THE PROJECT ON DIVERSITY IN THE SIERRA TARAHUMARA
STATUS REPORT — MARCH 2003

PRECIS

The Project on Diversity in the Sierra Tarahumara (PDST) is an international, multidisciplinary, and multicultural research project focused on understanding the interrelationships among the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Sierra Tarahumara region of northern Mexico. It is based on partnerships established in 2000 among seven Indigenous communities in the Sierra Tarahumara and a number of research and educational institutions and non-governmental organizations in Mexico and the United States.

In a series of meetings held in 2000 and 2001, the project partners defined the principal objectives of the PDST, as follows:

Document the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of this region, both today and in the past.

Explore the linkages among these different forms of diversity to identify possible relationships of co-variation and co-evolution.

Analyze local ecosystem dynamics to isolate the factors that have contributed to the emergence and persistence of this diversity and to enhance an understanding of biological and cultural adaptation to environments characterized by marked altitudinal differences.

Establish the scientific foundation upon which strategies to conserve this diversity for the future can be designed and implemented.

Support the efforts of local communities to resolve the problems of ecological degradration, poverty, illness, and cultural and language loss currently confronting them.

Project activities began in 2001, and Sierra residents and specialists trained in a wide range of disciplines —archaeology, biology, cultural anthropology, ecology, history, historical ecology, and linguistics— are now collaborating on a series of specific research projects within the framework of the PDST. In addition, several applied projects are underway to address the problems, listed above, that of most concern to local residents. These activities are supported by grants from private foundations and government agencies in Mexico and the United States.

BACKGROUND

The Sierra Tarahumara is one of the most significant areas of biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity in all of Mexico and indeed all of North America. Extending for 500 kilometers through western Chihuahua and adjacent portions of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Durango, it is a spectacular region of high sierras and deep gorges, with peaks rising to 3000 meters and extensive networks of canyons dropping to 300 meters above sea level. Characterized by a tremendous diversity of tropical, subtropical, and temperate flora and fauna, including a number of species found nowhere else in the world, the Sierra Tarahumara also is an area of great cultural and linguistic diversity. Four of the most traditional Indigenous societies in North America —the Rarámuri (Tarahumara), Ódami (Northern Tepehuan), O’óba (Mountain Pima), and Warijó (Guarijío)— have their homelands in the Sierra, each with its own distinct language and cultural traditions, which vary not only between the four societies but regionally within each society. These Indigenous residents number nearly 90,000 people and are joined by approximately 250,000 Mestizos, many of whom continue cultural practices developed in the Sierra during the Spanish colonial period and speak a variant of the Spanish language not found elsewhere in Mexico.

The biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Sierra Tarahumara is now seriously jeopardized by the environmental and social impact of mining, lumbering, ranching, tourism, and illegal drug production. These activities have disrupted local ecological relations and contributed to severe deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, drought, and the extinction of several endemic animal species. Residents of the Sierra Tarahumara can no longer depend on the local environment for their livelihood, and in recent decades thousands have migrated to work in economic centers located outside the Sierra. As a result, the Sierra’s diverse cultural traditions and languages are disappearing at an alarming rate, and local environmental knowledge and natural resource management practices, developed over centuries, are being forgotten.

Because previous scholarly research in the Sierra Tarahumara has been sporadic and limited in scope, these processes are taking place before the region’s biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity has been documented and before effective conservation programs can be developed. The significance of the Sierra Tarahumara’s diversity and the urgent need for basic research there are now recognized by scholars around the world. With respect to its biodiversity alone, the region has been designated as a priority area for research and conservation by both Mexico’s National Comission for Biodiversity (CONABIO) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Situated along the Continental Divide, the Sierra Tarahumara also includes the headwaters and tributaries of major river systems in both northern Mexico and adjacent areas of the United States. Threats to its environmental integrity potentially will have very negative consequences for areas all along the U.S.-Mexican border.

In 2000 residents of the Sierra Tarahumara and scholars from Mexico and the United States established the Project on Diversity in the Sierra Tarahumara to begin addressing these problems. Because the Sierra Tarahumara, covering 75,000 km2, is too vast to be the focus of a single research and conservation project, project collaborators decided to develop the PDST within a 1800 km2 segment of the southeastern Sierra Tarahumara, in the transitional zone between the high sierra and the canyon country of southwestern Chihuahua. This area is located on the headwaters of the major river system in the region: the Río Urique, which forms the Copper Canyon before flowing into the Río Fuerte and the Gulf of California, and the Río Conchos, a tributary of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo, which drains into the Gulf of Mexico. The diversity of ecological zones and biological species found here reflects the range of altitude from 1000m to 2600m above sea level. In addition, the several thousand Rarámuri and Mestizo residents vary widely in subsistence and settlement strategies as well as other aspects of their culture less affected by environmental factors, like ritual, cosmology, political organization, and clothing styles. These project participants are speakers of two of the five principal variants of the Rarámuri language and the distinctive local dialect of Spanish.

