific peasant Page 22 associations. Social movements from outside the country, including those promoted by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, combined with a growing awareness that the 1940s and 1950s peasant organizations were not meeting indigenous needs. Indigenous organizers of existing organizations began to seek new national and regional fora. 63. The structure that political organizations have taken and take relates to the local historical content and the demography of indigenous peoples in those states and regions. In Chiapas, an indigenous Congress was organized in 1974 by anthropologists and by indigenous organizations that broke off from the National Peasant Confederation (Confederaci6n Nacional Campesina, CNC) (such as Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants-CIOAC) as a reaction to state integrationist policies. This was followed in 1975 by a national Congress in Michoacan, in which 56 ethnic groups participated and government was a strong proponent. "Supreme Councils" were organized at the level of each ethnic group to form the National Council for Indigenous Peoples (Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indigenas, CNPI). During President Portillo (1976-1982) many of the peasant organizations organized around land reform issues switched their focus to productive associations autonomous from the State, seeking greater control of production and marketing. Many of the ejido unions and Rural Collective Interest Associations (Asociaci6n Rural Independiente Campesina, ARIC) emerged during this time as autonomous networks. CNPI initially fought appropriation by government but in 1981 joined the PRI. Other organizations and independent organizations with CNPI split off by 1989 to form new groupings, either allied with the other political parties, or independent, as part of the massive peasant organizing independent of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI). 64. In Oaxaca, the indigenous communities were successful during the colonial period in keeping their land, because indigenous leaders were able to get land grants, which they could defend in court again competing colonial land grants. At independence, Benito Juaraz, a Zapotec, passed laws that radically reorganized land tenure. "Privatization" was encouraged from 1880 to 1910, with many indigenous families converting their land to small private holdings and a parallel creation of large, private commercial estates. These private holdings were converted to ejidos in the Cardenas administration, while the indigenous communities that had remained intact were preserves as comunidades. Political movements in Oaxaca have been more ethnic group specific, in contrast to Chiapas, and more centered on advancing the cause of each group independently, than in providing a united indigenous front to the state government. 65. In the 1970s, land reform movements developed in states that had not carried out significant land reform (Huasteca region and Chiapas). In the Huasteca, which was characterized prior to the land reform in 1983 by a proliferation of municipal level Unions of Ejidos and Associations of Smallholders and Livestock Association, the Campamento Tierra y Libertad (CTL) in San Luis Potosi and the Campesina Independiente de la Huasteca Veracruzana (OCIHV) set an example of social movements which were replicated by other organizations elsewhere in the region, and were able to gain a successful land redistribution in the early 1980s. Land reform was not seriously implemented, however, in Chiapas, due to the many commercial interests and the colonization efforts, to foster growth and relieve pressures in other states. This situation helped lead to the Zapatista rebellion in 1994. The Page 23 long struggle for land in Chiapas and the larger number of large landholdings have led to more pan-Indian organization in Chiapas, despite a complexity of religious and regional alliances. The complexity of the organizational structures and the danger of cross-state comparisons are very apparent in the individual profiles, as is the newness of many of the organizations. 66. At present, a range of relatively new types of organizations have emerged, including: (a) rural productive societies-which may be limited to membership within individual communities or ejidos or include multiple communities; (b) rural credit unions-which due to the crisis in rural credit have greatly declined in number since 1992; (c) cooperative societies or solidarity societies created to manage specific programs; (d) ejido unions and ARIC, state and regional peasant organizations, including mono-ethnic movements; and (e) indigenous and/or peasant organizations with national affiliation to CNC or other national parties and organizations. The National Profile has a very detailed analysis of the full range of organizations. 67. The most striking features of the analysis of social and political movements in the regional and ethnic profiles are: (a) the newness of the current organizational trends; (b) the importance of the social capital base in the traditional community system as a source of organizing strength; and (c) the nonetheless, extremely dysfunctional relationship of the State to indigenous organizational structures. 68. The existing community-level social structures are the source of a strong organizational capacity in indigenous regions. The same structure underlying the system of cargos and traditional authorities allows for the formation of intra and inter-community organizations for other purposes. The Oaxaca profile documents 356 Chinantla organizations covering both producers' societies and associations that are community and municipal-based as well as ethnic-based political organizations promoting indigenous rights and indigenous autonomy. 69. Organizational issues for indigenous groups have included land tenure and access to natural resources, education, and autonomy/voice in the development process. The strongest levels of organization are local and regional, with a still thin organization at national level. The national profile summarizes the local, regional and national organizations, while the state/regional profiles of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Huasteca provide detailed summaries of the range of organizations in those areas. Page 24 Table 9. Summary of Post-independence Political Movements Public Policies Historical National Agrarian and Economic Cultural and Impacts and Periods and Administration Educational Indigenous Dates Movements 1857-1910 1857-1880 Initiates the privatization of No educational or Beginning of the Liberal Politics President Benito communal lands. cultural support to "caste wars" of Juarez Distributes large blocks of indigenous peoples. indigenous groups. 30 year lands to estate owners. Initiates first schools Armed rebellion of dictatorship 1880-1910 Encourages colonization by for indigenous the Yaqui, Cora, President Italians, Spanish, and French peoples. Society Huichol, Otomi, and Porfirio Diaz farmers. appropriates symbols Nahuas for land from the past. rights. 1910-1930 1910-1918 Chaotic division of land in Initiate ethnographic Zapatista movement Revolution Presidents private plots. Expropriate studies and propose for land begins in Madero and large holdings and recognize solutions. Morelos. Logo is Carranza. 7 comunidades. Create ejidos. Create Department of "Land and Liberty." National years civil war. Create indigenous affairs Education and Sociedad Unificadora Reconstruction Constitutional bureau in Secretary of Indigenous Boarding de la Raza Indigena Reform/ Agriculture. Schools. (SURI) created. PRI Agrarian Law Assimilation. formed. Agrarian 1918-30 reform pressures. Presidents Obregon and Calles 1930-1940 Presidents Portes Agrarian reform carried out Create INAH (1938); Students in boarding Agrarian peace Gil and Cardenas and give millions of has. to Dept. for Indigenous schools form and industria- ejidos and comunidades. Affairs as a Ministry. Supreme Council of lization in First Create Bank for Ejido Credit. 33 indigenous regions the Tarahumara Mexico Interamerican and boarding schools. (CSRT). Establish Congress of Propose use of regional congresses Indigenists held indigenous language of other groups. in Mexico. in school system. National Peasant Confederation formed in PRI. 1940-1970 President Avila Through period, continue to In 1963 introduce Sign agreements with Consolidation Comacho, give reform lands. In 1948 bilingual education as Yaquis and other of the Aleman, Ruiz, create INI and 11 regional means to develop groups. Resettlement Revolution and Cortinez, and centers. Theory of indigenous peoples of indigenous peoples modernization Diaz Ordaz. assimilation and cultural and assist assimilation due to infrastructure. of country. integration. Create process. Experiments Create National Construct large indigenous patrimony of in the 11 regional Confederation of dams and other Yaqui in Mexquital valley. centers. Youth and infrastructure. Indigenous Communities (CNJCI). New organizations arise (CCI, UGOCM, CAM). 1968 student movement. Guerrilla movements start in Chihuahua, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Mexico .___City. Page 25 Table 9 continued Public Policies Historical National Agrarian and Economic Cultural and Impacts and Periods and Administration Educational Indigenous Dates Movements 1970-1980 Presidents Twelve million hectares of Create Department of First indigenous Echeverria and land is given in land reform. Indigenous Education congress in Chiapas in Lopez Portillo 60 new INI centers created and recognize value 1974. CNC and for national coverage. of bilingual government organize Large development education. Create First Congress of programs like PIDER, centers for study of Indigenous Peoples in FIDEPAL, Plan Huicot, and social issues and Michoacan. National COPLAMAR. indigenous issues in Confederation of CIESAS and Indigenous Peoples CONAFE. (CNPI) created after 1975 Congress. Organize National Association of Indigenous Bilingual Professors. 1980-1990 Presidents Slow down of land reform Expansion of Conflict in Huasteca Initiate NAFTA Lopez Portillo, programs. Development bilingual education with new indigenous dialogue and De la Madrid Programs like Solidaridad coverage. political organizations neoliberal and Salinas are consolidated to attend Expand Popular against state reforms. marginality and poverty Culture programs for governments. New issues. Reduce or cancel indigenous cultural producers organizations Theories of agrarian support programs heritage. emerge to respond to marginality and like INMECAFE, Establish radiotrans- fewer support poverty emerge. CONASUPO, mitters in indigenous programs. Multi-party BANRURAL, FIDEPAL. areas for transmission alliances start to in local languages. emerge. Many NGOs emerge to provide assistance in rural areas. 1990-present Presidents The reform of Article 27 of 1992. Modification Emergence of peasant Consolidate Salinas and the Constitution by of Article 4 of the confederations in all neoliberal Zedillo President Salinas permits Constitution. New political parties. model. 1994 transaction of ejido land and intellectual Politicization of economic crisis the subsequent land titling movements to indigenous movements with rapid program (PROCEDE) of the recognize indigenous to promote legal recovery but Zedillo administration seeks identity. Political reform. persistence of to complete the land parties begin to adopt 1994-armed rebellion in strong regularization and agrarian a new discourse on Chiapas. inequality. reform process3. Solidarity indigenous affairs. 1996 San Andres program developed with accord signed and new coverage of Municipal autonomous Funds. Oaxaca initiates a municipalities start to process of developing the form. Indigenous Peoples and Communities Rights Law. Source: Nahmad and Carrasco, 1998. 3 Billie De Walt and Martha Rees with Arthur Murphy. The End of Agrarian Reform in Mexico. Transformation of Rural Mexico, No. 3. Ejido Reform Research Project. Center for US Mexican Studies, UCSD, 1994. Jorge Luis Ibarra Mendivil. Propiedad Afraria v Sistema Politico en Mexico. Colegio de Sonora, 1989. Juan Pedro Viqueira y Mario Humberto Ruz. Chiapas: Los rumbos de otra historia. Mexico, UNAM y CIESAS, 1995. Page 26 Table 10. International Events and Their Impact on Indigenous Political Movements Dates Events Recommended Policies Impacts 1940 Interamerican To respect and protect Create the Indigenist Institute of Patzcuaro, Indigenous Congress indigenous peoples for their Latin America in Mexico City as Michoacan promoted by countries of development. Creation of result of Congress. Create INI in region. national institutions for 1948. indigenous development. 1949 1951 Create Regional Train specialized education Influence the educational politics in UNESCO Center for Basic professionals for indigenous the Continent. Paris, France Education in Latin education. America (Michoacan) 1959-1968 Organization of Train Anthropologists and Professionals work in INI and OAS, Washington, American States other Applied Professionals in indigenous education and work D.C. formulates an Applied the region. with indigenous organizations. Social Science Program in Mexico. 1957 and 1989 Convention of 1957 Respect for indigenous culture Mexico ratifies Convention 169 International Labor (107) for indigenous and and rights to indigenous and approves this as a law. Organization tribal peoples and identity and customs. Indigenous groups begin to make (ILO). Convention of 1989(169) demands for implementation. 1962-65 Vatican promotes Promote indigenous rights Church organizes indigenous Second Vatican liberation theology and through activities of church peoples and a process of reflection, Council, Rome organizes missions. authorities and leaders. especially in Chiapas. 1994 Project for Global Commission of Human Rights The impact is made on national and United Nations, Declaration of recognizes the urgent state laws, through reforms related New York. Indigenous Peoples necessity of respecting to the Article 4 of the Constitution. Rights. indigenous rights, lands, and cultural resources, 1992 Creation of the Establish a mechanism for Mexico subscribes to this Interamerican Indigenous Fund (Fondo channeling resources and convention and provides financial Development Bank. Indigena) in Bolivia with technical assistance to resources for human development. Madrid, Spain. IDB support. indigenous communities and World Bank creates Indigenous their organizations. Peoples Training program with IDF I Funds. Source: Nahmad and Carrasco, 1998. NGOs-Another Source of Organizational Input and Technical Advice 70. The action of NGOs in indigenous regions is very uneven. The Yucatan peninsula is the least served by non-governmental organizations, while Oaxaca has the most diverse presence of organizations. Some NGOs have been important instruments to promote dialogue and understanding in both the Latin American context as well as internationally. International organizations include World Wildlife Foundation, Ford Foundation, the United Nations, MacArthur Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Survival International, the House of Friends, and outreach organizations of European labor parties/movements. National organizations that have a well-known record of involvement and action in indigenous regions include CONVERGENCIA, ANADEGES, CEMEFI, CAMPO, Fundaci6n Vamos, Fundaci6n Mexicana de Desarrollo Rural, Fundaci6n DEMOS, COMPARTAMOS, and Fundaci6n Miguel AlemAn. Few national organizations are foundations in the classic sense of having their own endowed funds to be channeled to other, implementing organizations. Page 27 There is a strong link between Government and non-governmental organizations in that many of the non-governmental actors are ex-civil servants. At their best, these organizations help to provide an objective voice, promote human rights across different interest groups, provide capacity building, and offer financial resources in a more neutral way. At their worst, these organizations can become partisan and foment conflict, keep financial resources and responsibility rather than devolving control to indigenous communities, and promote their own view of environmentalism or development rather than supporting a local vision. Implications of a Non-Indigenous View of Development 71. All the regional profiles document a disconnect between government development efforts and the needs and interests of indigenous society. In an attempt to create a responsibility system for the welter of social and economic development programs being offered to indigenous ejidos and communities, Government promoted the creation of separate development committees or producers organizations for every individual program. Peasant organizations did something very similar, creating subcommittees at local levels for every program. Indigenous communities, with the strong internal tradition of communal action, responded very efficiently to Government and the other organizations, dutifully creating committees for each program offered. For example, the Huasteca profile documents a community where 175 adults are represented in the Community Assembly, and are responsible for filling 115 positions between those required by government development programs and the traditional cargo system of community service. The Chinanteco profile documents the creation of about 30 organizations between 1970 and 1986 and more than 300 between 1987 and 1997 for a total of 358 organizations overall serving a total population of 110,000 in 14 municipalities. Many of these committees and organizations share the same membership. The consequences created by this kind of participation for "development responsibility" are obvious: (a) lost time and effort of organizers running from one committee to another; (b) inability of communities to plan consistently for their real needs; (c) political power grabbing by "committee heads" who may use program implementation to gain community control or regional political clout; and (d) new factionalism within and across communities based on alliances with these "committee heads." The recent initiative taken by five ministries (SAGAR, SRA, SEMARNAP, SEDESOL, and SCT) to promote institutional coordination for the development of priority regions, goes in the right direction. 72. The strongest recommendation from the profiles is for government and non- governmental organizations to step back and look for methods to meet indigenous communities and ethnic groups on their own terms. Unless control of resources, information and development processes are returned to the indigenous communities and their inter- community organizations, there will be no indigenous development, ever. Monitoring of this new process must also be shared-self-monitoring by the indigenous peoples themselves combined with external evaluation by government and civil society actors. A parallel element is capacity building-assisting communities and indigenous peoples to develop the capacity to organize, plan, manage conflict and conflicting objectives, implement effectively, and monitor and evaluate the financial flows and the results. Page 28 4. Education, Health, and Cultural Heritage Education 73. The statistics on education in the indigenous population indicate high rates of illiteracy and low educational attainment directly related to absenteeism during heavy agricultural seasons, drop outs by children of migrant workers and children who perform poorly, poor quality of bilingual programs, lack of educational materials, especially with curriculums appropriate to indigenous cultures, and lack of well-trained teachers. There are several, diverging educational philosophies promoted by the various government educational agencies for indigenous groups. In practice, a heavily indigenous municipality may be served by adjacent schools with three different philosophies, creating confusion among the parents as to which system is effective for their children, and limiting the resources available to raise the quality of any one system. 74. Bilingual education was established in the 1940s as part of the overall government strategy to address the poverty of indigenous peoples, and provide an educational strategy that would help indigenous children master Spanish and the standard school curriculum. Since bilingual systems were established to provide tools for "modernization" and "advancement," they did not include curricula designed to value or preserve indigenous language or culture. Implementers of early bilingual programs failed to realize that indigenous families hoped to prepare their children with new skills and information while continuing to impart key, indigenous traditions. Another problem has been the domination of the Ministry of Education bilingual programs by teachers from the dominant indigenous groups, like the Nahuatl, with few speakers of other languages. 75. Indigenous communities and "critical intellectuals" reacted negatively to the programs. One government response was to broaden the scope of bilingual education, introducing alternative programs through the National Education Council, (Consejo Nacional para el Fomento Educativo, CONAFE). CONAFE invented a training program for sixth grade graduates from local communities to compensate for the limited numbers of indigenous youth qualified to serve in the formal teaching system and to supply committed teachers to the communities. This bilingual scheme trained middle school graduates from diverse ethnic groups to teach in their own communities as bilingual teachers in CONAFE schools, but it has been difficult to provide adequate training to these teachers and ensure the quality of their educational programs. 76. The interviews in the four regions of the profiles show continued problems and a high level of frustration among teachers at the primary school levels. The government has instituted a pilot program (the Pilot Rural Education Program, PARE and -the Pilot Rural Indigenous Education Program, PAREI) aimed to: (a) provide a more culturally appropriate curriculum, (b) introduce native language learning that transfers and preserves cultural traditions as well as complementing a standard curriculum; and (c) provide more flexibility in the school calendar, fitting hours to local needs. Pilot schools have been set up on a very limited scale in agricultural regions with high rates of temporary in-migration for employment in commercial crop harvesting. This is a shift in the current philosophy Page 29 regarding the aims of bilingual education. However, the studies document a continued gap in bringing parents into goal-setting and program planning activities, so that they understand and share goals, and a continued resistance of the non-indigenous community to such new philosophies-including educational administrators, non-indigenous opinion leaders, and government staff. 77. The situation is alarming in what it implies for the future of poorly educated indigenous children. Educational indicators for the population estimated to be indigenous continue to be low, indicating that a large number of indigenous children will reach adulthood unqualified for higher paying jobs. The potential cost to Mexico in foregone income generation, the cost of providing services to a poorly trained generation of indigenous people, and of addressing concomitant social problems of violence, alcoholism, depression, etc. is staggering. The Yucatan study documents primary school drop out rates in municipalities with large numbers of indigenous children that are recorded in state statistics as 10 percent higher than the national average. The teachers in all of the communities studied reported much higher dropout rates. Children do not learn since they are malnourished or underfed and they fail to complete grades in order to leave school to help their parents by working in agriculture or assisting in the household. For example, in Bacbch6n municipality, the profile reported that 30 percent of the children have repeated the second grade and more than 10 percent have repeated the fifth and sixth grades. Parents distrust bilingual programs for fear their children will not learn Spanish well and be caught in poverty, and the programs as currently taught are not teaching the children effectively. Teacher unions reject flexible hours, so local teachers are doomed by the system to continue teaching in the daytime and in harvesting months when many of their students are at work in the fields. Marginality and Poverty 78. In the Mexican literature on marginality and poverty there are two methods used to measure the living conditions of a population, one based on satisfaction of basic needs and the other, more indirect, on family income levels. The direct method itemizes specific gaps in satisfying those needs considered as basic. The National Population Council has established nine indicators under the first method, which are percentages of: illiterate population older than 15; population older than 15 that has not completed primary school; household occupants without drainage or latrines; households without electricity; households without piped water; households without basic services; households with earthen floors; population in localities with less than 5,000 inhabitants; and households with less than two minimum salaries. There is a clear correlation between the presence of indigenous peoples and indicators of marginality and poverty, particularly in the statistics related to rural municipalities inhabited by indigenous peoples. 79. Ninety-six percent of the indigenous peoples registered in the 1990 National Census live in municipalities with high and very high levels of marginality. Of these, 41 percent live in municipalities with the highest marginalization in the country. Highest marginalization is found in the heavily indigenous states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Veracruz, and Puebla. Even in the case of Veracruz, one of the highest income states overall, Page 30 marginalization is high due to the Nahuatl population in Tehuipango municipality, which is registered as the most marginalized area in Mexico. Health 80. Health indices in rural indigenous communities and among indigenous populations in urban areas have limited reliability because of the concentration of information on those municipalities with a majority of indigenous language speakers. Even with this limitation, the statistics collected by the profile-authors are alarming., 81. In the absence of formal health care visit data, the Mexican Institute for Social Health Security (IMSS)-Coplamar conducted a survey in the areas it covers by constructing a morbidity profile for indigenous peoples through analyzing the traditional treatments being employed to treat an ailment. Traditional medicines are used in 38 percent of the documented cases for gastro-intestinal diseases, 13.6 percent for respiratory diseases, and 13.5 percent for curing skin lesions, cutaneous infections, traumas, muscular and rheumatic pains, and infectious and poisonous animal bites. An additional 13 percent of the cases documented the use of plants for treatment of fever, chills, and headache and joint pain in general and 5.5 percent for the treatment of symptoms related to female reproductive problems. Mortality 82. Statistical information about mortality in indigenous municipalities registered slightly over 30,000 deaths in 1990, which implies a gross mortality rate of 5.8 deaths per 1000 inhabitants, compared to the national average of 5.2. In general, mortality rates are higher where the indigenous population is larger. Mortality rates are also correlated with age groups in the indigenous population with a higher than the national average rate among those under five years of age (26 percent compared to 20 percent). However, the data disaggregation in the age group 1-4 years of age shows important differences. Infant mortality was lower (14 percent compared to 15.5 percent in the national average), while in the group of pre- schoolers the rate is much higher among the indigenous peoples (12.8 percent compared to 4.8 percent). This percentage is even higher (14 percent) in the municipalities with an indigenous population of over 70 percent. The low rate of infant mortality reported is most likely due to significant under-reporting, while the mortality rates of pre-schooler cohorts are more likely to be accurate. 