CALENDARS FOR REFLECTION ON THE CHALLENGES FACED BY LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS IN THE SIERRA DE ZONGOLICA

Activities in this region include a series of workshops with campesinos, weavers and charcoal producers to facilitate collective reflections on local traditional food systems. Workshops include use of the Nahua calendar as a tool to understand climate change and its impact on traditional food systems. Educational activities to explore local food systems with elementary school students, teachers and supervisors, as well as secondary education and university students, are also facilitated.

Changes in rainfall and temperature patterns impact milpa and other agroforestry systems that support local food production by the Nahua inhabitants of the Sierra de Zongolica. Climate change also threatens useful native species and genetic diversity, including timber and non-timber forest products; food security and sovereignty; local livelihoods; as well as associated traditional knowledge and governance practices.

Textile production in Zongolica is one of the activities most impacted by larger-scale socio-ecological phenomena, such as land use change or climate change. Drawing from community-based workshops and exchanges, a textile calendar was produced. This textile calendar brings together the memory and practices of the weavers: the varieties of native sheep and the plants and lichens most used as natural dyes, framed in the Nahua conception of the annual cycle (Xiwitl) and its three seasons of Tonalko (hot season), Xopantla (rainy season) and Tlasesexkan (cold season). This calendar also acknowledges the female weaver and her worldview as the center of the activity, and includes an information table weaving communities can use to reflect on change, loss and resilience. Download here.