The principal Sierra partners in the project are the members of the seven, predominantly Rarámuri, communities in this area: Basíhuare, Choguita, Ciénega de Norogachi, Norogachi, Pahuichiqui, Papajichi, and Tatahuichi. The outside participants are scholars affiliated with a number of North American universities and research institutes, including (in alphabetical order) the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Cornell University, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Universidad de Sonora, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago, the University of Georgia, the University of Manitoba, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

The Mexico-North Research Network, a non-profit consortium of U.S. and Mexican institutions based in Chihuahua and Washington, D.C., provides overall coordination for the PDST. Specific projects are undertaken by teams composed of Sierra residents and outside specialists, with one member of each team serving as its director. The PDST’s general coordinator is William Merrill, a curator of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History with over twenty-five years of research experience in the Sierra Tarahumara.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

PLANNING, 2000-2001

The PDST was launched at a meeting in Chihuahua City, Mexico, on June 15-18, 2000. The sixty-one meeting participants included representatives of Rarámuri and Ódami communities from across the Sierra Tarahumara and specialists in anthropology, biology, conservation, ecology, environmental policy, history, linguistics, and psychology affiliated with twenty Mexican and U.S. institutions. Following this meeting, the traditional authorities of Rarámuri communities in the Norogachi area of the Sierra Tarahumara invited the Mexican and U.S. researchers to join with them in developing the PDST, and four project planning meetings were held in Norogachi and nearby communities between August 2000 and October 2001.

RESEARCH, 2001-2003

Based on the collaborative relationships and priorities established in these meetings, research activities were organized to document and analyze the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the southeastern Sierra Tarahumara. Some of these projects are now completed, others are in progress, and still others are getting underway.

Biological Diversity

The main catalyst of PDST research in the area of biodiversity studies, and the principal Mexican sponsor of the project, is Mexico’s National Commission for Biodiversity (CONABIO). CONABIO provides national coordination for research and conservation projects designed to understand and preserve Mexico’s biological resources. In 2001 CONABIO created a program to promote biodiversity inventory projects in the Sierra Tarahumara, with preference given to projects that included the collection of information on the environmental knowledge of Sierra residents. Three PDST research projects were developed within this program, in the areas of botany, entomology, and vertebrate zoology.

Drs. Robert Bye and Joaquín Bueno of the Instituto de Biología of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) direct, respectively, the botanical and entomological diversity inventory projects, and Dr. Celia López, of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, directs the vertebrate zoology diversity inventory project. Dr. Bye, Director of UNAM’s Botanical Garden, has conducted more than thirty years of research in the region and is the leading specialist on the flora of the Sierra Tarahumara. Drs. Bueno and López, both widely recognized for their contributions to understanding biological diversity in other areas of Mexico and the world, initiated their research activities in the Sierra Tarahumara within the framework of the PDST.

These project directors coordinate the activities of research teams that include Sierra residents as well other professional scholars and students. They have inventoried biological diversity in the headwaters of the Río Urique and Río Conchos drainage systems, the PDST focus area, and also in other sections of these drainage systems and the adjacent Río Batopilas gorge. During the initial phase of these projects, completed in early 2003, they collected thousands of voucher specimens and compiled information, including local environmental knowledge, on over 1500 species.

Cultural Diversity

One of the bridges between the biological and cultural diversity components of the PDST is research on the ethnobiology and cultural ecology of the Sierra Tarahumara. William Merrill is investigating Rarámuri ethnozoology in the Basíhuare and Norogachi communities, and Michael Casaus and Felice Wyndham recently completed projects on Rarámuri ethnobotany in the Choguita and Basíhuare communities. Casaus and Wyndham are doctoral candidates at Cornell University and the University of Georgia respectively and are incorporating the results of their research into their doctoral dissertations. Iain Davidson Hunt and Serge LaRochelle conducted research, also in Basíhuare, on forestry ecology, traditional resource managment, and ethnobotany for their doctoral and masters degrees at the University of Manitoba. All of these projects have been based on extensive collaboration with the members of these communities.

Diversity in other Rarámuri cultural domains is being explored in research and cultural preservation projects focused on Rarámuri textile production and music and dance. The textile project, begun in 2001, is directed by Rarámuri weaver Lourdes Palma. Palma with assistance form María Sprehn-Malagón, a doctoral candidate at the University of New Mexico, created a network of Rarámuri women in the Norogachi and Basíhuare communities who are working to preserve the Rarámuri textile tradition. They also have documented the entire textile production process in collaboration with natural resources video-ecologist Steve Bartz. The Rarámuri music and dance project will begin in the late spring of 2003, coordinated by Daniel Noveck, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. Working closely with Rarámuri musicians and dancers, Noveck will document Rarámuri music and dance in the Norogachi area, exploring their cultural significance within Rarámuri society and regional variations in styles and repertoire based on his research in the Norogachi area and in Rarámuri communities in the Río Batopilas drainage system.