83. The epidemiological profile of the indigenous population (municipalities with 40 percent or higher indigenous peoples) shows important differences contrasted to the national level data. The five main causes of mortality in the country as a whole correspond to non- contagious diseases, while among the indigenous peoples three of five main causes of mortality are due to contagious infectious diseases including gastric, pneumonia, influenza and measles (see Table 11). Page 31 Table 11. Proportional Mortality by Causes of Death in Indigenous Municipalities and Nationally, 1990 and 1990 National Indigenous Municipalities Intestinal infectious disease Pneumonia and influenza Measles Malnutrition Heart disease Malignant tumors Accidents Cirrhosis of the liver 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 84. According to information compiled by the Center for Epidemic Vigilance, in 1991 the ten main causes of illness among 50 percent of the cases presented by indigenous peoples were of infectious origins. Acute respiratory illnesses were in first place (59.8 percent) followed by digestive tract illnesses (31.8 percent). Only two non-infectious pathologies were registered among the ten main diseases: poisoning and traumas, which together occupied fifth place, and hypertension, eighth place. Table 12. Proportional Mortality Rate by Cause of Death in Selected Indigenous Municipalities by Proportion of Indigenous Language Speakers, 1990 40-69 percent Indigenous 70 percent and Above Language Speakers Indigenous Language Speakers Intestinal Infections Pneumonia and influenza Measles Malnutrition Heart Disease Malignant Tumors Accidents Cirrhosis of the Liver 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Traditional Medicine 85. Historically, traditional medicine has played a very important role in treatment of illness and reproductive disorders. With the financial crises of 1982 and 1994, there has been a resurgence of dependence on traditional medicine, despite an increasing coverage of rural Page 32 areas with modem services, due to the cuts in budgets. What has not happened, except in limited pilot experiences, is a conscious attempt to analyze the efficiency of traditional treatments and maximize the complementarity between expenditures on modem health care and the efficiency and availability of traditional medicine. 86. Traditional medicine as practiced today is not simply a different concept from western medicine on how to deal with disease. Rather, it is the result of a process of acculturation within which medieval European medical concepts were reinterpreted to make them function as an integrated system with indigenous medical knowledge, with connected physical and psychological components. Accelerated progress of western medicine and its increasing diffusion within the country has introduced new elements and adjustments into the field of traditional medicine. These elements, periodically adjusted, reinterpreted, and assimilated by the practitioners create new concepts in the traditional medical system. 87. It is estimated that there is one traditional practitioner for every 500 to 1,500 inhabitants, according to a study conducted in 1984 by IMSS-Coplamar. There is a range of practitioners: traditional healers, midwives, bonesetters, and herbalists, all with specialized knowledge of medicines and types of treatments. In spite of a history of discrediting and even persecution at times, traditional practitioners have always been a strongly cohesive group, a factor in ethnic self-definition, and a publicly recognized, health resource. Many confirmations of their importance in the delivery of health services exist. In the mountains of the State of Guerrero, for instance, a UNICEF-Health Ministry investigation showed that 70 percent of births were attended by traditional midwives, 17 percent by kinswomen to the woman giving birth, and 3 percent by western professional practitioners. It is estimated that in Oaxaca, traditional midwives who may or may not have received any form of institutionalized training attend to 60 percent of the births. 88. In Hecelchakdn, Campeche, the linkages between traditional and western medicine are strong since traditional healers work in the IMSS clinic, in a special area constructed for them. Occasionally both traditional and western medicine practitioners work together. The clinic managers work to integrate some of the elements of the local cosmovision in their daily work. For example, they respect the belief in a cold-hot duality to prescribe medication, keep some traditional dietary elements for sick people, including a maize drink, and have introduced a new system of care in areas of maternity, pediatrics, and internal medicine, using hammocks in place of beds. Some of the advantages of the system are that the babies cry less, and sleep and behave better, while expectant mothers sleep and rest better, and can care for their babies with less assistance from the hospital staff. Cultural Heritage 89. A parallel study was carried out on cultural heritage for all of Mexico by INI and who has been supporting and evaluating programs in and around protected areas and programs to support indigenous communities intellectual property rights, both related to living heritage and physical sites (Rajbaum, 1998). The indigenous peoples of Mexico have a wide range of cultural heritage--from well-preserved biological zones for which they often have detailed management and use knowledge, artisan skills to make products of diverse use and artistic Page 33 value, oral traditions, music and dance, and relationships to varied archaeological sites and churches of cultural and tourist value. Archaeological Sites and Indigenous Peoples 90. The federal responsibility for archaeological sites rests in the National Institute for History and Archaeology (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, INAH), which was created in 1983 and whose role is mandated in the Federal Law regarding Monuments and Artistic, Historical, and Archaeological Zones of 1972. This Institute has been a model for other countries in its active role in protecting and directing research on a large number of sites. INAH is responsible for all archaeological and historical sites in Mexico, and plays a role in relationship to these sites that is very similar to that played by the National Institute of Ecology (Instituto Nacional de Ecologia, INE), which is in charge of parks and protected areas. While INAH can nominate other agencies or actors to manage or protect a site, it has ultimate responsibility in the eyes of the law. Because of this mandate, INAH has been reluctant to give communities or ethnic groups protection or management rights, except for sites where INAH has strong supervision and administration. 91. There are an estimated 20,000 sites in Mexico of archaeological value, and INAH is actively involved in less than 1000. There is a degree of tension between indigenous communities and INAH, as responsible agency for archaeological sites, since many of the sites have sacred value, and the communities feel it is their cultural responsibility to restrict access except for prescribed ritual events. Part of the problem is a legal one, the 1972 law distinguishes between pre-Hispanic sites and artifacts, which are presumed "dead" and historical sites (churches, buildings, etc) built after the Spanish conquest, which are considered "living" and can be the subject of multiple use and multiple users, in addition to INAH. Communities who have tried to establish use over specific sites have been denied this special access for lack of understanding by INAH that this could be considered a "living" site, as well as a fear of looting. Communities with unrecognized sites tend to "hide" these sites so that INAH will not list them within their jurisdiction. An example of the problems this creates is the Mayan site of Tulum, where due to the particular negotiation with INAH, migrants have been able to get permits to sell artisan products at the site, while Mayans from the area have lost their access to the "sacred" aspects of the site and have not been given permits to sell their products. This is clearly a topic that requires strategic work to develop a more operable compromise. 92. An interesting exception to the above is INAH's program for community museums, which includes training and support for indigenous communities to establish museums as well as assistance in registering artifacts that the community chooses to maintain in the museum. In contrast to the policies of the rest of INAH, the directors of this program have been very proactive in promoting joint management of artifacts by communities through their placement in community museums, and by supporting a high degree of autonomy of the community museum managers. 93. Tensions also exist in regard to "Catholic churches" which generally are legally regarded as exclusive use property of the respective church diocese, while the indigenous Page 34 communities historically related to the church consider it also an "indigenous site" to which they should have equal use rights. 94. There is an increasing attention to indigenous involvement in eco- and cultural tourism in Mexico, involving INAH, the Secretary of Tourism (Secretaria de Turismo, SECTUR), INI, INE, and non-governmental actors. INAH has developed archaeological sites of touristic significance with the involvement of municipalities and surrounding communities (with the caveats mentioned above). SECTUR has encouraged the use of local transport and guides for nature and historical sites. INE is increasingly involving indigenous people in tourism plans for protected areas. 95. In the area of living culture, financing of small projects to renovate dance equipment or musical instruments is a very popular program, because of the ritual importance of dance and musical events in the life of communities and the importance of these events to build and maintain relations among communities (both as a source of linkage and an expression of competition). Page 35 5. Successful Models of Indigenous Development 96. There are successful models of indigenous development in Mexico, both in the productive and social infrastructure sectors. There is a strong element of self-development in the successes. Some have developed independently of government or other funding sources. Where an external agent has directed or assisted the initial process, there are common characteristics: (a) initial seed capital (not loans) by a grass-roots development agency; (b) a large dose of technical assistance, but provided with a view to maintain an exit strategy; and (c) building upon local models of intervention and a local vision of the goals and objectives. Forestry 97. The ejido and indigenous community forestry enterprises are an interesting example of programs that have both suffered from the center-periphery relationship and in a fast growing number of cases resolved it. Due to the particularities of the ejido and comunidad land tenure systems, between 70-85 percent of the Mexican forests are within the boundaries of 7000 to 9000 ejidos and comunidades. Historically, from the past century into the early 1970s, the state allocated rights to timber extraction to capital-intensive initiatives, both Mexican and foreign, and ejiditarios and comuneros served as low-cost labor for extraction. Processing was concentrated in the urban centers, preventing strengthening of labor movements between extracting and processing laborers and allowing extraction from different peripheral sites when old sites were no longer economic to exploit. 98. In the 1970s and 1980s, some of the Purepeche in Michoacan, the Zapotecs and other forest owning communities in Oaxaca, the Maya in Yucatan, and mixed ejidos in Chihuahua and Durango fought for control over forest concessions and began their own direct timber exploitation and management, achieving in limited cases capacity to process sawn lumber and other wood products for higher value. They were supported by funds from international NGOs interested in the environmental and economic potential of social forestry (Ford Foundation, Inter-American Foundation, German Technical Assistance) and developed as enterprises where the NGOs provided technical assistance and some seed capital, but the main source of financing came from the extractive use of the resource, reinvested in the industry. There are a core number of indigenous communities and ejidos in the most forested states of Mexico who manage community forest industries with trained, comunero foresters, using traditional social structures of cooperation and community action (World Bank, 1995). 99. The Union of Forest Ejidos of the Mayan Zone (OEFP) in Yucatan includes 18 ejidos with 2,791 ejidatario members. In Oaxaca where 90 percent of the forest estate is within ejido and community boundaries and 45 percent of it is managed commercially, there are 54 forest ejidos and comunidades which harvest their own timber and may have a processing mill, and 30 are grouped in unions which have an industrial capacity and a formal enterprise. San Juan Nuevo in Michoacan has an advanced forest industry and is actively training neighboring ejidos in technical and administrative skills. A movement has begun in Chiapas to create forest enterprises along the models of the Mayan experience. A number of Tarahumara and Tepehuan-populated ejidos in Chihuahua and Durango have forest Page 36 enterprises, although these are more problematic due to the degraded state of their forests and the traditional domination of the marketing by non-indigenous traders or ejido members. 100. An interesting aspect of indigenous enterprises compared to non-indigenous ejido forestry enterprises is the tendency to reinvest a portion of the profits in social infrastructure projects and social programs (pensions for older people; emergency health funds), as well as productive reinvestment or simple splitting of profits. Where caciques have continued to ally with powerful individuals in the urban centers, where factionalism had prevented communities from organizing for a commercial venture (parts of Michoacan or Oaxaca), or where there is considerable mixing of indigenous and mestizo populations in the same ejidos or municipalities (Chihuahua, Durango, and Jalisco) communities have found it difficult to take control of their own enterprises and prosper. 101. Government has finally recognized the legitimacy and potential of these emerging enterprises and begun to assist other communities with potential. Government also promotes the ideal of joint ventures with private sector, recognizing forestry as a capital-intensive investment for which few communities and ejidos have the needed capital. While this is a viable long-term scenario for some ejidos and communities, it is unlikely to take place in the near future. Due to the historical distrust of those with capital based both on past exploitation by forest industries in forest extraction and negative experiences with traders and agribusiness, communities seek to consolidate independent enterprises by entering into the market directly alone or in a union of adjacent forest ejidos and communities. Coffee Cooperatives in Chiapas and Oaxaca 102. Over the past 15 years, thirty affiliated organizations in Oaxaca have managed an umbrella organization for marketing, credit, warehousing, and processing of coffee. The organization, Coordinadora Estatal de Productores de Cafi (CEPCO) was founded in 1989. This process has fostered parallel organizations, such as UCIZONI and UCIRI (Zapotecos and Mixes in the Ixtmus of Tehuantepec) and the UCI (southern Zapotecos). This cooperative has been successful in organizing market niches in the European coffee market, capitalizing on its social identity. These organizations have benefited from NGO support and some financing to their members from coffee credit schemes, and more recently PROCAMPO and the Alianzapara el Campo. To address the problem of fluctuating prices and reach higher-value markets, a growing amount of the coffee produced is organic. Organic coffee production is an increasingly important product in Chiapas as well. Union de los Ejidos de la Selva (La Selva) is a Tojolobol and Tzotzil organizations that involves 57 communities and 1,304 families in the area of Las Margaritas near the Montes Azules Reserve. About 1,000 hectares have been put into organic production, with the objective of certification when the land has completed four years of strictly organic inputs. The profiles also document an important cooperative movement within the Mam area. The Mames (and in other regions other ethnic groups) took over coffee plantations that had been established in the last century, but which were converted to ejidos as part of the land reform movement and in response to the high cost of labor. The Mames developed an organic coffee cooperative, Indigenous of the Sierra Madre of Motozintla (ISMAM), and a related horticultural organic cooperative, the K'nan Choch. The initiative resulted from ideological support given to Page 37 community members by the liberation theology church to think through the process they wished to follow to transform from coffee plantation laborers to entrepreneurs in their own right. One of the members of ISMAM, El Encuentro, is an unusual new community that was created in 1988 by purchasing land near the Guatemala border from indebted farmers. El Encuentro is bent on rescuing historical organic practices to rescue the soil productivity and enter a favorable market niche. El Encuentro has replaced the Ministry of Education schoolteacher with its own teacher and curriculum focused on agro-ecology. It has been supported by grants from the Inter-American Foundation (see Profile of Tzotzil-Tzetzal, Chiapas). Community Projects in the Chinanteca 103. The Chinanteco study documents 472 community works that have been constructed and maintained over the past five years in Oaxaca independently of any external financing. These works include schools, game courts, temples, waterworks, small roads, etc. Using community service and local materials, these works have been implemented completely with the know-how and initiative of the communities. The advantage of this activity is that there is no external politics involved in their identification or execution, avoiding factional conflicts that arise with externally funded initiatives. Only 14 percent of the settlements in the Chinanteco had no evidence of such public works. About a third of the non-participating settlement areas are in an area where traditional Chinanteco communities were displaced as a result of the construction of the irrigation dam, Cerro de Oro, resulting in the disruption of traditional organizations (Profile of Chinantecos, 1998). Secretariat of Social Development and the Regional Funds Program of INI 104. The Municipal Funds Program of the Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL)'s Solidarity Program was designed to devolve local project decision making to the municipal and community level in poor areas. The program's specific goal was "to carry out small public works that improve living conditions and permit access to increased income for campesinos who lived in low productivity areas, indigenous peoples, and inhabitants of marginal urban neighborhoods," the same target groups for the national Solidarity program in general. The Municipal Solidarity Funds follow the overall solidarity program's basic principles: respect for the communities and their decisions, support for organized social participation, co-responsibility in program operations, and transparency. The direct executor of a given project is normally the municipal Solidarity Committee and the municipality is responsible for seeing that a project is carried out in the terms approved by the State SEDESOL delegation. 105. INI implemented a subprogram with the Municipal Funds program in the early 1990s, called the Regional Funds, which worked through indigenous community organizations and a regional council of indigenous communities, rather than through the municipal structure or the state SEDESOL delegation. Like the Municipal Funds, the Regional Funds are revolving funds, but repayment is made not to municipal development committees, but to the regional councils of communities specially organized for this purpose. The projects carried out have been largely successful, although small, and repayment rates Page 38 variable according to regions. One of the most important inipacts of the Regional Funds was the active community participation in project selection and implementation. The main limitation of this program was a tendency for INI officials to play too strong a role in determining the types of projects to be funded, thereby limiting community institutional capacity building. In addition, since the program has depended on the availability of Solidarity funds, which are much scarcer in the current administration due to the budget restrictions, there has been limited ability to provide continuity of funds for multi-phase activities. In the case of the municipal funds, the most remote indigenous communities had disproportionately fewer successful projects (defined in terms of having some positive social impact), due to the lack of consistent capacity-building activities and funding. The Regional Funds have been more successful, but again are very small in comparison to the local demand (National Profile, 1998). Autonomous Municipalities and Communities in Chiapas with New Religious Identity 106. The Tzetzal/Tzotzil study documents the rise of new centers of population around San Cristobal de las Casas and in the northern area of Ocosingo municipality made up of the protestant and liberation theology converts expulsed from their communities of origin by the traditional authorities. These families have in many cases recuperated and surpassed their past level of subsistence and have adapted the traditional prestige economy into an engine for self-development. The concept of cargos has been redefined away from responsibility for religious rituals and to new secular posts to assist in creating jobs, organizing for social infrastructure, managing the school system, etc. Urban Adaptation and Employment in the Yucatan 107. The Maya in the Yucatan peninsula have adapted to a diverse economy. Traditional farmers maintain traditional agricultural practices in small communities in the historical settlements and large numbers of farmers spend significant periods of time working in land preparation and harvesting activities in the cash crop areas of the Peninsula and elsewhere in Central Mexico. Urbanization has created jobs in the service sector, where indigenous people find employment as domestics or as unskilled labor. Tourism has created jobs in the resort areas as well as created a market for small-scale commerce and sale of handicrafts. Because the process is so recent, and the urban regions have not been studied, it is difficult to estimate the population which considers itself indigenous-even when no longer a speaker of Maya or their native language. What is known at the local level is that there are neighborhoods in the urban centers of the Yucatan that are recreating indigenous community lifestyles, adapted to the nature of urban employment, and recreating religious and social events that maintain an indigenous affiliation and identity. This is the new future for indigenous peoples in Mexico, which urgently needs study, to understand. the trends, potentials, and problems. Page 39 6. Conclusions and Recommendations 108. The fundamental conclusion that can be drawn from the indigenous profiles is the continued, vital presence of a diverse set of 56 indigenous ethnic groups who make up a significant percent of the total population of Mexico (10 percent of the 98 million inhabitants) and a significant percent of the total indigenous population of Latin America (25 percent). While past analysis documented a long-term, downward demographic trend for this sub-population, ascribed to cultural assimilation (Gonzalez, M.L., 1996), recent analysis shows a 2.7 percent annual increase in the indigenous population between 1970 and now. This indicates a continued self-identification of indigenous peoples as such, even in a situation of high rates of temporary and permanent migration within Mexico and to the United States. There is also a persistence of traditional forms of governance, which function in parallel to formal government structures and represent one element of a cultural system that is fundamentally distinct from the mainstream. 109. There is a strong linkage between the presence of indigenous rural populations and green natural resources, which is key to long-term resource sustainability in Mexico. A large number of indigenous communities own forests or reside traditionally in areas of high biodiversity. More than 30 percent of the major protected areas in the country have indigenous peoples living in or around them. Research and documentation from the indigenous peoples themselves provide evidence of a compatibility between traditional cultural values and the objectives of conservation or sustained management of these areas, as well as persistence of traditional knowledge systems that can be adapted to improve management and increase the returns from these areas. 110. On the negative side, the profiles document a severe crisis in the indigenous population, linked to both social and economic indicators. Health indicators show a deepening incidence of infectious disease as well as diseases that are linked to long-term malnutrition. Educational attainment is significantly lower than the rest of the population, a statistic that shows up much more clearly in the profile-directed surveys than in official surveys, and the available services are not effectively reaching their targets, even in model programs. The local economies of the areas with concentrated populations of indigenous peoples are also in crisis due to declining soil fertility and degrading water catchments, exploitative market intermediaries, or poor access to markets and working capital, exclusion of indigenous social institutions from decision-making, and labor scarcity to improve agricultural production in source villages with heavy rates of male out-migration. 111. The problem of political and social exclusion of indigenous peoples is both deep- rooted and complicated. Contributing to this may be the existence of views of indigenous peoples as inherently inferior. Legal frameworks at national level and in most states are still inadequate to protect indigenous rights and customary practices. This has combined with an historical unequal power relationship between indigenous peoples and local non-indigenous elites, and between the State and indigenous communities. Government investment, however large in financial terms, has not effectively tackled poverty in the indigenous communities. Instead it has contributed to a state of dependency, rather than fostering a long-term capacity to grow and adapt to a changing economy. There are many specific problems and examples Page 40 documented in the profiles: (a) communities remain dependent on traditional elites and outside market intermediaries which hinders their capacity to access services and investment opportunities; (b) provision of technical packages mal-adapted to traditional values or the comparative advantages of existing land, capital, and labor inputs; (c) training of individual leaders (such as bilingual INI promoters) which may not create community organizational capacity if these leaders maintain local dependency; and (d) seeking control and monitoring of development programs through ad-hoc committees, rather than seeking mechanisms from within existing indigenous governments. 