Reforestation

"The Forest is our greatest teacher… If you lose the universities, you lose nothing. If you lose the forest, you lose everything." Bill Mollison

Governments have begun to recognize the economic importance of a vibrant, healthy boreal forest. A recent study found that the ecological benefits of Canada's boreal forest — including clean water, carbon sequestration and pest control by migratory birds — are worth more than $80 billion annually, two and a half times the extractive value of its resources. Scott Weidensaul

An estimated 600,000 hectares of old growth forest is cut each year in Mexico. Only a small fraction of the damaged land is reforested. The destruction of the watershed in the Sierra Madre has had serious impact on biodiversity and on the quality of life for poor mountain communities.

“It is more likely that the trees will live without people than that the people can live without the trees”, Rodolfo Montiel

(Mexican environmentalist who was held a political prisoner for his attempts to prevent logging by Boise Cascade in his community. )

Sexto Sol has been providing native trees to the community for reforestation since 1997. Local children come to Escuela Tierra Linda to help with the work in the nursery. In fact Tierra Linda is a favorite stop for children hungry for the opportunity to learn about the natural world. Little people are some of the most careful reforesters since they naturally treat seeds and seedlings with care. On a Sunday in August 2005, a team of 6 children, one good dog, and Sexto Sol Director Tamara Brennan planted some 500 sprouted oak seeds in bare areas in the forest. "I can hear them growing right now," Tamara said recently, referring to the seedlings and the important ideas planted that day.

Sexto Sol manages a reforestation project in the nature reserve called the Parque Ecológico next to Escuela Tierra Linda. Volunteers from the local and global communities have done erosion control, built trails and planted pines. Local children water the trees in the dry season. With the cows kept out, the plants are recolonizing again. The populations of birds and other animals has grown dramatically. A gray fox has found refuge in the Parque.

Deforestation and Flood of 1998

The flood was the Earth’s own campaign for the need to reforest

Garnering the political will to do the right thing remains a challenge 7 years later. In 2005, CONAFOR, the National Reforestation Commission had appropriated no funds for reforestation in the Sierra Madre. SEMARNAT, the National Forest Service had awarded a 10 year contract to a logging company which has been logging the last old growth forest in the highest reaches since 2004.

How it was in 1998:

Repairs from the damage caused by Hurricane Pauline in 1997 were slowly progressing in the Sierra Madre by the time Hurricane season began again. At 1:00 am on September 8, 1998, torrential rains from Hurricane Xavier set off weeks of severe flooding with massive destruction and loss of life in the Sierra Madre. Coastal communities were completely buried and in the mountains massive landslides left survivors cut off from aid for many days. Eighty percent of the town of Motozintla, population of 25,000 was devastated. The number of dead has never been known.

Initially international aid efforts brought relief supplies to coastal communities. But customs authorities impeded further international aid shipments and reports of theft of semi-trailers full of food and medicine from national and international relief efforts were common. Unlike México, the governments of other countries affected by Hurricane Mitch were not opposed to receiving international assistance and allowed news of the severity of the damage to be made public. Our attempts to seeks funds in the U.S. to help rebuild here were often met with the message that the Sierra had been affected by the "wrong hurricane" since public attention was turned to the survivors of Hurricane Mitch.

A massive federal reclamation project to open three river channels that flow through Motozintla was under way day and night from October to July. An impressive amount of rock and material from the flooding has been shifted into some semblance of order as the heavy machinery formed terraced walls of huge boulders to direct future floods between neighborhoods in this river valley. Several new housing developments constructed to provide houses for families whose homes had been destroyed was inaugurated in July by President Zedillo.

The psychological trauma left by the disaster keeps the experience fresh. Now that the work on the river channels has stopped and the rains have started again, people wait to see if the scorned landscape, furious over the deforestation of her forests, will relent in this coming hurricane season.

La Llorona

The sacred copal tree is rare here today.
You can buy the dried sap in Tapachula, but they bring it across from Guatemala.
Incense offering on both sides of the so-called border.
Three rivers formed this valley
Flowing pristinely through their green pools while the forest
Still breathed out cloudy breath;
Cool mists that haloed the steep walls of the Sierra Madre.
Orchids, and just imagine what glorious tropical birds and butterflies
Must have lighted momentarily like jewels in the fragrant branches
So close you can see them breathing
Little bird chest feathery green,
If we are lucky, he’ll sing
Seeing each other for one sublime moment then, Ah,
He flies off to sip from flowers.
And all those little boys, (now in their 40s),
Were jumping in and out of water and sunshine
Brown shiny naked, arms and legs laughing
Any day after school.

Motozintla means land of the squirrels in Mocho
In five years I’ve never seen a squirrel and the Mochos look like the rest.
It was chainsaws.
Bastards!
(I pause to contemplate the relative uselessness and usefulness of rage.)
Chainsaws.
In an ironic twist of language, they are called Motosierras
Se acabaron con Motozintla en la Sierra con la Motosierra.
(They finished off Motozintla in the Sierra with the Motosierra).
My suegro showed me a lexicon of the Mocho language, in a bound book.
Some linguist feverishly laboring to preserve rare birds before it was too late.
Last living speakers, for the earnest young foreigner,
Laughing as they recall words, family, old times
But the collective memory of the Mocho,
Like family photos ripped off the wall by the floodwaters,
Was so eliminated with the tearing whine of a chainsaw.
That malicious sound echoes, electronically sampled in
The llanto of the woman who cries for her lost children at the river’s edge
Everyone in town knows the story.
It had already started, ochre colored waters, boulders,
Fierce panic and confusion
Hip deep in fast current, the baby slipped from her grasp when she reached for the other child
Everyone screaming in the rushing water,
All were lost in the onslaught
"Pobrecita, better that way, who’d want to survive having dropped her babies in a flood?"

The pharmacist told me that she’s selling more pills because
Everyone’s frightened again with the dry season is over.
The theft of the trees has disturbed the waters.
How bitterly the Earth brothers weep
Whenever, in their company, I see back to the time of the trees.
And I wonder what mental gymnastics the man who profited
Must have to do to convince himself not to feel remorse.
Or does he just pour himself another drink?

HURRICANES of 1998