112. There is a fundamental divide between the goal of improving health, educational levels and generate income and employment, independent of the cultural system, and the indigenous peoples' goals to achieve a minimum quality of life, but adapting traditional cultural systems and social relations to a new economic status. 113. The response of indigenous peoples to a situation of continued poverty and underdevelopment has not been static, and the profiles document some successful trends towards self-development. There are a number of relatively new (under 20 years old) indigenous political institutions which have evolved from the generalized labor and land reform movements of the 1930s-70s and focus on indigenous concerns. These organizations are making new demands to the society, and offering leadership for action. They are inherently fragile, however, because of their newness and support to them needs to recognize this fragility. 114. At the community level, there are a number of successful initiatives in the coffee- growing regions, in the forested areas, and in areas of diverse agricultural systems, where indigenous communities have drawn upon their internal organizations to implement a new vision of development. With support from nurturing NGOs, they have initiated sustainable development strategies based on their own knowledge and resources. Some of the forestry communities are becoming quite well off and the others are creating a culture of positive achievement. These successes have the following in common: (a) they support activities identified and designed by the people themselves; (b) they improve livelihoods while retaining cultural values; (c) they help conserve important natural resources; (d) they frequently include the provision of seed capital as opposed to credit or full subsidy; and (e) they provide new models for resource management drawing on traditional principles of knowledge. Apart from some examples through INI revolving funds or other small-scale initiatives (such as the indigenous development project in the Chinanteca), there are few examples of direct support to indigenous development plans. 115. Growing recognition of the strength of indigenous culture and social institutions in Mexico is leading a number of state governments to propose state-level legislation that translates the fundamental indigenous rights guaranteed in Article 4 of the 1992 Amendments to the National Constitution into concrete actions and regulations. Oaxaca has passed a comprehensive new law and amended its State Constitution and other States are in a similar process, which INI is trying to support. Page 41 Implications for the World Bank 116. The profiles have a number of implications for how the World Bank should think about indigenous peoples and the development process in Mexico and for the kind of interventions that the institution can support through sector work and technical assistance as well as through its lending. The key conclusions that can be drawn from the profiles is that this segment of the population has different needs and interests and could be benefiting much more from the considerable investment that Mexico is making with World Bank support. There are a large number of initiatives, which should have the potential to further indigenous peoples' development, and whose performance should be better monitored. Information available in most sector work or monitoring documents fails to disaggregate among the indigenous ethnic groups, analyze their differences and how they respond to development interventions. 117. The participation of indigenous peoples in the development process is limited. However, their goals and desires as individuals and as organized entities should be incorporated into Government programs that are set up to provide specific goods and services to these people. This will have the result that there is greater ownership by local communities of development efforts that are beyond their control and customary practices. More resources should be available prior to or in conjunction with investments for capacity- building, and more effort should be devoted to evaluate capacity-building as an intervention in its own right, with clear indicators of progress and achievement. 118. There are programs designed since 1994, which include social assessments and focus more intensively on social and cultural capital, and devolution of decisions to the level of communities, such as the PAREIB Basic Education program, the Rural Development in Marginal Areas, or Community Forestry. The Basic Education and Community Forestry projects are most open-ended in channeling resources directly to indigenous beneficiaries. These two projects allow communities to use private extension services and give communities and parents control on monitoring. In many other projects, participation depends on the willingness of beneficiaries to publicly express their opinion about emerging problems. In general, projects should give greater attention to the principles by which indigenous peoples in Mexico live. In particular better quality control, and monitoring and participatory mechanisms should be developed. 119. The findings of these profiles have revealed the necessity for the World Bank and the Mexican government to re-center development efforts around indigenous peoples' views and real needs. This is an important element in improving the development impact and the performance of the portfolio in addressing indigenous peoples poverty. The Bank could reallocate staff time to properly analyze indigenous concerns and mobilize grant resources for capacity building and pilots that provide know-how for future lending. The costs of addressing poverty can only continue to rise as the divide between the situation of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (educational and income levels, health and productivity, and capital assets) grows and the resource base declines. Page 42 120. Yet the authors also see this period in Mexico as one of unique opportunity to move forward. With the fiscal crisis in Mexico, and little chance to substantially increase funding of programs, the Government is protecting social spending and is committed to increase the efficiency of its interventions for poverty alleviation and indigenous issues. There is new interest in Government to incorporate indigenous peoples related to concerns to build new political constituencies. A strong working group has emerged in Mexico made up of social policy think tanks and university scholars interested in continuing the work on the profiles, increasing indigenous capacity, and in developing tools for applying social science skills to policy decisions and implementation. These are all opportunities for action. Recommendations 121. The team recommends the following actions to be possibly undertaken with World Bank support: (a) a change of perspective to analyze, with participatory methods, indigenous peoples' needs and opportunities, which are more in tune to their values, time frame, and with performance indicators that reflect these, building capacity of Mexican social policy and research institutions to undertake this analysis; (b) an analysis of the legal framework for indigenous peoples in Mexico, both at national and state levels, which evaluates: (i) land rights, including issues related to the new land registration and titling process; (ii) rights to practice customary laws and rituals, particularly where these are inconsistent with formal laws; (iii) consistency of state laws with national legislation; and (iv) rights to resource management. (c) an increase in the resources devoted to indigenous capacity-building, paying equal attention to community as well as individual capacity, and to indigenous professionals, both men and women; (d) disseminating information about indigenous peoples to policy makers and government and non-government workers to counter misperceptions and open new spaces for dialogue and negotiation; (e) monitoring and evaluating new and on-going programs with greater realism and depth of analysis, disaggregating by ethnicity and gender, not just indigenous identity, and acting upon the conclusions to modify programs in time; (f) placing the issue of indigenous peoples and their rights more centrally in natural resource management programs in areas of indigenous settlement and use, building upon their knowledge systems, particularly for fragile land management and avoiding dependency relationships; and (g) encouraging government to consider new products for indigenous peoples, including stand-alone indigenous projects, medium-size Global Environment Facility Grants (GEF), training grants, etc. Page 43 122. Areas of further research that have been identified by the World Bank and Government team include: (a) a study of urban indigenous populations; (b) expansion of the profiles to remaining rural areas with large indigenous populations; (c) dissemination of information from the profiles to indigenous peoples, for their use in self-analysis and self- identification of development initiatives; (d) study of gender concerns and opportunities in indigenous populations; and (e) targeted monitoring of programs to evaluate if indigenous peoples are benefiting as planned. Page 44 Annex 1 Maps and Statistics s e Simbologia Lenguas Indigenas de México M~~ I^ - f A ïTinec - SW-~ *~ ien -- 0 LENGUAS INDiGE~A CON MENOR NOMERO DE HABLANTES Z" , -! . . . ......kcI. K~i Quiché - ~SUBDIRECCIóN -iLndón * U DE INWIST~AIóN M IGEDGRAFICA u)at< ähuatec - oloch -é Fuentes INEGI Xl Censo general de po"lcin y ~.na, 1990 IM Subcive~& de Inw~,g, IBAL. Base de localidødes y =onuniciades mndigenas 1993 4 MUNICIPIOS DE 30A 69 % DE POBLACIÓN INDiGENA ESTIMADA ~ - SUBDIRECC6m Fuentes INEGI. XA Censo general de poblaciån y vienda, 1990 N Subdir~ecn de insbgacin IBAI Base de Iocaidades y comunidades indigenas 1993 N Subdir~en de ingació IBM Base de poblacion indigena esØnnada, 1993 MUNICIPIOS DE 70% Y MÁS DE POBLACIÓN INDÍGENA ESTIMADA m -nfSiUBDIRECCIóN I~~w mo wVEoGAeÓ Fuentes INEGI XA Censo general de pobiac~ó y Menda, 1990 IM Subdiecan de nesbgaó IBAI Base de locaWades y comunidades indigenas 1993 IM Subdtrecó de nvsgación IBA¡ Base de poblac~ón indigena es~mada, 1993 Executive Summaries of the Consultant Reports Translated into English Annex 2, Part 1 Chiapas: State-level Indigenous Profile Executive Summary 1. Chiapas has one of the largest and most diverse indigenous populations with approximately 959,066 indigenous language speakers over the age of five, or 27 percent of the state's population. It is home to nine major ethnicities and was a center of the Mayan Empire with ceremonial city centers in Palenque and Yaxchilin. However, it is second only to Oaxaca in both indigenous population size and that population's marginality in terms of socio-economic development. Ironically, Chiapas is also one of the states with the most diverse resource base, and the generator of 35 percent of Mexico's electricity through hydropower. The history of Chiapas indigenous peoples is different from other parts of Mexico in that much of the state was a frontier that has only recently been settled and freed from a long period of relatively lawless exploitation by diverse interests. It is only in the highlands that indigenous territories were left alone. Elsewhere, many indigenous communities had their territories expropriated to establish commercial estates and were either converted to indentured labor or fled to frontier areas to create new settlements. With colonization have come a number of indigenous populations from neighboring states with different traditions and customs. 2. Methodology. The state-level profile included an extensive secondary literature survey of census records and ethnographies combined with new fieldwork by CIESAS anthropologists who have spent many years researching Chiapas. The state-level profile provides detailed information on the Lacandon Maya (Hach Winik), Tojolabal and Main groups. An in-depth monograph provides information on the Tzotzil and Tzeltal in the Altos region. 3. Demographic Movements. The demographic trends in Chiapas are both complex and dynamic. There are 111 municipalities in the state, 99 of them with indigenous populations. The main indigenous groups in Chiapas in descending population order are Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Ch'ol, Mam, Tojolabal, Zoques, Kanjobal, and Mayas Lacandones (Hach Winik). The most populated regions of Chiapas are the Altos and the Centro, which include the capital of San Cristobal de las Casas and Tuxla Gutierrez and the region of Soconusco, an area known for its coffee plantations. Most of the indigenous population is in the Altos and Selva regions even though there has been much movement of population into other regions. The Tzeltal and Tzotzil live mainly in Altos and the Selva and have expanded west and south. The Ch'ol have lived in the Selva and have expanded to the south, the Mames have lived in Fronteriza, Sierra, and Soconusco and have expanded to the Selva, and the Tojolabal have lived in Fronteriza and expanded to the Selva. The mestizo population also makes up 65 percent of the total population, according to INI estimates. A-5 Annex 2, Part 1 Table 1: Indigenous Population in Chiapas Group Population' % of Total Population of Chiapas Tzeltales 322,224 9.0 Tzotziles 306,854 8.5 Choles 119,118 3.3 Zoques 87,302 2.4 Tojolabales (chuj) 66,280 1.8 Mames 23,423 0.6 Moch6s 8,184 0.2 Cakchiqueles 3,510 .09 Lacandones 630 .0008 Other indigenous groups 21,541 0.6 TOTAL 959,066 3,584,786 (1995) 4. Over the last 30 years, these indigenous communities have been experiencing rapid demographic change, due to the in-migration of new indigenous groups as colonists from other states and the internal movement of groups from traditional indigenous areas to frontier zones due to political or religious conflicts combined with pressures on agricultural land. As a result, the indigenous and non-indigenous population has expanded both in numbers and spatially to new areas, particularly in the Selva, the western central zone, and the area along the Oaxaca border. In parallel, indigenous elites are moving to urban centers that were formerly dominated by Spanish and mestizo elites and businessmen, creating a process of "re-indianization." Indigenous society is becoming increasingly stratified economically and socially, and urban areas like San Cristobal de las Casas in the highlands are becoming again cities of "indigenous peoples." 5. As a result of the Zapatista rebellion in 1994, there are also population movements to avoid violence. In 1997, it was estimated that 11,000 were displaced by violence, in particular Tzotzils. Some of the displaced live in camps, others in new settlements, and approximately 84 violence-related deaths have occurred (1997). Another important social impact was the arrival of approximately 35,000 refugees from Guatemala in 1983, mainly indigenous Kanjobales, along with Chujes, Mames and others. Since the end of the conflict in Guatemala, there has been voluntary re-patriation of 20,866 refugees. The November 1997 census of Chiapas showed 15,850 refugees still in Chiapas in 109 settlements in different municipalities. It should be kept in mind that most of the statistical information on total numbers of indigenous peoples is often underestimated since only the language was used as a determinate. This variable does not indicate the loss of cultural identity if one is no longer using the language. A-6 Annex 2, Part 1 6. According to the 1980 census, approximately 65 percent of the population were dedicated exclusively to agriculture, 5 percent to secondary activities, and 9 percent to tertiary activities. Eighty percent of the working population has a salary inferior to two minimum salaries and 34 percent of the working population does not report monetary income. In 1988, there were a total of 99 ejidos and communities with approximately 10 hectares on average per family (41,429 beneficiaries; 429,090 hectares). Of this total, approximately 48 percent are used for agriculture, 20 percent is forests, and 16 percent is pasture. Only 1 percent has irrigation. 7. Political, Social and Religious Movements. Population growth combined with the exploitative relationships between indigenous peoples and powerful colonial and later government officials, church clergy, and wealthy business interests created fertile ground for religious and social movements in the 1960s onwards. Fostered by the Catholic liberation theology for human betterment of the Second Vatican Council, liberation theology clergy in Chiapas initiated a process of self-reflection in many communities, and Protestant missions also gained converts interested in the development goals of the those missions. This led to massive conversions, social and political initiatives to gain control of their development, and social unrest within communities, which were divided for the first time religiously. Most of the political movements in Chiapas are demands for human rights, land, and self determination, defined as a desire for customary forms of governance, as has recently been legislated in Oaxaca state. Because of the perception of a common enemy in the government and private elites, political organization has not been along ethnic lines, but rather ideological lines. The social movements have been influenced by the ILO Convention 169 signed by President Carlos Salinas in 1989, the 1992 Constitutional reforms, and the more recent San Andres accords signed between the government and the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberaci6n Nacional (EZLN) in February 1996. The main issue in Chiapas is the interpretation of the Article 4 of the Constitution and its future regulation. Currently there are numerous municipalities that have declared their autonomy along the lines of the legislation in Oaxaca, but without the corresponding legal framework. 8. The following sections provide summaries of three indigenous group discussed in detail in the state-level profile, Tojolabal, Main, and Hach Winik. Tojolabal 9. There are approximately 66,280 Tojolabales in 184 communities, concentrated in the Fronteriza region. In the census data of the 1960s-70s, the percentage of Tojolabal speakers decreased, but after 1980s, it began to increase. In the Tojolabal region in the 1960s, 30 percent of the population was a "speaker of an indigenous language," in 1970 it diminished to 15 percent and 1990 rose to 20 percent. Historically, the territories of Tojolabal communities were not recognized by colonial or post-independence authorities, forcing communities to move frequently and resulting in a large population ending up on landed estates as indentured labor. Practically all the Tojolabals have in their life or in the immediate past of their parents had some change of residence. Because of this situation, Tojolabal have lost the traditional social system based on community service, or cargos, and have constructed their identity instead based on a system of ejido administration. A-7 Annex 2, Part 1 10. Migration of the Tojolabal is a response to the historic lack of territorial rights. When Tojolabal communities were allocated ejido lands, these were fairly small and only the original ejidatarios were granted land. In addition, only some of the landed estates were converted to ejido lands, leaving many communities landless. With population growth, a large population became landless without ejido voting power and therefore, many migrated to the lowland rainforests to new settlements. With this historical movement, Tojolabal territory has actually expanded and can be considered as two areas, one a traditional territory and the other, expanded territory. 11. Tojolabal communities are socio-economically marginal. A case study of the Tojolabals illustrates the overlay of poverty and the spatial location of indigenous peoples. In the locality of Venecia, only 8 percent of the population six years and older completed primary school. As in the other indigenous region studies in the Mexico profiles, there are numerous reasons for the failure to complete school: absence during migratory periods; poorly trained teachers and lack of teaching materials; lack of relevance of the teaching material; and poorly implemented bilingual programs. None of the women over six years of age had completed the sixth grade of primary school. The survey information shows that a high number of girls leave school to participate in household and agricultural tasks. The rainforest migration areas face other problems of lack of services. There are no schools and no teachers available in many lowland areas. 12. Development and Social Change. There are two processes ongoing in the Tojolabal region, which are pertinent: forest exploitation and the introduction of public transport in the region. In those traditional territories that the Tojolabal have been able to recuperate, there has been a long-term conflict since the 1960s with the logging companies, which was temporally checked during the logging ban in the early 1990's and is again an issue. Until the 1980s, the Tojolobal region had few roads. In the 1960s some communities in Las Margaritas municipality approved a concession agreement with a logging firm which included road building and some community sharing of the profits. The logging began in 1963 and by the late 1980s, the forest was nearly depleted. Although the municipality is first in Chiapas in terms of volume and value of forest production, the communities have received no profit share despite complaints. The experience has left this ethnic group very resentful and distrustful of Government. 13. In the late 1970s, concerned with the potential guerrilla activity in the forest, the government increased their military presence in the frontier area and constructed additional access roads. At this time, there were efforts among the communities to ensure that the roads would benefit Tojolabales. Not long after the logging companies built the roads, a mestizo businessman established the first public transport route on the main road. He established high rates and did not treat passengers well. After he increased the rate 50 percent in 1977, the Tojolabal communities boycotted the company and made plans to purchase their own transportation. The owners of the company tried to put them out of business, but they did not back down and made the routes as planned. In the absence of state institutions they have had to assume the role as managers of their own development. A-8 Annex 2, Part 1 Sierra Madre Region: Mames 14. The Mames live in the Southeast of the Sierra Madre, mainly in the Soconusco region. Approximately 8,000 people self-identify as Main, mostly concentrated in eight municipalities. They are one of the least studied indigenous groups since few Mames retain their maternal language and are therefore not easily distinguished from the mestizo population. One impact of the social and religious movements of the 1970s has been self-identification as Mames of a large population that had stopped identifying themselves as indigenous. 15. The Soconusco region was a contested area between Mexico and Guatemala until 1894, when a boundary treaty left the Mames divided between two nations. A Colonization Law passed in 1883 by President Porfirio Diaz promoted the occupation of national lands near the newly created border, increasing the number of coffee estates in the Soconusco area and dispossessing Mames who became plantation labor. In the 1930's the Mames became ejidatarios, and many of the coffee farms were parceled to them as part of the ejidos. As part of the program of national assimilation during this period, government tried to acculturate the Mames, who responding by not sending their children to school and isolating themselves. With demographic growth has come land pressure. Each ejidatario has 20 hectares, of which only about 2 hectares are productive. In the past, land was given to a son when he married, but for the last two generations, the young have had to look elsewhere. Mames have participated in the land occupations that accompanied the 1994 Zapatista uprising and have occupied several farms in the region. 16. Agricultural Production. The Mames are self-sufficient in agricultural production and they sell the surplus in local and regional markets. The Mames grow various crops in different ecological spaces, for example, in the high Sierra they grow maize, potato, cabbage, and wheat. At the foot of the mountains or along the rivers in small parcels they grow beans, maize, onions, radish, lettuce, and peanuts. In seven of the eight municipalities, there is a large number of sheep. The herds are managed at the family level and provide wool and natural fertilizer. Raising cattle is minimal, and limited to draft animals and a few animals for savings. Apiculture is a new activity for few communities. 17. Cultural Beliefs and Practices. In some communities, individuals known as "chimanes" exist. These people know the ancestral wisdom and practice traditional medicine and divining based on the Maya or Tzokin calendar. With the influence of Protestantism, the role of these chimanes has decreased considerably. In the 1930s, during the forced acculturation programs, the Mam language went from public to private space. The language became a ritual language used only in the homes, but it could also be used in the Protestant spaces. Protestantism entered this area in the early 1900s, promoting the use of the Main language and criticizing assimilationism. The Mames that migrated to the lowland areas had contact with the Jehovah Witnesses. The groups that converted to Jehovah Witness have become united through this religion and have converted their communities into a space for symbolic resistance in the A-9 Annex 2, Part 1 face of the integrating state presence. Of the Mames over age 5 in 10 municipalities near the border area, 25 percent are Protestant, 53 percent are Catholic, and 20 percent state no religion. The new generations have little knowledge of traditional religion, the communal festivals and traditions of harvesting of maize. 18. New Social Change. At the same time as the process of religious change, there is currently an ongoing consolidation of organic agricultural cooperatives. These are a strong force for economic and cultural survival in the region, which started with the influence of Catholic Liberation Theology. A network of cooperatives has developed a dialogue of re-vindication of indigenous rights. For them, to be Mam does not mean to speak the language or utilize traditional dress, but instead to recuperate a common history and try to relate harmoniously with the mother earth. The cooperatives have adopted names which represent their heritages, including "Indigenas de la Sierra Madre de Motozintla," K'nan Choch, Nuestra Madre Tierra. Selva Lacandona (Lacandon Jungle): The Mayas Lacandones (Hach Winik) 19. The Hach Winik or Maya Lacandones are one of the smallest indigenous groups in Chiapas with a total population of 630 in seven villages in the Selva Lacandona region. Based on physical characteristics, language, and customs, the Hach Winik are most likely descended from the Ancient Maya culture. In the 16th and 17th centuries they migrated from the Yucatan to the Peten and then to the Selva Lacandona, supposedly fleeing attempts to put them into settlements. Until the 1960s and 70s, they lived in relative isolation, living in dispersed areas in the forest until they were settled into five main villages by the government (NahA, Mensabak, Crucero San Javier, Bethel, and Lacanjd-Chansayab, including two other small settlements Ojo de Agua Chan Kim and Bonampak). Even though there has been acculturation, the Hach Winik have maintained a clear cultural identity. In the 1950s, the Summer Institute of Languages entered this area, which was a clear factor in acculturation. The Seventh Day Adventists and evangelists have also entered and numerous Mayas Lacandones have converted. In one community however, there are still six "Casas de Dios" to celebrate traditional rituals. 20. Land. In 1972, a presidental decree provided 614,210 hectares of land to 66 Lacandon Maya heads of household as a community territory with the dual aim of protecting the contiguous Montes Azules Reserve. Since there were 1,500 Tzeltal and Ch'ol families also living in the same area as the Hach Winik, the agreement was modified to include these families and in 1975, the Lacandon Community Zone (Comunidad Zona Lacandona, CZL) received rights for 662,000 hectares of "bienes comunales," communal land. The Comunidad Zona Lacandona has more than 9,730 (1990) members and 59 percent of the land is covered by five protected areas. Of this total, 62 percent are Tzeltal, 32 percent are Chol, and 6 percent are Maya Lacandon. 21. The Hach Winik are known for their maintenance of a traditional way of living and ecological knowledge closely linked to the forest. Their complex traditional agricultural system is complemented by the collection of forest products, hunting, and fishing. They have, however, undergone a significant cultural change as they have moved from a nearly isolated family A-10 Annex 2, Part I subsistence economy to one subject to negotiations over wood concessions from private companies, salaried work and the impact of the regional economy. Traditional agriculture is practiced by older members of the community with intensive cultivation of maize and beans in a system of rotation near other food and medicinal plants with periods of fallow for three years every ten years. Non-traditional agriculture is based on monocropping of maize. In 1996, INE found that the traditional system is more productive, but obviously requires a greater investment in labor. Aquaculture is one of the few productive investments introduced from the outside which has had success and been appropriated by Lacandones. 22. The first commercial activity the Maya Lacandones were involved in was in a wood concession. A contract was signed in 1975 with the Compania Forestal de la Lacandona that promised that 70 percent of the income received from the extraction of wood would be deposited in a fund for the community and 30 percent would be divided among the Lacandones. According to the Lacandones, they were never able to determine how much was taken out and what they did receive was very low. On a small scale, they do participate in some commercial activities including cultivation of maize and jalapeno peppers for sale, collection and sale of palm leaves, creation and sale of artisan works, and tourism (hosting visitors, serving as guides). Tourism is one of the most important activities among the Lacandones living in the south since they are close to the archeological zone of Bonampak and forested areas that are relatively well conserved. An association Na Bolom supports the Lacandones to commercialize their artisan products and to define alternatives in development of artisan work. 23. Social and Political Organization. Traditionally, the social organization of the Lacandones was based on family clans and lineage. The patriarchs of the lineage were authorities and the traditional authority "To'ohil." At a political level, the Comunidad Zona Lacandona is an indigenous alliance made up of Mayas Lacandones, Choles, andTzeltales. Each of the subcommunities has a defined territory with autonomy for decision-making on customs and traditions. The Comisariado de Bienes Comunales and the Consejo de Vigilancia are the maximum authorities. The Comisariado is made up of members of the three groups that are elected to the Assembly that meets every three years (1,500 representatives attend the assembly). 24. The Hach Winik are a minority group in the CZL compared to the Tzeltales and Choles and their autonomy is somewhat limited. Even though the Comisariado of the Bienes Comunales of the CZL is from the Maya Lacandon group, the person is selected by majority vote and the Lacandon chosen is most likely to be favorable to the other groups. The Hach Winik express the need to consolidate their own internal mechanisms that allow them to define authorities dedicated to their own issues with out damaging the alliance with other groups. 25. Education. The Hach Winik solidly maintain their Maya language and it is used orally at home. Only a few have begun to learn to write it. Many male adults agree that it would be worthwhile to include Maya in basic education so the children could learn to read and write in Lacandon Maya. In order to design this type of program, it is necessary to finance and implement a special program focused on training rural teachers of members of the community so they begin to impart reading and writing in Maya in the primary schools. Nearly all men under A-1I Annex 2, Part 1 the age of 50 can speak Spanish, but few adult women can since they have less contact with those from the outside. Most of the young can read and write Spanish. The young people and the adults express the desire for technical training, in particular in wood and forest products since these are their resources. This need has not been systematically addressed, other than the provision of some short courses offered by government institutions in certain specific activities like aquaculture. They would be interested in the use, evaluation, processing, administration, and commercialization of wood and wood products. The possibilities of designing, manufacturing, and marketing their artisan work are also seen as a need. 26. Health. Two of the communities have clinics with a doctor and an assistant. In Lacanja, a community member is trained by the Secretary of Health to assist the doctor. The clinics run vaccination campaigns and in one of the clinics there is an ambulance. The closest hospital for the communities in the north is nearly 80 km away. In all the Lacandon communities gastrointestinal illnesses are proportionally very frequent. This is in part due to their living environment, but also it could be due to ineffective hygiene campaigns. Very few Lacandones have constructed latrines or even maintain them in good condition. Other problems that may be affecting their health include fumigation of their houses with DDT and inappropriate application of the agro-chemicals on the jalapenos. The population increase of the Hach Winik has been proportionally quite small likely due to the small population and inter-breeding which has also resulted in birth defects, congenital deformities and low infant survival rates. Recently, there are more inter-marriages with other ethnic groups, mainly the Tzeltales. 27. Infrastructure. In 1997, the road from the highway to Bethel and Lacanja-Chansayab was paved and the paths were to the houses were renovated. Two communities have an airstrip, three communities have a radio with an operator, but the service is often interrupted. Four to five years ago, electricity and potable water systems were installed in all the communities, but their functioning is inadequate and sporadic. For example, in 1996 in Naha, 50 percent of the houses had piped water, 70 percent had electricity. It is common to see traditional houses in the communities, but natural materials are often substituted for construction materials. Even though they may prefer natural materials, it is increasingly more difficult for them to gather what they need since the resources outside of the communities are becoming scarce. Since the 1994 conflict communication has been improving among the communities and the larger towns of the region. Even though the roads have been rehabilitated in some areas, there continues to be a lack of public transportation to four of the communities. If there is no transport, then it is impossible for them to commercialize their products affordably. 28. When the Hach Winik were centralized, there was no space planning for the new communities. There is a need for better space planning for use and for health reasons. The settlements have grown quickly in an unorganized way. There is contamination of water, infectious diseases, the loss of trees, run off into rivers and the need for management of garbage, drainage, and latrines. 29. Protected Areas. The Selva Lacandona is one of the areas with the highest biodiversity in Mexico. The forests of this area form part of the second largest extension of tropical forest on A-12 Annex 2, Part 1 the American continent. In 1978 in order to conserve one of the most important tropical forest areas in the world, the Biosphere Reserva Montes Azules wag d&creed. It consists of 331,200 areas, of this 283,773 (85.68 percent) are located inside the communal lands of the CZL. In 1992, four additional protected areas were decreed inside their communal lands (Chan-Kin Refuge, Bonampak National Monument, Biosphere Reserve Lacantum, Yxchilan National Monument. In 1993, the CZL established nine communal reserves. Since 1991, the CZL has been involved in the operation of the Program for Inspection and Vigilance of the Selva Lacandona. Through this program, community members have had work and training with respect to conservation and management of natural resources. 30. It has been estimated that the tropical forests of the Selva Lacandon originally covered nearly 1,300,000 hectares. Nonetheless, due to a process of massive forest exploitation and extensive colonization, the current forested surface is less than 600,000 hectares. The extensive advance of human activities has led to the deforestation of 30,000 hectares inside the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. The areas of the communal lands that are not included in the protected areas system have valuable forests providing an environmental capital that are important to conserve and utilized in a rational manner. The Hach Winik have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about their environment which has been studied by many experts however thus far the use of this knowledge for sustainable development has not been tapped. Social Change and Development. 31. Originally the Hach Winik were organized in dispersed clan-based settlement groups. With the creation of the CZL, they have begun to develop a region-wide organizational structure, but it is difficult to develop a common organization when each settlement group has historically been very individualistic and autonomous. The CZL has formed a non-profit civil association to attract development funds that was legally registered in December 1994. Its operability is still limited since there is no formal system of communication among the five Lacandon settlements. The civil association Na Bolom of San Cristobal has established Culture Houses (Casas de la Cultura) in three communities in order to support the conservation of cultural values, traditional knowledge and community information sharing. For the CZL, agrarian conflicts are the most important problem since the communal lands are being invaded with 29 illegal settlements inside their territory. In 1983, the Lacandones of Lacanja Chansayab decided to force out Tzeltales that had settled near their land. The displacement caused a public security problem for 3 years. In other communities, the surrounding ejidos are invading the lands. 32. Traditionally all the family members participated in the family subsistence activities. These roles have changed with the introduction of new economic activities and salaried work. The distribution of labor among men and women has also changed. Decision*making at the collective level is through the monthly General Assembly of adult males. Most of the current economic problems of the CZL are due to the lack of organization and financial resources to achieve greater agricultural production and commercialization of products. Producers of commercial crops depend for the most part on intermediaries to market their production and the payments to producers are minimal. Some community members have expressed the need for A-13 Annex 2, Part 1 financial support to start their own micro-enterprises so they can avoid having to depend on the intermediaries. 33. There are several changes occurring with modernization. Young people are working outside to earn cash, rather than learning the traditional agriculture and cultural practices, and there is increasing economic stratification with outside earning, and more monoculture farming systems are appearing. This has an impact on male female relations, since women are alienated- by the modernization and men's control of cash income, leading to increased alcohol consumption and more disruptive male-female relationships. 34. The Hach Winik express the need for the following types of development activities: * community organization and decision making, strengthening organization skills, project management, and administration of resources; * training on the optimization of productive activities; * increase sources of employment and economic alternatives, especially in management, monitoring of protected areas, small business related to tourism, use and transformation of forest resources, and artisan development; * optimization of public services, installation of latrines and drainage, improved management of garbage and solid wastes, access to transportation and phone service; * resolution of agrarian conflicts; and * infrastructure: bilingual, culturally appropriate education, construction and equipping of secondary and technical schools, exchange programs with other communities. A-14 Annex 2, Part 2 Chiapas: The Highlands or Altos (Tzotzil and Tzeltal Profiles) Executive Summary 1. The highland region of Chiapas is a traditional home to three main Mayan indigenous peoples, the Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Chol. This profile summarizes the situation of the Tzotzil and Tzeltal in this region (15 municipalities of the 20 in which they are found). While speakers of distinct languages, their territories have come increasingly to overlap and they therefore share common historical and political influences. Both languages are closely related and belong to the cholano group (chol, chontal, and chorti) and also the chujano (tojolabal and chuj). This region is undergoing dynamic and complex changes in response to population increase, which has encouraged movement of peoples internally into less populated areas, the 1983 influx of Guatemalan refugees, and colonization of the rainforest lowlands externally from other states. 2. Chiapas is rich in natural resources, generating 35 percent of the nation's electricity from hydropower, producing 35 percent of Mexico's coffee, and the second state in livestock production and maize. The south and eastern parts of the state are rich in forests, once a source of heavy international exploitation, with half a million hectares now protected in the Montes Azules biosphere reserve and Lacandon indigenous community. 3. The rocky highlands is a region that was never considered resource rich, either by the Spaniards or the post-independence Mexican elites, and it was largely left in the hands of the indigenous groups, although with control of marketing and trade concentrated in the hands of mestizo elites settled in the urban areas. The highlands served as a source of cheap labor for commercial agriculture in the more fertile estate lands of Chiapas. The Catholic Church also played an important role in defining the local prestige economy and the highlands are famous for the elaborate ritual calendar and the celebrations hosted by the Catholic indigenous highland communities at great personal expense. 4. The urban center of the highlands is San Cristobal de las Casas, a traditional colonial city. The interesting transition that has occurred in the past thirty years is a movement of indigenous elites to San Cristobal de las Casas, converting this city from a mestizo stronghold to an indigenous center, a type of "re-indianization" or return to the pre-colonial political structure. This is the only part of Mexico where this transition has occurred, offering interesting possibilities for future indigenous development. 5. Demography. The profile has documented interesting trends in indigenous population size and movement. Thirty years ago the indigenous population was highly concentrated in the highlands, dispersed in small communities in the rainforest, or along the borders with Guatemala and Oaxaca. Today, there has been dramatic population increase internally as well as colonization from neighboring states as part of the national policy of economic expansion. The dominant Tzotzil (306,854 in 1990) and Tzeltal (332,224 in 1990) have expanded northward and into northern urban areas. Immigrant indigenous peoples from Oaxaca and Guatemala reside in the lowland regions, there is migration on both sides of the Oaxaca-Chiapas border in search of agricultural land, and there has been massive internal movement by the landless indigenous A-15 Annex 2, Part 2 peoples traditionally from Chiapas in search of new lands. The historic lack of recognition of indigenous territories has exacerbated this population movement, since, unlike the Yucatan or Oaxaca, community members often had no stake in regions whether they were neither organized legally as comunidades or if residents of ejidos necessarily landed members with voting rights. 6. The particular demography of the highlands is shaped by the movement of Tzotziles, Tzeltales, Chol (119,118 in 1990) and Tojolabales (66,280 in 1990) within in and outside the region. (See Chiapas state executive summary for overall population movements). Tzotzil and Tzeltales have developed overlapping territories even within the same municipalities, and because their languages are closely linked and mutually intelligible, have developed ties among younger adults, even though community boundaries remain separate. After the 1940s, the highlands experienced rapid demographic growth. Between 1950 and 1990, the population of the region tripled. For example in 1990, Chamula, the most densely populated municipality in the region had 382 habitantes/km2, as compared to the state average of 42 inhabitants/km2. In the mid-i 970s, in the Altos region there was a redistribution of population mainly from the rural areas to the municipality of San Cristobal. 7. Social and Political Organization. In the Altos, the Tzotziles and Tzeltales are organized into communities, each with their own social and cultural unity and boundaries that generally coincide with the modem municipalities. Each community has their own identity with a patron saint as protector and benefactor of its members; its own particular language characteristics; a body of functionaries that govern it; and annual rites including celebration of the festivals for the saints. The inhabitants of the Altos identify themselves by their community of origin. The communities are organized in terms of "barrios" that correspond to lineage and the residence established through the paternal line since membership in a barrio is inherited from the father. The barrio has many functions. It can function as a ceremonial unit; provide justice in minor offenses; decide use of land; maintain demographic statistics; and assign representatives for the municipal government. 8. Land Tenure. Most of the highland communities have ejido or comunidad land rights, but there has been a historical conflict between communities and large estates over land access. While the Tzotzil and Tzeltal maintained communal land systems, due to their remoteness from fertile agricultural lands, most of the Tojolabal of the more eastern sites were disinherited from their community lands in the 1890s and moved to the large estates as laborers in debt-service. Among the Tzotzil and Tzeltal, access to land is mediated by communal structures through mechanisms of inheritance of land through the paternal line as in the case of Tenejapa or by both maternal and paternal in the case of Chamula. Nonetheless, it is possible that inside a community, members can buy or sell land. Each family owns small parcels in different agro- ecological zones that are used for different activities such as collection of firewood, plants and animals and some cultivation of crops. They occupy communal territory in dispersed settlements known as "parajes" which represent a social as well as territorial system of organization. In 1990, there were approximately 630 settlements in the region, 90 percent with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. A-16 Annex 2, Part 2 9. Rural municipal centers (cabeceras) traditionally were the site of all group ceremonial, administrative, and commercial activities, and traditionally community leaders only lived there temporarily during their terms of service. With the economic and social changes and the resulting increase in economic differentiation, these centers have attracted permanent indigenous residents working in commercial and/or transport activities. 10. Colonization and Development. San Cristobal was transformed from a center with a close relationship to the indigenous communities in the rural areas to a center with more regional and national linkages with the construction of the Pan-American highway in the 1940s. The residents of San Cristobal became businessmen, government offices were established and there was an increasing monetization of the indigenous economy. Tourism began to become an income-earning mechanism. In the 1970s, a modernization policy was promoted through various programs. PRODESCH, the Program for Social Development of the Altos (Programa de Desarrollo Socioeconomico de los Altos de Chiapas) was supported with the participation of international agencies (UNICEF, FAO, WHO, UNESCO). The program covered 26 municipalities with the objective of improving the well-being of the indigenous population and inter-institutional cooperation. Through this and other programs to improve the socio-economic development of the Altos, the number of roads increased, a number of agricultural projects were put in place, schools were constructed, electricity was provided and water systems were installed. 11. During this period several hydroelectric projects were constructed which generated temporary employment and fostered extensive internal and regional migration, expanding a tendency of internal colonization that began with demographic pressures in the 1940s and 1950s. INI promoted development with education as the motor of advancement, training bilingual community members as promoters or as teachers for a bilingual program of the Secretary of Education. The number of these paid by government went from 46 in 1952 to 3,800 in 1970 to 22,250 in 1983. This program was somewhat coopted by local authorities, who allocated jobs for teachers on a very political basis, often selling rights to the jobs which paid more than 3 minimum salaries to the teacher and supervisors. Some of the teachers were not in fact qualified either in Spanish language or years of schooling completed. A number of these promoters and teachers became the politicians and community authorities in the region, shaping the relations of state and community. The leadership of these INI professionals was complicated by a policy of INI and other agencies up until the 1970s to avoid rupturing traditional power structures. INI was careful in its early year not to undermine traditional leaders to the point of calcifying political behavior in some communities where it worked, encouraging the younger leaders to migrate to new population centers rather than question traditional authority. 12. The development programs brought large amounts of inputs that due to the peculiar ecology of the highlands did not lead to sustainable agricultural improvements. Farmers became dependent on annual credit and subsidies, but did not generate the desired economic basis for development. After 1982, when government cut back and eventually in the 1990s eliminated the credit and subsidies, indigenous producers were unable to make a transition either back to traditional agricultural systems or to a higher input agriculture. Worse, the municipal centers (cabeceras) were the funnel for most of the development resources, even though the residents A-17 Annex 2, Part 2 were increasingly distant from the local communities. This fostered many disputes and conflicts over the resources and factions and political parties appeared in the communities, exacerbated by religious divisions, which emerged from the 1970s onwards. 13. Religious Movements. Two religious movements expanded in Chiapas from the 1970s onward: the Catholic movement of liberation theology based on the social goals of the Second Vatican Council (1965-69) and the Protestant movements fostering individual reflection and self- improvement. These movements found fertile ground in a set of communities with decreasing available land pef family, landed traditional authorities who preferred to maintain control by requesting ever more expensive community services from community members, rather than responding to changing needs, and a group of young adults who through access to temporary labor had income to invest. Unable to confront traditional authorities on their own, these people and their families converted to more open-ended religious sects. They then migrated to the colonizing areas and formed new communities, often expulsed by the traditional Catholic community members who resented their unwillingness to maintain "tradition." In San Cristobal, the expelled population has founded a number of new localities in urban areas, centered around a series of Protestant religious organizations, a form of "re-indianization" of the urban space and a recomposition of the indigenous community outside of their traditional territory. This summary includes a case study description of a survey of two new indigenous settlements in the outskirts of San Crist6bal which exemplify this complexity of the current territorial movements and social changes. 14. In 1970, 90.29 percent of the total population (165,619) of the Altos were Catholic, 4.72 percent were Protestant, and 5.84 percent did not have a religion. In 1990 out of 287,803, 69.35 percent were Catholic, and 13.64 were Protestant, and 13.03 percent state they do not have a religion. This overall history plays out differently among the Tzotziles and Tzeltales, as summarized below. Tzotziles 15. The Tzotziles are found mainly in the northwest and southwest of San Crist6bal de las Casas, inhabiting about 10 municipalities. There are other, more northern municipalities with approximately 52,759 Tzotzil speakers, but 86 percent live in the highlands. About 4,500 now live in the rainforest area, with recent movements to Chimalapas and central municipalities near Oaxaca. 16. Agricultural systems are mainly slash and burn, using increasingly intensive production systems with shorter fallows to allow small areas of commercial crops, such as vegetables and flowers. The production of maize produces low income, since production of one ton of maize requires 150-300 labor-days compared to 17 nationally. All farmers supplement their income with day labor outside the community. In response to demographic pressures, between 1950 and 1970, the highland area with pasture has increased, and forest area decreased from 44.5 to 21.7 percent. In 1984, the subregion of San Cristobal provided 23.5 percent of the wood production in the state. In 1986, when there were new settlement of expulsed community members in the A-18 Annex 2, Part 2 Teopisca, the percentage increased to 60.5 percent, reducing to 12.3 percent in 1990 (Parra, Manuel, Diaz). In the north, coffee covers 10,000 hectares, introduced by indigenous laborers experienced in working the commercial coffee estates. Guatemalan refugees, who accept cheaper wages than Mexican indigenous workers, have largely replaced Tzotzil workers on the commercial farms. 17. Artisan work is also common, particular weavings by women. They are very meticulous weavers and often create huipiles bordered in bright colors and each community has their own style. In some communities, men weave straw hats, make hammocks, or other crafts depending on the availability of natural fibers. The Tzotziles of Chamula provide furniture for many homes in the region, and have begun to diversify their production. 18. In the 1970s, many highlanders migrated to Las Margaritas municipality, occupying nearly 200,000 hectares of national lands and founding at least 10 Tzotzil and Tzeltal communities between 1965 and 1977. Other Protestants started new communities in and around San Cristobal de las Casas, on lands purchased by Protestant churches from overseas. In 1994, the National Commission on Human Rights reported that nearly 15,000 indigenous people (other calculations estimate 30,000) have been expelled from their communities and settled in other areas of Chiapas. The majority of the expelled are Tzeltales and Tzotziles from the municipalities of San Juan Chamula, Zinacantdn, Amatengango del Valle, Chenalh6, and Mitontic. The new communities recreate traditional social structure but in an adaptation to their new religious norms and values, creating new cargo systems with new kinds of services. 19. In 1990, 33 percent of the population 5 years and older in San Cristobal was indigenous. In the new settlements, 65 percent of the income is from provision of services not agriculture, but few homes have piped water or sanitary facilities. Tzeltal 20. Tzeltal speakers are concentrated in the municipalities of Tenejapa, Oxchuc and Amatenango del Valle however they are also located throughout the state of Chiapas and in other Mexican states. Tzeltal speakers are most numerous in Chiapas, distributed in 20 of the 111 municipalities, mainly in the northwest. They occupy three distinct ecosystems, both upland and lowland. Social organization is varied, with civil and religious cargos in some areas and government by ejido Assembly in the forested lowlands. Differences are also expressed by clothing typical of a community, artisan specialization by municipality, and a different ceremonial calendar in each municipality. 21. In the Altos region (Tenejapa, Cancuc, Oxchuc, and Amatenango del Valle), the Tzeltal have a young population and increasing demographic growth. Agriculture is in crisis, due to environmental deterioration of the environment and this pressure, has caused large migrations of Tzeltales, like the Tzotziles, to other regions. A-19 Annex 2, Part 2 22. New Economic Activities. Tzeltal are dominant intermediaries in the San Crist6bal markets. Based on field interviews, Tzeltal youth seem very interested in providing transport as a means to earn income, including collective transport in taxis and trucks. They also operate cargo trucks for transporting market goods between San Cristobal and the Tzeltales communities. Young people often migrate temporarily to other cities including the plantations in Soconusco, resorts in Cancun and agricultural farms in the southern USA. Tzeltal and Tzotzil languages are mutually understandable and in the migrations, young people have learned each other languages. For others, the municipal police and the National Army are other opportunities. Since the 1980s, artisan works and textiles have been converted into an important economic alternative for the Tzeltal families. 23. Women are involved in most in the production of artisan works for commercial sale, with support from the cooperatives and other state and federal institutions. For some families, a new dynamic is occurring in which women are providing the income for the entire family. In some cases, women have become empowered by having their own financial resources and have decided to not marry or to divorce. The increased economic power of these women has changed the access to land in some cases in Tzeltal communities. In most indigenous municipalities in Mexico, women have access to collective property land only if they are daughters or wives of ejido members since the Agrarian reform did not make ejido property available to women. 24. Health. Tzeltales are served by a mix of traditional and contemporary medicine. In 1993, there were 2 doctors in Amatenango del Valle, five in Oxchuc, and four in Tenejapa as part of the IMSS Solidaridad program. There are also herbalists and traditional healers known as "Poshtavanis" who work to solve problems that may or may not have physical manifestations. The doctors also get involved in the communities and support the cultivation of vegetable gardens to improve the variety of food, which has increased the receptivity to contemporary medical care. There are three hospitals, all in San Cristobal and three private clinics for highland, indigenous population. Only the weakest medical students are sent to the region to work, limiting the quality of care in the hospitals. There is an organization in the Altos, the Organization of Indigenous Doctors of the Altos, Chiapas, (Organizaci6n de Medicos Indigenas de los Altos de Chiapas) that groups together local doctors, including the Poshtavanis and provides some space for local indigenous medicine. 25. Education. There continues to be high degree of illiteracy, particularly among women. According to some elders, literacy campaigns were not explained well and many parents hid their children for fear they would be taken to boarding schools. The bilingual program is still weak and the curriculum has not yet enabled children to learn efficiently in either Spanish or their maternal language. Currently, there are movements in the Tzeltal communities to reform primary education by putting the indigenous language at the center of teaching in each community. Educational facilities are deficient in all the indigenous municipalities of Chiapas with the lack of teachers and lack of teaching materials for a multi-grade environment. The bilingual teachers continue being educated to teach for a one-grade classroom and then have to adapt this information without supporting teaching materials to a multi-grade setting. A-20 Annex 2, Part 2 The Altos of Chiapas: A Case Study of Two New Settlements In 1997, a stratified survey (16.34 percent of the population) was carried out in two new settlements in the Teopisca2 area near San Cristobal de las Casas, Betania and Nuevo Zinacantdn. Betania has 520 families and Nuevo Zinacantdn has 52. The main objectives of the study were to investigate the reasons why these communities were expelled from their communities of origin and learn about their opinions regarding the lives in these new communities versus in the communities of origin. In Betania, 62 percent of the inhabitants left or were expelled for religious reasons, 10 percent were seeking land, 12 percent for other motives, and others due to marriage or sickness. In Nuevo Zinacantan, 60 percent left or were expelled for religious reasons, 20 percent for fear of the Zapatistas, and 20 percent for other motives. Fifty-four percent of the families interviewed in Betania said that they were expelled by authorities, the remainder declared they had left voluntarily. In Nuevo Zinacantan, 60 percent were expelled by authorities and 40 percent left voluntarily. In both communities, nearly half of the community members do not have land to cultivate and among those that do, small land holdings predominate. In Nuevo Zinacantan 80 percent of the landowners have parcels of less than a hectare. Although Protestants founded both communities, currently they both have members of other religious affiliations. The appearance of new affiliations in the past 12 years indicates that there have been some disputes inside the new communities, which were resolved by one group breaking off and creating a new church. In addition to the emergence of a new Protestant indigenous identity in these communities, there is a new pan-regional identity formed through the convergence of inhabitants, both Tzotzil and Tzeltal speakers from different community origins, such as the chamulas, zinacantecos, amatenangueros, sanmigueleros. It is common to find inter-marriage among the groups. It was also observed that the "indigenous community" is being recreated in the new settlements. The new settlements create organizational links, lineage, and clan structures similar to their communities of origin to maintain collective survival. The assembly is the mechanism for decision-making in public events and it is still considered to be an obligation of the male, married members of the community to occupy positions of civil cargo. These cargo positions represent the community to the municipal agencies, the judge, the school, and the service providers. The main difference in the cargo system of the new settlements, compared to their communities of origin, is that religion is managed separately. There is a secularization of the 2 The Teopisca area has 22 communities made up of people expelled from their communities of origin. A-21 Annex 2, Part 2 indigenous religious world. Nonetheless, the church continues to be the center of the organization and small groups in the community handle the decision-making. Other issues explored in the survey include the families' level of comfort in the communities as compared to the communities of origin. The majority of families (41.17 percent) state they are well and content. Twenty-one percent state they were more content in the new communities, less than 10 percent said they were tranquil, but sad, 17.64 percent state they feel content, tranquil, and only 6 percent feel they have greater security to move into the future. Regarding religion, the majority agrees with their responsibilities in the church, including paying tithes. When asked about the punishment for not completing with their religious responsibilities, the most common answer was none, or the authorities may call attention to it. These responses illustrate a substantial difference with the communities of origin, which were very rigid with respect to religious functions. The survey shows that these communities have developed some new mechanisms for cohesion, which are not based on the traditions of the communities of origin. In general, the survey shows that there is respectful and stable co-existence among the new communities. The communities are very cohesive internally and are beginning to show signs of distinguishing themselves from their communities of origin and other expelled communities. The Maya culture is a unifying factor as the Tzeltales and Tzotziles are living in the same areas. Among the Tzotzil communities, there are religious or political sub-identities, such as pro or anti-Zapatista. It is interesting to note that these communities have been able to live together without conflicts. A-22 Annex 3, Part 1 Huasteca: Regional Indigenous-Profile Executive Summary General Context 1. The Huasteca region is situated in an inter-tropical zone known as the Gulf Coast of the Central Plateau. The region has been characterized since pre-Hispanic time for its multi-ethnic identity and by the diversity of its agricultural production systems, historically adapted to the varied ecological zones within the region. Its ecological richness is noteworthy in the sharp contrasts between zones in terms of vegetation, climate, and topography and in the abundance of rivers and tributaries. Today, despite continued richness, there are increasingly serious problems of environmental degradation and contamination. 2. The particular development model that has been applied in the tropical regions of Mexico, including the Huasteca, has fostered a land-use pattern based on the predominance of cattle, sugar cane, coffee, and citrus, now in competition with the recent petroleum "boom." The combination of land uses led to a concentration of landholdings in limited hands that led to long- standing agrarian conflicts. These conflicts were exacerbated by the environmental deterioration of the natural resource base. With the liberalization of the macro-economic policies and the dismantling of the state support systems, there has been a reduced public expenditure without a commensurate investment by the private sector, leaving producers with less competitive prices and limited capital. 3. There have been drastic organizational changes related to the liberalization of the sector for small farmers and indigenous communities. The participation, mobilization, and establishment of new forms of indigenous peasant organizations has its roots in the regional agrarian reform movements that began in the 1970s. From the mid-1980s onwards, the indigenous movements became increasingly focused on seeking ways to gain the most access to markets as well as all factors of agricultural production in ways appropriate to the population of the region. 4. The search for appropriate models of development is not rhetoric for the indigenous peoples of the Huasteca. Official and un-official evaluations of development programs like the Integrated Rural Development Program (Programa Integral de Desarrollo Rural, PIDER- COPLAMAR) (1976-1981), the National Solidarity Program (Programa Nacional de Solidaridad, PRONASOL) (1990-1995), the Program of Support to Coffee Producers (1990- 1995), and the Farm Supports Payment Program (Programa de Apoyo Directos al Campo, PROCAMPO) (1993-1995) illustrate that there has been virtually no impact on the extreme poverty of the indigenous peoples of the region, nor on the overall productivity of the agricultural sector. The reasons put forward for the failure of these programs include: (a) persistence of agrarian conflicts and over concentration of agricultural holdings; (b) unequal access to financial and natural resources; (c) unequal distribution of economic wealth; (d) exclusion of communities from the decision-making and planning processes; and (e) environmental degradation resulting from policies that still favor intensive land-use and fail to incorporate indigenous technologies for natural resource management and conservation. A-23 Annex 3, Part 1 5. Another fundamental aspect is the unequal access to political influence and authority. Development initiatives related to indigenous communities need to provide a level playing field for negotiations at a political level between indigenous communities and large-scale cattle ranchers, industrialists, businessmen, farmers, oilmen, and professional unions. Indigenous communities need genuine representation in the federal agencies, political parties, and local governments to reduce the enormous gap between indigenous peoples and the rest of the society. Demography of the Huasteca 6. The total population in the Huasteca is 1,438,633 inhabitants: 50.18 percent men and 49.82 percent women dispersed in 7,208 localities. Regionally, there are four population zones: uplands, middle uplands, foothills, and lowlands. The bulk of the population including indigenous language speakers (ILS) is concentrated in the last three zones, with the most population in the lowlands, but the highest density in the middle uplands. Table 1: Indigenous Language Speaker by State in the Huasteca Region (Bilingual and Monolingual) State ILS % Number % Number Monolingual Monolingual Bilingual Bilingual San Luis Potosi 205,100 10 19,990 90 185,110 Hidalgo 150,146 23 34,812 77 115,334 Veracruz 197,677 11 21,225 89 176,452 TOTAL 552,923 14 76,027 86 476,896 Source: Inter-censal survey, INEGI, 1995 7. The ILS comprises 45 percent of the total Huasteca population. In the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosi, the ILS constitute 96 percent of the state's indigenous population, while in Hidalgo they are only 46 percent and in Veracruz only 33 percent. The indigenous population is a conglomeration of groups who settled in the region in pre-Hispanic times. These, in order of importance, include: the Nahuatl (74.66 percent), the Teenek or Huasteco (21.64 percent), and the Otomis (2.24 percent), Tepehuans (0.64 percent), Pames (0.35 percent), and Totonacos and Chichimecas jonaz (only 0.37 percent in all). Of the ILS, 86 percent is bilingual. 8. The indigenous economy is strongly agricultural as reflected in the distribution of the Economically Active Population (EAP)-67 percent are primary in the agriculture sector, 10 percent secondary, and 19 percent tertiary. The predominance of the primary sector is even more noteworthy in the indigenous municipalities, where it exceeds 75 percent of the EAP. 9. In the tertiary sector, the indigenous population is found in commercial family enterprises, transport, education, and health services, while in the secondary sector, the indigenous population is found in informal sector processing of sugar cane, coffee, and other agricultural products, small scale furniture enterprises, shoemaking, and other artisan activities. To a lesser degree, employment is found in agro-industries in the lowland zones of the three Huasteca states. A-24 Annex 3, Part 1 Migration 10. Each ethnic group in the region has a distinct pattern of migration. The Teenek migrate within the rural areas of the Huasteca, usually avoiding cities where there is more pressure to acculturate, or where command of Spanish language is a prerequisite of most employment, and maintaining their links to community and cultural traditions. The Nahuas, on the other hand, migrate wherever there is opportunity, including regions outside of the Huasteca. Regardless of the pattern of migration, migrants retain strong ties to their community of origin, bringing back or sending remittances to contribute to festivals and family ceremonies in lieu of carrying out cargo responsibilities, and participating in dances, rites, and festival days when possible. Measures of Well-being 11. Analysis by academic and development institutions from the region confirm that the bulk of the indigenous peoples of the Huasteca live in conditions of extreme poverty, without capital to invest in their production units.3 Other evidence can be found in the municipal data classifying municipalities according to the National Population Council (CONAPO) criteria as high or very high on marginality. There are two important aspects to the marginality of the Huasteca indigenous peoples. First, there is a dis-equilibrium between the indigenous and non-indigenous population which leads to social exclusion of indigenous peoples related to their limited access to land tenure and poor access to markets and favorable agricultural prices. Second, the loss of traditional knowledge and traditional lifestyles has made indigenous peoples dependent on state services and infrastructure, without providing adequate alternative sources of income, but replacing traditional subsistence strategies and coping mechanisms which might have provided part of the solution to marginality. 12. The region has a school-going population of 88,224 children, of which about 78 percent are enrolled. The highland zone has the least enrollment, of 67 percent of the school-age population. Although the coverage still seems reasonable, in fact 71.9 percent of the total population has never completed primary school, and in the Texcatepec, Llamatldn, and Zontecomatldn municipalities, 80-90 percent of the children over age 15 have not completed primary school. This statistic coincides with the high regional adult indices of illiteracy. 13, Currently, the bulk of the population also shows a high incidence of morbidity and mortality. Official statistics show a more positive picture than the reality. Compared to national averages these statistics are telling: (a) in Veracruz, general mortality in the region in 1995 was 2,46 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants, and 3.81 per 1,000 infant deaths; (b) in Hidalgo, the Huasteca population has much better access to medical services than before, but even so, few deaths are ever registered. Registries of sick patients indicate high levels of disease related to malnutrition; SEMARNAP-COPAL, A.C. Evaluation study of the Sustainable Regional Development Progzram (PRODERS) at reiional and community level in the Veracruz highlands of the Huasteca, Veracruz, August 1998. A-25 Annex 3, Part 1 and (c) in San Luis Potosi, the infant mortality rate in the region is the fifth highest in Mexico, and, in 1988, general mortality rates were five per 1,000.4 14. According to the National Census of Height of 1993, 45 percent of the sampled children between 6 and 9 years of age in the region were deficient in height as a result of malnutrition. Indigenous Identity 15. There is a wide range of variation in indigenous identity in the Huasteca region, but within that there are some common elements of indigenous identity pertaining to historical Meso-American cultural traits including use of a Meso-American language, relationship to a traditional territory, a Meso-American worldview, and some common customs. Teenek or Huastecos, Nahuatl, Otomis, Pames, and Tepehuas, and in very small numbers Totonacas and Chichimecas Jonaz make up the indigenous peoples of the region, all descendents of the pre- Hispanic inhabitants of the region. Their identity is expressed through the use of indigenous languages, their religion, a distinct lifestyle, traditional diet, and an indigenous governance system and an economy with its own incentive structure. 16. External influences that shape the sense of identity include increased access to national and international information and values. While bringing outside ideas, modem technology has also helped conserve indigenous identity with the creation of indigenous radio stations, such as "the voice of the Huasteca" in Tancanhuitz municipality in San Luis Potosi, Radio Huayacocotla in Veracruz, Radio Mezquital in Hidalgo, and some commercial stations that broadcast in indigenous languages. Recent migratory streams have also transmitted information, ideas, experiences, and new cultural values, modifying basic life cycle rites and limiting traditional dress to festivals and ceremonial occasions. Social Organization 17. The indigenous forms of governance are part of the historical strategy for survival and resistance. The social and political organization of the communities reflect three basic principles: (a) respect or prestige acquired through community service; (b) reciprocity that balances social relations and relations with nature; and (c) the shared labor systems (faena, tequio, and collective work) for productive, social and religious activities. Shared labor systems extract one-day's work per week per family unit for the community. The traditional prestige system involves the completion by individual male community members of a series of hierarchically ranked positions of religious and political responsibility, which are undertaken without economic remuneration. Male adults can only validate their membership in the community through the obligatory participation in these positions. The community assemblies are the maximum authority of the community and the political space for collective decision-making, from the naming of authorities to the agreement on issues of collective concern. The process of decision-making encouraging airing of divergent opinions with the aim of reaching an eventual and genuine consensus for action. Normally there are two types of assemblies: agrarian assemblies and general assemblies involving all community members. Secretaria de Desarrollo Regional del Gobierno del Estado, 1996; SAGAR-Banco Mundial, 1996. A-26 Annex 3, Part 1 18. The government structure and community organization in the Huasteca has four elements: (a) advisory positions; (b) balancing of authority and consensus; (c) executive and judicial roles; and (d) committee for organizing and carrying out agreed activities. There is an overlay of the municipal institutions related to the state governance system with its elected representatives answering to the Organic Municipal Law and the community-level authorities appointed by traditional methods of consensual decision-making, with responsibility for law and order separate from the state legal and enforcement bodies. There are also producer organizations with single community or multi-community membership. In the Veracruz Huasteca there are 41 known organizations dedicated to agrarian reform, productive activities, marketing, training, technical assistance, credit, marketing, cultural activities, human rights demands, and women's advancement. In the Hidalgo Huasteca there are 16 types of organizations classified by membership and area of influence including advisory organizations, peasant organizations, regional and municipal organizations, branches of national peasant organizations, and productive and social service societies, particularly those promoted by government agencies. In the San Luis Potosi Huasteca there are 74 known organizations including branches of national peasant organizations, unions of ejidos, solidarity societies, cooperative societies, special interest organizations, women's groups and cultural groups. 19. There are distinct levels of organization and distinct conditions underlying the rise and fall of the various organizations. Successful intervention to assist the development of these organizations, even those with apparently exclusive interest as producer's organizations, requires recognition of and respect for the specific history and interests of indigenous peoples, and understanding of the causes of marginality. In the last two decades there have been a series of important changes in the relationship of the State to the indigenous peoples. In normative terms is the 1994 reform of Article 4 the National Constitution to reflect the ILO International Convention 169 on indigenous peoples. This has been complimented by changes in the state legislation, in Hidalgo in 1991, San Luis Potosi in 1992 and 1996, and in Veracruz in 1993. These reforms have had some marginal impact on human rights and respect for the lifestyle of indigenous peoples. 20. Along with the legal reforms, a variety of government programs have also been implemented with wide coverage, such as the National Solidarity Program, through a wide range of federal, state, and local agencies. INI has implemented the Fondos Regionales for indigenous programs-seven exist in Veracruz, one in Hidalgo and four in San Luis Potosi. Other programs include PROCAMPO, the Program for Education, Health and Food (Programa de Educaci6n, Salud, y Alimentaci6n, PROGRESA), the Program for the Certification of Ejido Rights (Programa de Certificaci6n de Derechos Ejidales y Titulacion de Solares Urbanos, PROCEDE), and Mujeres en Solidaridad. These have created better access to services, but the total expenditure is still small in relation to need. A-27 Annex 3, Part 1 Table 2: Natural Resources and the Environment (Geo-climatic characteristics) Subregion Highland Middle Middle Lowland Highland Lowland Altitude Humid Semi-tropic Semi-tropic Sub-humid temperate and humid with humid with tropical and sub-humid year round summer rains semi-tropical temperate (Cw2 rains and humid and Humid humid and Cwl) temperate tropical Temperature 18-200C 22-240C 24-260C 26-290C (Annual Avg.) Rainfall 1800-2000mm 1500-1800mm 500-1500mm 800-1600mm Vegetation Coniferous Sub-perennial medium upland Tropical forest, tropical forests and deciduous lowland forest deciduous open forest forest Soils Superficial clay Topography Mountainous, Deep canyons, Rolling hills Flatlands deep canyons, undulating steep slopes hills, steep slopes Area 562 km2 2743 km2 4101 km2 14,788 km2 % of Total 3 12 18 67 Region 21. The natural vegetation has been reduced throughout the region by the expansion of agricultural and ranching activities, including the cultivation of maize-beans-and chili peppers in the traditional milpa agricultural system of the indigenous population. In 1959, geographers still described the savanna alternating with silent and imposing forests, full of thick-trunk trees and the vegetation could be classified as mainly high, perennial tropical forest. But by 1991, the ecologists refer to remnants of tropical vegetation in the form of isolated trees or forest fragments, generally altered and with a deteriorated structure, evidence of the disappearance of the tropical humid forest under contemporary human pressure. 22. The region has serious soil deterioration resulting from the high rates of deforestation from irrational forest exploitation and conversion to pasture land and agriculture, affecting the rainfall patterns. Scarce soil cover and unstable hillside agriculture increase soil erosion levels. As is common throughout the country, there is no policy response from the governments of the A-28 Annex 3, Part 1 region to reclaim the resource base, nor to adapt cultivation or forest extraction patterns to a more sustainable model to protect or regulate the biological systems in the region. Land Tenure and Land Use 23. Overall in the areas of indigenous concentration, there is a greater amount of land under communal land tenure, but in the lowlands and coastal areas (Veracruz and San Luis Potosi) private land tenure predominates. One exception is the site of the Project Pujal-Coy along the coast where the tenure system was intentionally converted from 80 percent private land to 20 percent private and 80 percent ejido tenure, as part of the new Water Law, which established ejido land tenure in regions of new irrigation development. Table 3: Number of ejidos and communities in the Huasteca, 1990 State Ejidos Agrarian New Centers Total Social Communities of Population Tenure Units Hidalgo 144 22 0 166 San Luis Potosi 368 145 59 572 Veracruz 433 78 11 523 Total in the 945 245 70 1,261 Region Source: Basic census indicators, INEGI, 1991 24. In diverse areas of San Luis and Veracruz, communities persist that legally have been registered in private property systems since the last century under the modality of co-ownership (private collective property). This is a unique phenomenon to Mexico and there has been little study or evaluation of the implications of this tenure system. Nor are there precise figures regarding the impact that PROCEDE has had on specific types of land or land under specific tenure regimes. That data available indicate the reluctance of the region's inhabitants to sell their land even when they are not in profitable use. It appears as if inadvertently, PROCEDE has favored the increase in private land holdings by individualizing collective ejido lands formerly under pasture or forest cover. The social processes in the Huasteca are taking place in the framework of increasing agrarian complexity. The peasant demands date from the sixteenth century and the fight for land is the core of all organization-to recuperate lands that were expropriated by the ranchers or to create new population centers. This situation is without a doubt the most persistent phenomenon in Huasteca history. The solution to the agrarian problem is an important element of any sustainable development strategy. It is apparent that despite a laudable aim, programs such as PROCEDE are not solving the problem. Rather, the focus on strengthening land markets is facilitating the accumulation of land by a limited number of people and not- spreading access to the range of indigenous inhabitants of the zone. A-29 Annex 3, Part 1 Table 4: Land Use in the Huasteca, 1990 State Agriculture Pasture Use Tropical or Without Use Temperate Forest Vegetation Hidalgo 38.3 34.1 20.4 7.2 San Luis Potosi 65.2 26.2 7.9 0.6 Veracruz 60.7 31.6 6.7 1.0 Source: SAGAR-BM-State Governments, 1996 and VII Agricultural Census and Pasture, INEGI, 1994. 25. It is important to note the difference in land use in the different agro-ecological zones, linked to different concentrations of indigenous population. In the areas of densest indigenous population the cultivated area is highest: 70 percent of the total area and more than 85 percent in the middle altitude zones (low highland and sloping lowland), with severe rates of erosion and soil deterioration. 26. The indigenous family is the basic economic unit of production as in other indigenous areas. Within this unit, resources are deployed including labor, land, natural resources, technology and indigenous knowledge for agriculture and artisan activities, and capital. Productive decisions are made based both on the availability of resources and strategies to reproduce the family relationships: balancing subsistence production with some cash earnings and allocation of family labor according to cultural norms regarding age and gender. Table 5: Productive System by Agro-ecological Zone and State Productive System Diversification State LOWLAND ZONE Ranching-Wage Labor Sugar Cane SAN LUIS POTOSI Maize-Livestock Oranges HIDALGO Maize-Wage Labor VERACRUZ MIDDLE LOWLAND ZONE Maize-Orange Wage Labor SAN LUIS POTOSI Maize-Beans Wage Labor HIDALGO Maize-Beans-Wage Labor Coffee-Orange VERACRUZ LOW HIGHLAND ZONE Coffee-Maize-Wage Labor SAN LUIS POTOSI Maize-Coffee Livestock HIDALGO Maize-Beans-Wage Labor Coffee-Sugar Cane-Livestock VERACRUZ HIGHLAND ZONE Maize-Wage Labor Migration-Livestock VERACRUZ Note: All productive systems include some gathering of wild products and home gardening. A-30 Annex 3, Part 1 27. Women play an important role in the productive system: they have primary responsibility for home gardening and small livestidk rearing, and participaie'in harvesting crops and processing and storage of basic grains and coffee. Women contribute very little in orange and sugar cane cultivation. Women are responsible for bringing food to men working in the fields and in collecting fuel-wood from close by sources, while men collect from longer distances. When men migrate, however, women become responsible for the farmstead, contracting laborers and managing funds sent by the husband. Women also engage in a range of income-generating activities including sale of small animals and medicinal plants and horticultural products, handicrafts and handmade utensils and tools, including knitted and woven articles. A-31 Annex 3, Part 2 Teenek or Huasteca Indigenous Profile Executive Summary Introduction 1. This study provides information regarding the situation of the Teenek in the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosi. The intent is to provide a useful profile for contributing to the analysis of possible new directions for development of indigenous peoples within a multi-ethnic context in the Huasteca and elsewhere. 2. The emphasis of the profile is on the elements of Teenek culture and reality to understand the adaptations and potential response of the Teenek to the economic and social changes on- going in the region. The academic and development literature has either not appreciated the importance of these elements or not assigned positive values to those elements. Among the key elements of analysis are the indigenous systems of governance, the unique organizational process at local, municipal, and regional levels, and a cultural worldview based on a different set of values, norms, and religious beliefs than other ethnic groups or the mestizo population. A related element is the indigenous knowledge of the natural resource environment, techniques for its use and management, and an agricultural system regulated by a ceremonial-religious calendar. 3. The following factors made it difficult to review and analyze reliable information about the study area: * The sub-geographic units of the Huasteca region are identified differently in the various existing studies and surveys, the information reflected by statistical data and analytical units are often not comparable; and * The existing analysis, statistical data, and research usually do not distinguish between the various ethnic and linguistic groups, but refer to all as "indios" or "indigenous," without specifying whether they are Teenek, Nahuas or Pames. In part, this is a reflection of the subtlety of the ethnic differences, which although very marked for the peoples themselves are hard to detect by outsiders. Situation of the Teenek in Mexico 4. The Teenek are found in the states of San Luis Potosi and Veracruz. Between the two populations there is not only a state boundary divide, but also different geographic, historical, administrative, and ecological spaces which have shaped the indigenous peoples of each state differently and given them very distinct Teenek dialects. This profile focuses exclusively on the Teenek of San Luis Potosi. 5. The Huasteca and the indigenous region of San Luis Potosi are characterized by municipalities with multi-ethnic populations of mestizos and multiple ethnic groups. Teenek is the predominant indigenous language in 11 municipalities in the northern part of the Huasteca, A-32 Annex 3, Part 2 where 90 percent of the Teenek population recorded in the 1990 census and the inter-censal survey of 1995 reside. In contrast the Nahuas are the majority indigenous population in seven municipalities and the Pames in only one of the nineteen Huasteca municipalities in San Luis Potosi. The following map provides a first cut at the regional distribution of indigenous peoples in San Luis Potosi, based on these statistics. Figure 1: Map of the Indigenous Population in San Luis Potosi Huasteca Municipalities with 30 percent or more Indigenous Language Speakers HUASTECA POTOS IN A Nahuatl Municipios con 30% o M6s de HLI 6. One relevant aspect of the Teenek culture is the pattern of dispersed and semi-dispersed settlement relative to other indigenous groups of the same region. Their settlements group about 100 people, each separated from other settlements, making it difficult for governments to provide basic services and infrastructure at affordable cost. However, one adaptation has been the siting of settlements near existing road or service infrastructure to attract provision of more basic services. Identity 7. The identity of the Teenek is centered in their use of a common language, which serves as a means of communication and self-identification. Another layer of identity is residence in a particular Teenek community where the kinship ties are clear and correspond to relationship to a common ancestor. 8. For this reason, one of the most common definitions of the term "Teenek" is "one of shared blood" and "one who shares the idea." The speakers of "huasteco" do not refer to themselves by their language as "huasteco" but as "Teenek." Another possible definition is associated with the concept of a common founding ancestor, or ancient deity "Teenek Bichou" whose name confused the Augustine monks in the colonial period. One of the meanings of the A-33 Annex 3, Part 2 term common in some municipalities is "Teenek" means those that live in the rural area with a common language and blood tie that share the idea. 9. The religious beliefs in the Teenek zone and in the San Luis Potosi Huasteca involve a diverse set of practices and interpretations of Christianity and traditional religion that evolved historically in the interaction between the Church and the Teenek parishioners. Among the common elements is a high degree of autonomy of parishioners vis-A-vis the Catholic church officials, with whom there is a constant level of dispute over the correct rites and care of the church parish. This phenomenon is experienced when the priests try to prohibit indigenous dances inside the church or have tried to limit the role of the prayer-leaders that preserve the community's oral history. 10. Another element of indigenous identity is the system of governance that is based on the principles of consensus, common interest, and the carrying out of communal obligations to the family and the community. This system is related to the cargos, or positions of community responsibility that adult males are expected to hold when appointed by community consensus, and together form a community council. The system of community organization regulates social behavior and establishes the norms for harmonious interaction between the community and state and municipal authorities. The cargo system also relieves the state of responsibilities that it would otherwise have to provide the community in terms of services, social control, or disciplinary actions against members who misbehave. 11. The communities live by a system of customary law in which the authorities are the traditional leaders and in which disciplines for misbehavior fall under the jurisdiction of the community, rather than formal law enforcement officials. Only in the case of unresolved conflict or conflicts involving non-indigenous people are misbehaviors brought to the attention of formal legal authorities. 12. The nuclear family is the basic unit of social and economic interaction. The general pattern is of patrilocal residence, in which wives live in their husbands' family's settlement. Land tenure and communal responsibilities fall generally to the men, and women only acquire rights if widowed or orphaned. Membership in the community is divided between those with land tenure rights and those without. Demography 13. In the table below, in six of the eleven municipalities with Teenek population, there is also Nahua population, which speak a separate language, but share many cultural traits. The relationship between the two ethnic groups has become so blended that some census surveys do not distinguish the two groups clearly, and development programs tend to lump the two groups into one indigenous category, creating problems for the successful channeling of interventions. A-34 Annex 3, Part 2 Table 1: Indigenous Language Speakers in San Luis Potosi San Luis Potosi: Primarily Teenek Municipalities ** Name of the Number of Speakers of the three main languages Municipa.ities* # of Total Number of Percentage ILS Nahuatl Teenek Pames localiti Population Indigenous of ** ** es Inhabitants Indigenous Population Aquism6n 59 36,904 24,892 67.40 20,567 1141 23,751 Huehuetldn 32 12,500 8,269 66.15 7,040 561 7,708 San Antonio 25 8 541 7,230 84.65 6,045 7,230 Tampamol6n 185 13,308 7,882 59.22: 6,760 3 283 4,599 Corona Tancanhuitz de 127 19,566 13,095 66.92 11,202 5 514 7,543 Santos Tanlajis 48 16,641 12,697 76.29 10,655 41 10,354 Total in 476 107,460 74,065 68.92 62,269 9,461 51,712 primarily Teenek area Total San Luis 599,260 227,482 37.96 197,482 144,397 81,345 1,663 Potosi Huasteca *INEGI General Population Census 1990 ** Corresponds to number of inhabitants by household where parents speaks an indigenous languages. Source: Studies and Analysis, A.C. 1998. Source. Socio Economics Indicators of the Indigenous Population (Arnulfo Embriz: Coordinator). 13. Average population growth for the state of San Luis Potosi in the inter-censal period from 1950 to 1995 was 2.09 percent while in the Huasteca sub-region growth was 2.43 percent. In the six municipalities with the majority of the state's Teenek population, the growth rate was also high, creating demographic pressure on indigenous lands. Table 2: Percent of Population in the eleven municipalities with Teenek presence Municipalities % San Antonio 90 Tanlajds 82 Aquism6n 64 Huehuetldn 62 Tancanhuitz 39 Tampomol6n 38 San Vicente Tancuayalab 21 Tanquidn 14 Tamfin 6 CD. Valles 7 CDI. Ebano 5 A-35 Annex 3, Part 2 Migration 15. Migration has become a general characteristic of the indigenous peoples of the region that has also affected the Teenek. The levels of migration are strongly linked to two economic and historical factors: * The severe economic crisis in the rural areas, a product of the land tenure dynamics of the rural peasantry; and * A growing demographic pressure on the land due to fragmentation of holdings, which leads to a new generation that, is largely landless. This complex and little studied phenomenon has been accentuated by the PROCEDE program of land regularization, which emerged from the reforms to Article 27 on land reform in the National Constitution. 16. In comparison to other indigenous groups in the Huasteca, the Teenek have a tendency to migrate temporarily to the zones of commercial agriculture and nearby towns within the Huasteca. Permanent migration is limited to the relocation of people and the distribution of land in the Pujal Coy project area and to the municipalities of Tamun, Ebano, and San Vicente Tancualayab. Economy 17. The economic base of the Teenek is agricultural. The economically active population (EAP) in the primary sector is 64 percent in the six majority Teenek municipalities. The statistics regarding employees of the secondary sector (12.3 percent) are somewhat deceiving, since most of these are owners of manual looms who use significant amounts of their time to make handicrafts, but may still be active in the agricultural sector. The principal activity of those that lived in the lowlands and lower highlands (up to 500 meters above sea level) was, until recent years, the cultivation of sugar cane for producing sugar cubes, sold to local wholesalers, and the cultivation of maize for subsistence. Coffee was also cultivated on a small scale, but has disappeared from the region because of the repeated danger of frost. Today, the farming system of the whole Teenek area is characterized almost exclusively by growing of coffee and maize. 18. In the Teenek zone, the average size land holding is 5.32 hectares with the smallest average holding size in the municipality of Tancanhuitz, of 3.18 hectares. The municipalities of the indigenous Huasteca zone as a whole have a higher landholding size average of 6.22 hectares. 19. Agricultural production is periodically affected by natural disasters including: cyclones, frosts, droughts, and floods in the valleys, giving the region a reputation as a high-risk agricultural zone. 20. Demographic pressure and lack of local control of programs and projects involving natural resource management has led the ejidos and communities to lose control of parts of their A-36 Annex 3, Part 2 territory, making it difficult to initiate and carry through activities for improving the quality of life. 21. The agricultural and ceremonial calendars are tightly interwoven in Teenek cultural practice and ritual and agricultural dates drive communal activity and community planning. The organization of daily life and community activities is planned during five days of the week. One day of the five is dedicated to communal work obligations and the remaining four to individual household work in the agricultural fields or home. The sixth day is a market day or to handle administrative procedures and the seventh is a day of rest and religious observance. Some municipalities hold market days on the seventh day, and may also have community or committee meetings on that same day. 22. Credit is a key problem for the indigenous producers in the zone, both access to credit and the terms on which it is available. Most producers do not accumulate any capital and have little access to formal or informal sources of credit, beyond informal sources of inputs. Decapitalization has been increasing over the past five to ten years and is related to falling prices, natural disasters, and absence of credit for family-based enterprises. This has made it impossible for households to replace outdated equipment and tools or to introduce technological innovations on their farms. Many producers are becoming wage laborers or depending increasing on gathering of wild products to supplement livelihoods. Social Development 23. In terms of access to basic social services, the Teenek municipalities are below the averages for potable water supply, drainage, and electrification. The municipality of San Antonio is the most marginal with only 4.8 percent of the households with potable water, 3.3 percent with drainage, and 29 percent with electricity. During the past ten years, a new phenomenon has appeared in the form of successful organization of women for community initiatives and productive projects. This is due in part to the increasing rates of male out- migration, whereby women become increasingly the de facto household head. The trend is also due to an extension of women's roles in the family as the managers of household money and home gardens to productive activities that generate additional income using many of the same skills. 24. Education in the Teenek zone is both informal and formal. Within the household, women transmit cultural values and cultural knowledge and older people in the community play a strong role in reinforcing traditional values in the young. The formal schooling system has increased its coverage over the past decade, but is still very sparse in quality and availability of teaching materials and equipment. 25. Health and sickness are related in Teenek belief with the concepts of harmony, happiness, security, respect, and good behavior. There is no direct relationship in traditional belief between health and hygiene, nutritional intake or expose to sources of infection. Identification and A-37 Annex 3, Part 2 treatment of sickness is associated with dreams and natural signs, lunar effects, the flight of certain types of birds, etc. Traditional practitioners are brought in to diagnose and treat illnesses through acts of purification including visits to sacred sites or the site of the diagnosed evil influence, or sacred caves with special healing powers. The most common illnesses are diarrhea, parasites, gastro-enteritis, bronchitis, dysentery, dengue fever, or general malaise (vomiting, headaches, fainting, and loss of appetite). Depending on the gravity of the illness, there are three types of treatment: home remedies, recourse to a traditional practitioner or recourse to a formal health practitioner or clinic. Home remedies are the responsibility of women who rely on a range of plants found in the region. Political Movements and Indigenous Organization 26. There are distinct levels of organization in the region at local, municipal, regional and state levels. In the last few years, a series of new types of producer organizations has emerged, fostered by government agencies but which are disassociated from traditional systems of organization or traditional networks. These have provoked a duplication of efforts and dispersed organizing activities between the organic and these more artificial constructs. There are a wide range of other organizations focused on land reform, human rights, marketing, and provision of food security and basic services and infrastructure. 27. The relations of the State to indigenous communities has gone through various stages, from a paternalistic attitude aimed at assimilation and patron-client control to the post- Constitutional reform period of the 1990s in which Article 4 upholds the rights of indigenous peoples to preserve their cultural values and identity and follow an autonomous path to modernization. A-38 Annex 4, Part 1 Oaxaca: State-level Indigenous Profile Executive Summary Population and Demography 1. The annual population growth rate in Oaxaca during the period 1950-1995 was 2.5 for the total population compared to 1.6 among indigenous language speakers. 2. The urban population has grown more slowly compared to the rural population, as a result of increased growth in the municipal capitals and in rural settlements with less than 2,500 inhabitants 3. There is a marked skewing in the geographical distribution of the population. Twenty five percent of Oaxaca's population is located in the Central Valley region, including Oaxaca City and adjacent areas. 4. Population growth has been high in the urban centers and their surrounding in the Central Valley, Coastal and the Isthmus regions and the Gulf region. 5. Population growth is slower in the regions of the Canada, Mixteca, and Sierra Norte due to the strong out-migration from these areas. 6. Four out of ten rural inhabitants emigrate out of their communities in search of work, with the result that 302 municipalities show either negative or zero growth rates. 7. Forty percent of the state's population over five years of age is indigenous language speakers. Seventy percent of the population has adopted community forms of government based on indigenous customary laws. 8. The state shows a young population pyramid with 43 percent under age 14. Living Standard Indicators 9. Oaxaca is the state with the highest rate of infant mortality: 38 /1000 live births. In addition, only 29 percent of the population fewer than 5 years of age show normal growth rates according to weight and height. 10. It is estimated that the daily per capita consumption is 275 grams of maize in the indigenous communities in Oaxaca and 71 percent of the families do not consume any meat due to its high price. 11. Cholera has been detected in 175 and tuberculosis in 305 municipalities among those that have a population of over 30 percent indigenous language speakers. A-39 Annex 4, Part 1 12. As a result of the strong out-migration from the indigenous communities, AIDS cases in these communities is on the increase. In 1997 there were 439 cases diagnosed in the Central Valley region alone. 13. Ninety percent of the rural indigenous homes lack drainage and only 10 percent have running water. Social Organization 14. The municipality is the focus of the political and administrative dynamics of indigenous communities. Although the municipality was the first link between indigenous communities and Colonial authorities and later the Nation State, it has also been the arena where the communities defended their territorial rights and fought for their own forms of government. Oaxaca has a total of 570 municipalities, many solely indigenous, and the largest percentage of land area under indigenous administration in the country. Of the total, 412 are governed under traditional customary forms of government. These forms of government include a hierarchy of civil and religious organizations specific to indigenous communities: the cargo system. The Economy 15. Overall, agricultural production is low in the indigenous communities of Oaxaca, and many indigenous people migrate temporarily to other parts of Mexico and to the United States in search of employment. Seventy-eight percent of the heads of households depend on agriculture for their livelihood but only 11 percent of them receive any salary for this work. Fifty seven percent of the household's income both in cash and in kind is generated by the non-remunerated household labor force and of these, only 2.9 percent of households are wealthy enough to afford paying for additional salaried labor. 16. Production problems vary in the many ecological niches in the state, but there is a general problem in the more populated regions, like the Mixteca and the Central Valley of lack of irrigation and increasing land degradation and soil erosion. Indigenous producers practice both slash and burn, in the upland and marginal areas, and a more intensive agriculture in other areas, but without the commensurate returns expected from the green revolution recommendations. With the programs of support in the 1960s through the 1980s farmers became accustomed to labor saving herbicides and pesticide inputs and fertilizers, but these inputs did not lead to a sustained, higher productivity. Because of the lack of working capital, indigenous farmers were never able to follow the recommended dosages and in many cases the recommendations were not tailored to the complexity of local soil and moisture conditions. This led to land degradation. Indigenous farmers have lost their traditionally integrated agricultural systems to a large extent, but they have not been able for the above reasons to move to a modem, more productive system. Productivity averages less than 1 ton/hectare in the State for maize, and family per capita consumption of maize is less than 275 grams per day. A-40 Annex 4, Part 1 17. One response to this situation and to the implementation of reforms that reduced government agricultural credit and subsidies has been an adoption in a number of areas of organic and low-cost agriculture practices, which combine traditional knowledge with newer organic farming and conservation techniques. This is most successful in the coffee-growing areas, where farmers can get a premium price for organic coffee, helping to subsidize the labor inputs of the new systems. It is also proving viable, however, with small-scale vegetable or fruit crops, when integrated into an overall strategy that includes off-farm employment. 18. Oaxaca is also the site of a number of forestry enterprises at the community and ejido level. There are four categories of forestry communities, ranging from highly sophisticated unions of community producers to communities that have no management plans or strategy. These categories are: (a) industrialized and often unionized communities with processing industries; (b) communities with harvesting capacity but no industrial processing capacity; (c) communities with management plans that contract out harvesting; (d) communities with no forest management, often remote areas with considerable expansion of the agricultural areas for slash and bum agriculture. The World Bank's Community Forestry project is a technical assistance project supporting capacity building and management plans for these indigenous communities, so that they are prepared organizationally and technically to absorb investments in their enterprises. The more developed of these communities have begun to invest profits from forestry in other productive activities, like commercial flower production, which can fuel economic growth within. 19. In general, the family strategy for survival is a high level of diversification, including remittances from migrants. The level of employment and the diversification of the household labor depend on their access to productive resources, availability of household labor, prices of agricultural products, and alternative non-agricultural employment. Future Strategies 20. The demographic information presented shows a slow but continuous process of out- migration from indigenous communities. This migration has caused the rapid and anarchic growth of cities like Oaxaca and other population centers. In light of this it is a high priority to develop projects aimed at stabilizing this migration and giving the population the required incentives to remain in the rural centers. Such a program would consist of an integrated program of small-scale productive projects that would improve agricultural yields through the use of technologies that are low cost and economically and environmentally sustainable. 21. Recently, the increased contact between the indigenous communities and indigenous organizations with government authorities and with external development agencies have permitted the development of alternative development programs that have demonstrated their value in the fields of agriculture, forestry, health, education and local savings. These projects are small and medium scale and contribute to the formation of local trained technical cadres as well A-41 Annex 4, Part 1 as being based on community participation and planning. The voices of the indigenous trained personnel are increasingly being heard and supported by the established government agencies to assist them in their activities and as advisors, for instance of the National Indigenist Institute, the National Environmental Agency, the Department of Forestry, Department of Health and Education, etc. It would seem that this concept of small scale, participatory and productive projects, which are easily replicable, and show quick results, are the best way to implement projects that have wide community acceptance and train new personnel among the members of a community. 22. The success of adaptive agro-ecology projects with low-cost agricultural and land management technologies has been demonstrated in various sites: Chinantla, Southern Sierra, Central Valley, Coastal Zone, the Mixteca, and the Isthmus. However, they lack support in official government circles since they are perceived as a criticism of existing government programs with their concepts of extensive agricultural production and the high use of chemical inputs. Perhaps the highest reward from this type of project is the training that is left in the communities in addition to their low cost and easy replication based on the demonstration of quick results and benefits. 23. Another priority is to increase the sources of income for the rural families though a diversification of their economy. This must be done through a better use of the resource base, in particular the non-timber forest products and fruits. Oaxaca has a vast wealth of these but there is a need for studies, resources, and a clear strategy to define priorities and to establish the right kind of production system, accompanied by the education and training of community technical advisors and the search for markets. Products such as orchids, pita or ixtle, different types of palms, seeds, fibers, spices, medicinal plants, artisan products and ecological or scientific tourism are ways of using the natural wealth. 24. Oaxaca has virtually unlimited biodiversity which is being under-utilized. If the value of this wealth is demonstrated it will be accompanied by studies to optimize production systems and to search and promote markets for these products. This will result in concomitant increases in household and community income, but will also serve to increase the communities' awareness to the value of these resources and to avoid their plunder which exists today because of lack of understanding, interest, and regulations. Together with this there is a need to promote the worthiness of artisan production for their beauty and quality which permits them to be competitive with similar products from other regions and are potentially an important source of income for women. Textiles, pottery, leather and metal works, and other popular art forms are decaying because their knowledge is being lost through lack of vision. The low prices paid by the government to these producers, the lack of promotion and quality control have placed artisans and their production in a state of crisis instead of valuing them for their development potential. A-42 Annex 4, Part 1 Education 25. As in the other states and regions, the educational system has not been delivering a quality and appropriate schooling to Oaxaca indigenous children. Although there are bilingual programs of both the Secretariat of Education and the National Educational Council, they are not able to address the needs of multiple ethnic and language groups. For indigenous communities like the Zapotec, who do not retain their traditional language, but are interested in maintaining cultural identity, curriculums are perceived as assimilationist and often irrelevant to the educational needs and interests of the rural-based children. INI and the Ministry of Popular Culture have introduced some projects to support rescue of traditional language and oral traditions through development of written materials, but these are still limited in scope and availability. The main recommendation of the groups interviewed for the profile was the need to change the school curriculum and educational materials to include information relevant to the culture of the people, and include technical curriculums in primary and secondary school as well, including specific information for each of the regions and agro-ecological zones. 26. Alternatives to Marginality. As a complement to this there must be the introduction of alternative systems to improve the highly deficient sanitary conditions prevalent in most indigenous communities. Marginality is extremely high in Oaxaca indigenous communities- more than 50 percent of the children are malnourished and there is a great prevalence of infectious disease, even large areas with regular cholera outbreaks. There are proven technologies and systems to save on firewood, community based water treatment, and waste disposal. For this it is necessary to train local community organizers that can accept the combination of western medicine and traditional healing practices. In addition to this, the valuable experience of women in the areas of community organization and establishment of water treatment systems, as well as community based savings, and home garden projects must be recognized and included in development efforts. A-43 Annex 4, Part 2 Chinanteco Indigenous Profile Executive Summary Introduction 1. This monograph is part of the Indigenous Peoples Profiles for Mexico, financed by the World Bank and coordinated in its execution by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista. The objective of this project is to have an up-to-date system of information on the indigenous peoples of Mexico to be used in regional development assistance projects. The Chinantla is one of the special studies of the Indigenous Peoples of the State of Oaxaca. The consultants for the studies compiled for this state is those of the Grupo Mesofilo, under the coordination of the anthropologist Dr. Alvaro Gonzalez. Emma Beltran wrote this monograph. The region of the Chinantla is defined in this study as that territory currently inhabited by the people identifying themselves as Chinantecos who recognize a common origin and have a strong linguistic and territorial cohesion. Location 2. The Chinantecos live in the region called Chinantla located in the southwest of the State of Oaxaca and northeast of the city of Oaxaca. The area is located in the reaches of the Sierra de Juarez, in the watershed of the Papaloapan River. Its limits to the north are the Mazatec region, and Tuxtepec and the neighboring state of Veracruz to the east. To the south-southeast the boundaries of the Chinanteco territory are with the Zapotec near the Isthmus, and with the Cuicatec area in the high part of the Sierra de Juarez. The Chinantla region consists of 258 settlements and 14 municipalities, with a total estimated area of 4,598 kml. 3. The area can be divided into three sub-regions corresponding to its ecological and topographic characteristics: the lower area in the watershed of the Papaloapan dam command area with 6 municipalities; the middle zone in the Sochiapan area, and the high Chinantla in the Sierra Norte with three municipalities. Population 4. The Chinanteco are the fourth largest indigenous group in the state of Oaxaca--8.9 percent of the total population classified as indigenous in the 1990 Census. In contrast to the general demographic trends of indigenous groups in the state (1.7 percent annual increase), the Chinanteco population has grown from 27,942 in 1921 to 110,223 in 1990, an annual increase of 2.1 percent. Nationally, the Chinanteco population is 109,100 of which 89.7 percent live in Oaxaca (90,322) and 14.9 percent (16,284) in the state of Veracruz, where they were resettled in 1972 during the construction of the "Cerro de Oro" dam. The remaining 2.3 percent reside in Mexico City, the state of Mexico and the state of Chiapas. Their traditional area in Oaxaca covers 14 municipalities in which 79.5 percent of the population are indigenous language speakers. Of these, 94 percent are Chinanteco speakers; 77 percent are bilingual, and 17 percent A-44 Annex 4, Part 2 monolingual. Only 6 percent are speakers of another indigen6ulanguage-mainly Zapotec, Mazatec, and Mixe. 5. Population growth within Chinanteco settlements is distinctive in that new settlements were regularly formed in response to pressures in existing settlements, keeping population growth within settlements constant or only slightly increasing. In 1921 there were only 196 known settlements, with an average of 211.7 inhabitants, while by 1990 the number of settlements was 258 with average populations of 345 inhabitants. The increased number of settlements between 1940 and 1970 resulted from the agrarian reform which increased settlements in the lower altitudes and from denser road infrastructure, created by the Papaloapan Dam Commission, a body similar to Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States which regulated all the big irrigation dams in this region of Oaxaca. After 1972, population growth per settlement was less in response to out-migration by families that lost their best lands to the dam or that moved to Veracruz. Since none of the remaining families were in the irrigated command area, the new infrastructure did not increase production and affect population growth. Marginality 6. The whole Chinantla exhibits a strong marginality as measured by a combination of health and living standard indicators. Out of 235 settlements, 61 (23.6 percent) are classified as "very highly marginalized;" 94 settlements (36.4 percent) as "high;" 63 (24.4 percent) as "medium" and only 17 (6.6 percent) as a "low" level of marginalization. Out of the 14 municipalities of the Chinantla, only Quiotepec, Ayozintepec, and Comaltepec, show a "medium" level of marginality while the remaining 11 are classified either as "very high" or "high." 7. Marginality is highest in smaller settlements with only limited road access, which correlates with less access to other social infrastructure. Seventy-two percent of the settlements classified as "very high" in marginality have up to 250 inhabitants; 67 percent of the "high" settlements have between 250 and 500; while 57 percent of the settlements classified as "medium" have between 250 and 1000 inhabitants. Conversely, the majority of the "low" settlements (76.5 percent) are in population centers of over 1500 inhabitants. Language 8. The Chinantec language is complex. It is a tonal language and it is one of the least studied among the indigenous languages of the state. Linguistically it belongs to the Otomanque group, yet is an independent family from the other Otomanque group languages of the state. The language has been subdivided into 5 variants, which coincide with the geographic division of the Chinanteca region. According to the classification of local informants, however, there are in reality eight dialect variants: (1) Valle Nacional (28.9 percent of the settlements); (2) Lalana (18.7 percent of settlements; (3) Ojitlan (19.5 percent); (4) Usila (10.1 percent); (5) Tlacoazintepec (5.4 percent); (6) Yolox (5.8 percent); (7) Sochiapan (1.9 percent), and; (8) the San Esteban Tectitlan variant spoken in only one settlement. A-45 Annex 4, Part 2 Production Strategies 9. Farming Systems. The main crops grown in the region are maize for auto-consumption, and coffee, vanilla, chili peppers, sugar cane and rubber as cash crops. It is important to indicate that maize and coffee occupy 83.4 percent of the cultivated area in the Chinantla (Maize with 51.6 percent and coffee with 31.8 percent). The other crops occupy the remaining 16.6 percent of cultivated area (chili peppers 2.5 percent; rubber 2.5 percent; sugar cane 2.4 percent and vanilla 0.3 percent). 10. Maize, occupies the largest area (49,158 hectares) and is sown in two distinct areas: the rainfed and the more humid tonamil area where two crops are possible. Twenty eight percent of the Chinantla maize is grown for self-production in 133 settlements. The remaining 71.6 percent is grown in 98 communities where production is higher and there is a marketable surplus. Those settlements with only self-consumption have low yields (919 kg. per hectare), while the surplus communities average 2,102 kg. per hectare. All but one municipality (Chiltepec) produces maize as their main crop. The main regional commercial centers for maize are Ayotzintepec, Valle National, and San Felipe Usila. 11. Coffee is the second most important crop in the region with 30,252 hectares devoted to this crop. This perennial crop was first introduced to the region by the national coffee marketing board (INMECAFE) in the 1960s with mixed impacts on the natural resource base. The common coffee varieties are Arabic and Bourbon in the variants Caturra and Mundo Novo. Labor is the limiting factor since the seasonal demands of coffee compete with the needs of annual cropping, especially for maize. Farmers have adopted herbicides in annual crop areas to free up labor for coffee. The most important municipalities for coffee production in volume produced are Valle Nacional, Usila, Sochiapan, Jacatepec, and Lalana, which account for 90 percent of regional production. Average yield, however, is low-1,0 18 kg. of "pergamino" (dry corticated) per hectare. 12. Coffee is strategically important regionally as the main source of cash income. The drastic fall in international coffee prices in the early 1990s had a critical impact on the regional economy. To face the coffee crisis, the Chinantecos opted for diversifying into other crops as well as entering new economic activities. Recent production of vanilla and ixtle fiber is an attempt to find alternatives. Another response has been a significant increase in out-migration from the region to the United States, especially by the communities in the highlands. This out- migration helps explain the low levels of agricultural production, since insufficient family labor remains for intensification. A third response to lower prices is the increase in other cash crops in the lower Chinantla, including sugar cane, rubber, and chili peppers. 13. Sugar cane is the mainstay in the general area of Tuxtepec in Chiltepec municipality (1,995 hectares); a portion of Jacatepe (212 hectares); and Ayotzintepec (58) hectares. Rubber plantations are located primarily in Jacatepec (1,115 hectares) and in some Chiltepec A-46 Annex 4, Part 2 communities (769 hectares) as well as Valle Nacional (502 hectares). Chili peppers is one of the main cash crops in the area with two main varieties: "soledad" aid "tabaquero" and is produced on alluvial soils in the municipalities of Usila, Jacatepec, Chiltepec, Ojitlan, and Valle Nacional. Commercial agriculture in the lowlands accounts for a substantial proportion of seasonal, locally hired labor. The municipalities of Lalana (1,067 hectares) and Jocotepec (565) attract seasonal labor for cash crops, but primarily for maize production. 14. Family diet is traditional-maize, beans, and a wide variety of roots, vegetables, and herbs, many collected from the forest, as well as wild animals and fish. Nutritional levels are poor, with more than 50 percent of the families consuming less than a minimum number of calories, and half the children showing nutritional deficiencies according to height and weight or presence of intestinal diseases. 15. Livestock. Bovine livestock production has increased dramatically in the last few decades. The pasture grazing areas, concentrated in the municipalities of Jocotepec, Lalana and Ojitlan, grew from 153,500 hectares in 1970 to 340,000 in 1988. Most of the livestock are crossed cattle of Cebu and Swiss and Cebu and local stock. Small commercial plots are found in the more remote parts of the Sierras, in areas such as Petalpa, Comaltepec, Tlacoatzintepec, and Usila. The main limitation to the extension of livestock has been the lack of road infrastructure. 16. Forestry. Forestry, an activity developed in the region beginning in the 1950s, when, as part of a national development strategy, 261,000 hectares of forests in the Sierra Juarez were given as concession to the Tuxtepec Paper Company (FAPATUX). The area of the high Chinantla (Comaltepec, Yolux, and Quiotepec municipalities) was one of the most exploited areas due to the proximity to the paper factory. The factory's interest in the exploitation of the pine and cedar forests of the area gave impetus to the construction of a wide ranging road network linking this previously remote zone with the rest of Chinantla. In 1968, fourteen communities of the Sierra Juarez successfully organized to end the concession and are now controlling their own exploitation of their forests. 17. There are three different types of forest production systems in the region: timber (exotic and more common tropical timber species) extraction; camedor palm extraction, and barbasco extraction. Most of the households dedicated to commercial extraction are in the municipalities of Yolox (19 percent of households) and Quiotepec (9.7 percent of households). 18. The leaves of camedor palms which are used in floral arrangements and as roofing material are extracted primarily in the area of the Cajones River in the municipalities of Ayotzintepec (44.9 percent of households); Jacatepec (25.3 percent of households); and, Jocotepec (19 percent of households). Barbasco represented a significant source of additional household income since the 1970s. Extraction is especially important to the municipalities of Jocotepec (65 percent of households); Lalana (29.2 percent households); San Felipe Usila (28.3 percent households); and San Lucas Ojitlan (24.4 percent households). A-47 Annex 4, Part 2 Land Tenure 19. Of the 256 localities or settlements in the region, the Agrarian National Register (Registro Agrario Nacional, RAN) recognizes as agrarian nuclei (including ejidos, agrarian communities and new population settlements) a total of 93 including the municipal capitals. These include 10,038 inhabitants (4,257 in 20 communities and 5,781 in 73 ejidos and new population centers). Fifty-two of the ejidos are located in the Lower Chinantla. 20. The smallholding property of the region came into being after in the presidency of Porfirio Diaz when adjudication of private lands claims encouraged disowning of properties owned by the communities, land invasion, and illegal occupation of communal lands. The tension created between the smallholders and the agrarian communities continues today. At the time of this study, there were 129 agrarian conflicts registered for the Chinantla, the most cited complaint is land boundaries, and illegal invasions or land grabbing on the part of private landowners. The most notable conflicts occur in those communities with pending land arbitration where delimitation is uncertain-these include San Felipe Usila, San Juan Lalana, and San Juan Bautista Tlacoatzintepec. Marketing and Supply Networks 21. The isolation of some of the settlements has contributed to the creation of holding centers where local purchasing of cash crops takes place for subsequent distribution. These are located for the most part in the interior of the Chinantla and have specialized in certain products. The role of these centers is a distributive one to other buyers outside the region, or as links to wider marketing networks. These small centers are usually located at highway crossroads, municipal capitals, or in the more remote last points of road access. The producers transport their merchandise to these centers by mules and donkeys or on their backs. Producer Organizations in the Chinantla 22. The Chinantla has a proliferation of producer and political organizations. There are a total of 358 producer groups organized in the Chinantla for a range of objectives including: fights for land recognition; organization for improved commercialization of crops; input supply; technical training and technical advice; legitimization of cultural and ethnic concerns and issues; indigenous rights; demands of indigenous women; and access to improved goods and services. 23. About 87.15 percent of these organized groups are located in seven municipalities in the Lower Chinantla region. The 358 organizations are group-based, but circumscribed to single groups in settlements and m municipalities. 24. The small groups can be linked to larger, second-tier organizations comprising groups from several settlements and sometimes transcending single municipalities. At a third tier, the inter-group organizations can be affiliated with regional organizations with a larger participation base that includes a large number of settlements and municipalities. State-level organizations first appeared in 1989, in response to the disappearance of the national coffee marketing board A-48 Annex 4, Part 2 (INMECAFE), as organizations geared to assist in the provision and sale of agricultural products. 25. Among the oldest national level producer organizations in the region are the National Peasant Confederation (Confederaci6n Nacional Campesina, CNC), the Independent Peasant Central (Central Campesina Independente, CCI), the Union of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (Uni6n General de Obreros y Campesinos de Mexico, UGOCM) and the independent General Labor, Peasant, and Popular Union (Uni6n General Obrera, Campesina y Popular, UGOCP) and the National Coordination of Coffee Organizations (Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Cafetaleras, CNOC). These have been primarily concerned with issues of agrarian reform and after 1980 to the improvement of mechanisms for production, credit, marketing and other services. The historic link between political administrations and the definition of six-year development programs has led to comparable cycles in the life of producers' organizations forced to adapt each six year to new mandates. During the Salinas period, the number of organizations grew significantly, many to respond to the poverty alleviation funds available through the Solidarity program. The 44 organizations existing in 1988 had grown to 297 by 1994; a total of 253 new groups formed. A total of 70.7 percent of the registered organizations in the Chinantla date from this growth period, with the largest number registered in 1990. 26. The organizations assisting in agricultural and livestock production can be distinguished by the nature of the products they handle. Agricultural production organizations are those handling the basic products, coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar cane, chili peppers, rice, fruits and vegetables. The most important are coffee producers, representing 45.2 percent of the total, livestock producers, with 31.5 percent, and those combining both agricultural and livestock. Together, these organizations comprise 83.2 percent of all organized groups in the Chinantla. 27. An increasingly important role is being assumed by fishermen organizations in the reservoir area of the Cerro de Oro dam and by the non-timber forest product organizations dealing with products such as ixtle, rubber, Barbasco, and Camedor palm. The smallest number is forestry organizations, which are limited to municipalities in the high Chinantla. Under the rubric of "other organizations" are those dedicated to transport, supply, artisan products, and mills. Institutions and Local Level Community Management 28. Despite high rates of marginality, the Chinantla is a region with active community governments, which, through a combination of their own efforts and protracted negotiations with outside authorities, have constructed community works, provided social services, and attracted development. These governments are highly efficient, with a prevailing model of self- management rather than external support. In the last five years, a total of 472 public works were built exclusively with community funds and initiative. By contrast, there have only been 100 government-funded programs or works, excluding PROCAMPO, which was nearly universally applied, in the same period. A-49 Annex 4, Part 2 Environment and Natural Resources 29. Use of Soils and Vegetation. The ecological importance of the Chinantla stems from its biological diversity and rich natural resources. This region includes, for instance, one third of the country's total humid tropic forests and one of the most important watersheds. The mesophilous, or mountainous rainforests, the pine-juniper forests, laureaceaes and some very rare species such as the "elphin," or "midget forest" are all known for their high biodiversity. The region covers 11 subzones; 10 based on altitude and one zone which is the command area of the dam Cerro de Oro. The largest and most significant zone is the complex of the high Sierra, followed in rank by the cartsic Sierra and then the alluvial plains. 30. Climate ranges from hot with summer rains in the southeastern parts to moderate with summer rains in the highest Sierra, which receive coastal winds. The intermediate region of the sierra, (1,000 to 2,500 meters above sea level) is characterized by high precipitation year round (up to 4,000mm annually) and a gradually diminishing temperature gradient by altitude. The high altitude of the Temperate Zone combined with high humidity creates the high rainforests. Table 1. Land Area by Type of Vegetation and Land Use in Chinantla Vegetation and Soil Use Land Area % Seasonal Agriculture 9.78 Grassland 9.52 Secondary Vegetation 21.13 Mesophilous Forests 7.65 Pine-Juniper Forests 3.82 Juniper Forests 1.92 Perennial High Forest 39.50 Juniper-Pine Forests 0.65 Medium Sub-perennial Forest 2.84 Dam 3.06 Low Caduceous Forest 0.13 A-50 Annex 4, Part 2 Environmental Degradation of the Region 31. In comparison to the accelerated rate of environmental destruction of the humid forest ecosystems nationally, thirty-nine percent of the surface area of the Chinantla is still under forest cover. Although at present still conserved, they are under increasing pressure and beginning to show a rapid degradation in some strata, due to changes in land use. The rate of change and magnitude of these changes vary in the 14 municipalities constituting the Chinantla. Severe erosion is present in 22 percent of the total land area (including those areas that are losing over 70 tons per hectare annually), due to the impacts of extensive livestock production in the lower elevations and slash and burn agriculture in the steeper slopes. Indigenous Forms of Government in the Chinantla 32. Local Chinanteco government, like other Mexican indigenous government, consists of a system of institutionalized community posts, or cargos. This is a hierarchical system, whereby adult males pass through a series of civic-religious posts of increasing responsibility to "graduate" to a permanent position on a council of elders. The cargo system normal to the Chinantla include the following positions: 1. Municipal President 2. Municipal Agent 3. Municipal Sindico 4. Mayor 5. Commissar in charge of community land or ejido resources 6. Regents 7. Treasurers 8. Municipal Secretary 9. Mayors of the Guilds 10. Cabos (senior assistants to the Municipal President) 11. Topiles (junior assistants to the Municipal President) 33. The respective authorities are responsible for collective well being of the community and the maintenance of the spiritual balance between the community and their deities, achieved through organization of periodic rituals and ceremonies, and the arbitration of disputes and community concerns. Oaxaca is unique in Mexico in that the state legal system recognizes the authority of indigenous government and authorizes municipalities that prefer to govern themselves through the customary system of consensus, rather than the democratic system of election of authorities by majority vote. 34. There are seven municipal entities that have chosen a democratic system of elections-- Tlacatzintepec, Usila, Ojitlan, Chiltepec, Jacatepec, National Valley, and Ayotzintepec-while the rest have opted for a customary system. In the municipalities where the authorities are elected A-51 Annex 4, Part 2 by vote, the PRI party dominates, although since the 1980's there has been a gradual penetration of other political parties. Culture and World View 35. The Chinanteco residential pattern is patrilocal and extended, with several nuclear families living under one roof or in one complex. Women are excluded from inheritance, unless widowed or orphaned with no brothers. Marriage among parallel or cross cousins is permitted only with 5 generations of distance. Families exchange labor and assistance through traditional networks within extended households and between households related by birth or marriage, or friendship ties, called Compadrazgo. Housing is traditional-adobe in the highlands and wood and palm in the lowlands. 36. Female dress and costumes have symbolic significance for the Chinanteco. Women's dresses or huipiles are colorfully and richly embroidered with patterns embodying ancestral history, myths, customs, and depictions of significant elements of nature. The tradition has been almost lost in the highlands, but is strong in the lowlands, with the most complex designs found in Usila and Ojitlan. In the highlands, men retain the traditional use of ponchos and black felt top hats. Production of other traditional items has lost its original importance. Pottery is made only for commercial sale, although men still make some kinds of fiber baskets or fishing and carrying nets. Some craft and artisan organizations provide support for the continued production of the huipiles. 37. The important festivities of the Chinantla are those associated with the Catholic religious calendar. Particularly important are Holy Week, All Saints Day, Palm Sunday, and New Year. Each community celebrates its Patron Saint and the specific festivities associated with it, including periodic rituals, processions, fireworks, fairs, dances, and music, accompanied by temporary markets and ambulatory business. The calendar of festivities is closely related to the agricultural calendar, with most feasts coinciding with the dry season when the roads are more likely to be passable. This is also the season in the year when the local producers are more likely to have some disposable income after the sale of commercial crops such as coffee and sugar cane. 38. Traditional medicine occupies an important place in the culture and is, in many instances, the only source of medical or health treatment. Traditional medical practitioners are grouped according to different specializations: hierberos (treating disease with plants), sopladores (treating diseases through blowing or sucking), midwives, and shaman healers. Their learning is all orally transmitted, and the ability to cure is regarded as a God-given favor. Disease is attributed to natural as well as supernatural causes, and is associated closely with the loss of happiness and cheerfulness. The treatment for disease usually combines medicinal plants with ritual practices and may include western medical treatment as well. 39. Belief systems share many of the characteristics of other Meso-American cultures. Reality is conceived as a totality, integrating opposite and complementary elements into a sum of A-52 Annex 4, Part 2 practices, beliefs and myths. The myth of the sun and the mobiod for example, explains the opposition between night and day, the differences between human and animal, good and evil, body and soul. Chinantecos believe that human beings have the ability to shift shapes and exchange forms. Shamans and sorcerers can transform into nahuales or become lightning. Chinanteco narrative forms include a respect for all forms of nature as well as one a complex ethnobotanical taxonomy of the species in the region. A-53 Annex 5, Part 1 Yucatan: The Peninsular Mayas Regional Profile Executive Summary 1. This profile combines a broad comparative introduction to the Yucatan region, with three socio-economic analyses-one per state--designed to portray the human and cultural richness in the Yucatan Peninsula. The Peninsula includes more than 750,000 Mayas (inclusive of all adults >15 years of age), representing one of the largest concentrations of the Maya population and forming a center of Mexican indigenous cultural heritage. The Yucatan Mayas make up 14.11 percent of all Mesoamerican language speakers, second only to the Nahuas with 22.67 percent. Due to their large population, the Maya have had a major impact on the economic, political and religious aspects of the Yucatan, leading many researchers to conclude that in the case of the Peninsular Mayas, it was the Spanish who underwent a major "transculturation." 2. Due to its beauty and advantageous geographical location, the region has been transformed into a prime area for tourism, taking advantage of the Pre-Hispanic and Colonial cultural remains as well as the "mystique" or "exotic otherness" attributed to the current residents. Parallel to the touristic exploitation of these resources, has come an intense discrimination and marginalization of the native residents, limiting their equal access to social benefits. Table 1. Income Level of Economically Active Population in Peninsula Yucatan (%) 1990 and 1995 Level of Income/Salary Campeche Quintana Roo Yucatan No income 1990 1995 1990 1995 1990 1995 8.4 18.0 7.7 9.1 6.0 14.2 Two minimum salaries per capita 59.7 52.5 41.5 41.7 67.6 61.9 Between two and five salaries 21.2 16.2 33.3 31.4 18.8 15.2 More than five salaries per capita 5.3 8.5 10.2 12.9 4.7 6.0 3. To explain such complex processes and conditions, the profile has been divided into four sections. The first is a general introduction to the Peninsula with a chapter for each of the states. This information has served to facilitate the classification process of the five indigenous regions and transcends the scope of the existing state proposals, giving a broader, more comprehensive regional overview. The five indigenous regions being addressed are: (i) the central border, which has the largest Maya population; (ii) the northern Yucatan, previously known for its hemp production; (iii) the Caribbean; (iv) the Peninsular meridian, currently undergoing high intense colonization; and (v) the urban bastions, points of particular importance, as the study has shown, since almost 25 percent of all contemporary Mayas reside in six of these peninsular cities. 4. Campeche, for example, begins with a brief physical description of the area, including its major natural resources, of which the most predominant and abundant is petroleum. The research showed that based on its richness of resources, many trading partnerships were established with A-54 Annex 5, Part 1 neighbors from the surrounding areas. of Yucatan, Tabasco and Quintana Roo during the Pre- Colonial and Colonial eras with the main port giving Campeche a strategic edge historically and many alliances. Population density of the state is low overall, at 11.3 inhabitants per square kilometer. However, 71.2 percent of these people are concentrated in 27 of the Northern municipalities, leaving the remaining 2,609 municipalities very sparsely populated. Five Campechan Indigenous Municipalities: El Camino Real, Los Chenes, Champot6n, and the meridian zone have the highest concentration of indigenous language speakers. 5. The analysis of the Yucatan was a more complex process than for the other two states, due to the extensive literature available; as well as because of the more than one hundred indigenous municipalities (the unit of analysis). (In comparison, Campeche has ten indigenous municipalities and Quintana Roo only eight.) Yucatan along with Oaxaca, is one of two states in Mexico where the indigenous population constitutes a majority, with the important difference that Oaxaca residents have multi-ethnic kinship ties, whereas the Yucatan population, for the most part, belongs to a single ethnic group. 6. The Yucatan Maya are, however, by no means homogeneous. Those Maya residing in the now degraded and economically-depressed, hemp producing region have very different concerns than the Maya from the Southern, Eastern and Northeastern zones (categorized as the Ticul-Tekax-Oxkutzcab and Peto, Valladolid and Tizmin), those living in the more traditional Eastern communities, and the ever-increasing numbers of Maya living in the urban centers. In each of the mentioned regions there are historic, demographic, educational, health, economic (including out-migration), political and culture-related aspects addressed, each is thus set in its contextual dimension. 7. There is a concentration of communal tenure in the Peninsula that varies by State but comprises the majority of landholdings. The area under ejidos and communities comprises between 62 and 85 percent of the land areas in each of the three states of which only 17-20 percent has been parceled into individual plots under the PROCEDE land administration program. 8. The "Marginality Data," shows the alarming levels of marginalization which have to be endured by the Maya. In the Yucatan in the hemp-growing region to the north, more than 60 percent of the population has not completed primary school and 12 percent are illiterate; the most frequent cause of illness in the population is gastro-enteritis and respiratory infections. In the central part of the Peninsula where the three states meet (65 percent of the Mayas of Campeche and 63 percent of those of Quintana Roo) includes many poor farmers who survive by a diverse set of low-income generating strategies. Here the maternal language is spoken more publicly, housing is almost exclusively "mayan style," there is hardly any sanitary infrastructure, and rates of school dropout and illiteracy are much higher than the state or municipal norms. 9. As in the Huasteca, community sizes are small: Campeche has 1,950 localities of which 94 percent are smaller than 500 inhabitants. In Quintana Roo, 90 percent of the population lives in 7 percent of the 1,303 localities; the remaining 93 percent house 10 percent of the population A-55 Annex 5, Part 1 in communities of less than 500 inhabitants each. In Yucatan, there are 3,150 localities, of which 93 percent have less than 500 inhabitants. Social organization follows almost the same pattern of "calpulli" or socio-military groupings that were present in the mid-1 800s when the Mayas of the Peninsula rebelled against the Mexican republic seeking land and autonomy. 10. The third state, Quintana Roo, experienced a large decrease in the population in colonial times due to new diseases and other calamities brought on by the Europeans. The nineteenth century brought about a re-population partly due to the "Castas War," led by a group of Mayan rebels, who organized themselves in a separate theocratic/ militaristic system and avoided Spanish colonization until the beginning of this century. The indigenous regions of the state have suffered greatly under its re-discovery by the tourist industry. One of the findings is a high indigenous growth rate (3.7 percent annually) due to improving natural conditions and to immigration, not only from within the Mexican territory, but also from neighboring Central- American countries. 11. The Quintana Roo analysis touches environmental issues, including the damaging effects of certain forest activities, as well as the potential of community natural resources management, thus emphasizing the richness inherent in the tropical forests-which account for 63.2 percent of the total territory. The profile documents important traditional and environmentally friendly agricultural methods for maize growing; and highlights the overlap of indigenous populations with natural reserves and national state parks. There are three distinct indigenous zones in the state: (i) sites of tourism and urban development, (ii) the Maya region and (iii) the colonial region. The state's economic and social development is also analyzed in each of these regions. The analysis is based on the following: agricultural tendencies; major industries; animal husbandry; kinship organization; marginalization indicators; incidence of self-employment; the newly introduced salaried work in the tourist industry, a trend which is strongly linked to feminine out-migration (a topic that has been explained further within the study). Finally, the conclusion reflects on political movements, indigenous organizations and indigenous autonomy, portraying clear differences among the various regions; differences rooted mainly in the diverse historical experiences and the intensity of regional development. 12. The striking findings of this regional profiles are: (a) the very different income strategies of Mayas, depending on whether they are found in depressed agricultural regions far from basic services or whether they are pursuing multiple income strategies in the tourism industry and as temporary migrants to areas of commercial agriculture; (b) the continuing low levels of educational attainment, which concentrate employment opportunities in low-skilled jobs, many of them taken by rural women on a temporary basis as domestics, often in highly exploitative relationships with their employers; (c) the concentration of tourism industry jobs for Mayas in very low-paying jobs and A-56 Annex 5, Part I until now limited role of local communities in the eco- and culture tourism; (d) extreme poverty in the former hemp-growing areas and the overall lack of credit and investment resources, including technical options for Mayan farmers; (e) the richness of the Mayan production system in diversity of animals and plants and use of ecological niches, and the importance of women's role in production of homegarden plants and animals, and in the production of artisan Mayan products; and (f) the poor quality of educational services, with a strong disconnect between the goals and objectives of the bilingual education systems and the attainment on the ground. A-57 Annex 5, Part 2 Yucatan: The Maya of Campeche Indigenous Profile Executive Summary 1. The main objective of this profile is to analyze sixteen cities and communities, mainly populated by the Mayan peoples, and thereby provide an ethnographic attachment to the Campeche socio-economic research project. In addition, the profile and summary attempts to illustrate the diverse socio-economic and cultural challenges currently being faced by those Maya residing in the Yucatan Peninsula. The research techniques have been based on intensive participatory fieldwork done within these communities, which included, but was not limited to observation, direct interviews, surveys, local and national censuses. 2. The following communities, located in the northern and central parts of the state, are characterized by having the greatest density of the Maya-speaking population: Calkini, Hecelchakdn, Hopelch6n, Tenabo, Campeche and Champot6n. These communities were chosen as a focus of field work on the basis of: (i) geo-political position (i.e. municipal divisions); (ii) Mayan population, as defined by self-identification; (iii) socio-geographical context--attempting to represent somewhat equally the coast, forest and lowland communities; the rural, urban and semi-urban; as well as those with municipal governments vs. police-rule; and (iv) historical background, thus attempting to represent settlements that have a Pre-Hispanic, colonial and modem origin. 3. The themes addressed (illustrated by graphs, tables and statistical data) can be divided into five major categories: (a) Demographics; (b) Occupational Activities; (c) Health-related issues; (d) Spheres for change and continuity (education, politics, and religion); and (e) Mayan identity in a changing world. Demography 4. While in terms of geography, the Campeche Maya's numerous ecological niches are very similar (except Hopelch6n which stands out due to its densely forested tropical jungles, in contrast to its deforested neighbors), demographically they are very different. The northern municipalities contain 40-60 percent of the Mayan population and the central region a mere 14 percent, although settlement density in the municipalities of the central region is twice that of the northern municipalities. Most Maya communities create similar settlement patterns: a concentration of population in the center and a sparsely populated periphery. With the exception of the colonial churches and a few military buildings, the communities hold few constructions of architectural or aesthetic value-when measured by western standards. The traditional Maya housing made of mud and sticks with a thatch roof, is the predominant structure in the periphery, but such a house is more consecutively alternated with modern cement houses in the center. The towns have access to electricity and some paved roads, but suffer from a scarcity of potable water, and commonly lack drainage systems, trash management, and domestic sanitation. A large number of family members sleep in the same room or porch area, but crowding is not excessive. The urbanization of the indigenous population is notable: 100,000 Maya speakers live A-58 Annex 5, Part 2 in Merida and more than 40,000 in Cancun (Quintana Roo), migrating from all over the peninsula. Economy and Occupational Activities 5. In terms of land ownership and tenure, the study documents a high incidence of communal holdings in Calkini, Champot6n and Hopelch6n, while Tenabo and Hecelchakdn hold a fairly even 1:1 ratio between private and communal properties. Campeche shows a slightly higher ratio of communal property. Yet, it is important to note the number of beneficiaries to better analyze the situation. For example, in Hecelchakdn 3,628 Mayas share 67,747 hectares, while their neighbors from Campeche, a population of about 3,845 own 193,961 hectares. The northern municipalities have much less productive area per capita, despite a similar range of communal holding sizes due to the much lower quality of land, with fragile soils that have been subjected to a continuous and arduous process of exploitation and deforestation. Unlike the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, there have been no land conflicts between the various communities. 6. The major part of the communal lands owned by the Mayas are planted in maize, diverse types of beans, chili peppers and pumpkins, mainly through the more traditional method of slash and bum. In Champot6n there are also many rice varieties, Tikinmul has an abundance of mango trees and Hecelchdn grows a lot of avocado. The maize crops tend to yield approximately 1.5 - 2 tons/hectare; but yields can reach four tons, when using better-quality seeds and chemical fertilizers. Governmental support programs for agricultural crops are very scarce. Bank credit is almost impossible to obtain due to the complex bureaucratic process, the high-interest rates, and the steep mortgage payments, which have caused borrowers to lose their homes. The situation has worsened in the past few years, as the region has suffered from droughts and plagues, leading to a great decrease in crop fertility and widespread poverty. 7. Agricultural production is supplemented with income from fishing, animal husbandry, forestry, honey and gum extraction, a growing number of entrepreneurial activities, and employment in unskilled and low skilled jobs as domestic servants, maids, carpenters, etc. Widespread poverty has increased out-migration within the peninsula; those cities saturated by the tourist industry such as Cancun, Merida and Campeche are the most common choices for migrants. The migrant population is mainly made up of young males who leave their communities temporarily. 8. Women play a major role in the household economy through various activities-growing garden crops to supplement the diet, seeking creative entrepreneurial activities, and working in the service industry as maids, servants or secretaries. Children simultaneously cooperate in fieldwork and housework, babysitting younger brothers/sisters, and such intensive responsibilities have a strong negative effect on their school performance. A-59 Annex 5, Part 2 Health and Well-being 9. Even though there is a strong family network system, most households suffer from poverty and extreme poverty, which translates into high rates of malnutrition (with levels affecting as many as 50 percent of the child population) and widespread gastrointestinal and respiratory problems. It should be pointed out that although Mexican health assistance has limitations in quality, it is affordable and readily available to the majority of the population. In addition, there are also many traditional healers (herbalists, shamans and midwives), who hold widespread acceptance in the communities, and in some cases, work together with mainstream health professionals. Spheres of Change-Education, Religion, Politics Education 10. The public education system has serious weaknesses, and although even more readily available than governmental health assistance, its quality is much lower. Quantitatively, coverage is broad, education services can in one sense been seen to meet the population's needs; however, it must be pointed out that these services suffer from serious quality concerns. This situation does not automatically show up in the state statistics. INEGI data shows an illiteracy rate of 13.8 percent for the state of Campeche compared to 10 percent for the country as a whole, and both national and Campeche figures for children who attend school between ages 6 and 14 is 92 percent. When comparing indigenous and non-indigenous children and adults, however, the figures diverge dramatically: where indigenous speakers are 70 percent or more of the populations, municipalities average 36 percent illiteracy and the percent of children who finish primary school in the whole state drops to 54.8 percent from 64 percent nationally. Given that in Yucatan state with a similar Maya population, 84 percent of the state's illiterate adults are indigenous, it is likely, although statistics are not available, that the situation of the Mayas in Campeche is similar. 11. Education is often times out of touch with the regional reality and is generally taught in a language other than the one spoken in the home. This leads to alarming rates of absenteeism and school dropouts, placing Campeche at the bottom-end of national education ratings. This cultural negligence is compounded by poor teaching abilities and staggering poverty levels, which in turn cause many parents to pull their children from school at an early age or during periods of labor-intensive farm work. Another serious concern is that many children are sent to school on an empty stomach, leading to low-attention rates, continuous sleepiness and lower performance abilities. Politics and Religion 12. With the exception of the state capital, there is little participation in peasant politics in the indigenous regions. In contrast, the religious arena has been highly politicized, with competing Christian, non-Christian and Protestant groups, which until now have avoided any serious open A-60 Annex 5, Part 2 conflict, but cause growing tensions within the communities. It is important to note that even with the deepening economic crisis, most religious organizati6ns have a growing membership, in contrast to other types of organizations that have suffered a decline in popularity. There seem to be no ethnic-based organizations with great influence, and those existing organizations are under the direct hand of the state or federal government. This does not mean that Mayan groups have never organized on macro-ethnic lines in the Peninsula. The Campeche and other peninsular Mayas led a very coordinated rebellion against the government at the turn of the century to gain access to their traditional land rights and gain more autonomy. 13. Women's organizations have been very successful in meeting the community's economic needs through their efficiency and skillful organizational capacity. The existence of credit programs targeted to women through the Social Development Ministry and other agencies has provided a family source of credit in situations in which the male household heads and their producer associations or ejido groups have been declared in default and ineligible for government credit. Mayan Identity 14. There is a strong Mayan identity in Campeche, but its individual expression varies considerably by the geographic, educational, and religious situation of the people involved. The new generations seem to be less attuned to the traditional cultural practices such as language, dress, and ancestral knowledge/techniques. These seem to have been replaced with modern western values, especially for those residing in urban areas. However, one cannot conclude that Mayan culture is disappearing, as it is by no means exclusive to language or dress. It is common that Campechanos, even though they share small households with parents and no longer speak their parents' language, identify themselves as being Mayas through their surnames, common historical past, and by the continued practice of rituals linking them to their ancestors. Rituals of the dead are of great importance to provide a sense of Mayan continuity over generations; also, rites of passage and socialization techniques have considerable cultural relevance, although these continuously re-adjust to current customs and values, while reinforcing the most essential parts of Mayan traditional culture. Although in Campeche the freedom and space to have a traditional Mayan identity has decreased, there are many individuals constantly redefining the Mayan identity, so that it is more compatible with the modernity. A-61 Annex 6 Mexico Indigenous Peoples Profile Background Studies 1. National-level Profile (Spanish and English Translation) 2. Chiapas Indigenous Peoples Profile * Hach Winik Profile * Main Profile * Tojolabal Profile * Tzeltal Profile * Tzotzil Profile 3. Oaxaca Indigenous Peoples Profile * Chatinos Profile * Chontales Profile * Cuicatecos Profile * Huaves Profile * Mixes Profile * Mixtecos Profile * Chochos Profile * Zoques Profile * Mazatecos Profile * Triquis Profille * Zapotecos Profile 4. San Luis Potosi: The Teenek Indigenous Peoples Profile 5. Yucatan: Mayas Indigenous Peoples Profile 6. The Huasteca Indigenous Peoples Profile A-62 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bibliography Acevedo, Maria Luisa. 1996. Educaci6n Interetnica. 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