Linguistic Diversity

The linguistic component of the PDST includes research, training, and language preservation activities. These activities began in the late winter of 2003, under the direction of Víctor Franco, a linguist at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and a doctoral candidate at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, both in Mexico City. In April 2003, Franco will organize a training course in linguistics and language preservation for Rarámuri project participants and will serve as an advisor on their work to document and analyze the local dialects of the Rarámuri language. In addition to strictly linguistic work, this project will be directed toward compiling information on Rarámuri perspectives on and knowledge of the environment and textiles, music and dance, and other dimensions of Rarámuri that will complement the information gathered in the biological and cultural diversity components of the PDST. In addition, one of its principal objectives is to support Rarámuri efforts to reverse the processes of language loss that currently are underway.

History of Diversity

Another component of the PDST is archaeological and historical research that provides a long-term perspective on the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Sierra Tarahumara and adjacent areas. A team of archaeologists who have been involved in pathbreaking research on early farming in North America are engaged in a project that is exploring the transition from hunting-and-gathering to maize agriculture in the region as well as documenting contemporary Rarámuri agricultural practices. Dr. Robert Hard, an archaeologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, coordinates the work of this team. In the area of historical ecology, Robert Bye and William Merrill are editing an extensive collection of unpublished 18th-century reports that provide detailed information on the region’s natural history, and Merrill also is coordinating the compilation of published and unpublished materials on Rarámuri language from the 17th to 19th centuries.

COMMUNITY PROJECTS

One of the fundamental objectives and guiding principles of the PDST is that the project should benefit the local communities who are project partners. During the planning stage of the PDST, Sierra residents indicated that their main priorities were preserving their language and culture, restoring the integrity of their natural environment, developing programs for the sustainable use of local natural resources, and generating economic opportunities for the members of their communities. During 2001 and 2002, local residents and outside scholars initiated a series of projects that have begun to accomplish these objectives.

The most ambitious of these projects is the Rarámuri Education Initiative (REI), which will establish an education program focused on Rarámuri language and culture to be designed and managed by the traditional authorities and other members of the Rarámuri communities that are PDST partners. Carlos Palma, a member of the Norogachi community, directs the planning of this initiative, and Sierra residents who are participating in the PDST have now created a non-profit organization to serve as a framework for it and related activities. The REI is intended to complement the formal educational programs currently available in the Sierra and will be linked to a Center for Rarámuri Research and Education. This Center will serve as a repository for information on the environment, cultures, and languages of the Sierra Tarahumara collected during the PDST and other research projects so that this information will be readily available to Sierra residents, and its staff will organize a series of programs to promote the preservation of Rarámuri language and culture. Many PDST participants serve as consultants in planning this initiative and will continue to support it by, among other things, ensuring that the results of their research projects are deposited at the Center and providing training and specialized instruction to local residents.

In the area of environmental restoration, the principal concern expressed by Sierra participants in the PDST is the disappearance of many populations of wild medicinal plants, due primarily to the over-exploitation of these populations by commercial dealers. In 2003 Sierra residents will implement a plan to begin cultivating the most important wild medicinal plants, a project they will develop in collaboration with Robert Bye, with support provided by CONABIO. If successful, this project will ensure a reliable supply of medicinal plants for local use and offers the possibility of creating a source of income for Sierra residents, who can sell surpluses to commercial dealers.

Similar economic opportunities also are envisioned for other PDST components. A marketing strategy is being designed to promote the sale of Rarámuri textiles, and the Rarámuri who are planning the Rarámuri Education Initiative are considering a wide range of income-generating activities: offering contract services to other educational programs in the design of curriculum materials on Rarámuri language and culture, organizing classes on these topics for outsiders, providing local people with the training they require to be certified as tour guides, and renting research and living facilities to outside researchers at their Center. In addition, Dr. Héctor Arias, director of the Chihuahua office of the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico, has met with Rarámuri representatives on several occasions to discuss the possibility of designating portions of their homeland as protected areas and of creating conservation projects in which they would be compensated for restoring the environment and maintaining the watersheds in their region. Although the impact on the local economy of such plans cannot be determined until they are implemented, supporting Sierra residents in developing the means to survive in their homeland will continue to be a central objective for the PDST.

RESULTS AND PLANS

The Project on Diversity in the Sierra Tarahumara is the first comprehensive and systematic study of the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of northern Mexico and one of only a few such studies undertaken anywhere. Since its creation in 2000, unprecedented partnerships have been created between Indigenous communities and major research institutions across North America, and the frameworks within which extensive communication across cultural and disciplinary boundaries can take place have been established. Significant research is now being undertaken in a region that was largely unknown to the scientific world, and a series of applied programs are being implemented to help resolve the environmental, economic, educational, and health problems that confront the residents of the Sierra Tarahumara.

In the immediate future, PDST participants will focus on completing the research and applied projects now underway and initiating projects that have already been planned. A few new projects also will be developed to fill gaps in the knowledge collected to date. For example, to complete the biodiversity inventory of vertebrate species, a project focused on reptiles and amphibians is needed to complement the data compiled on birds, fish, and mammals. In addition, it is likely that Sierra residents and outside scholars will organize other new projects that will contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the PDST.

The next major step in the development of the research component of the PDST involves shifting from documentation to analysis. Studies that are more ecological in orientation will be undertaken and the patterns of distribution of biological species and cultural and linguistic phenomena across the region will be explored. The presence or absence of correlations among these patterns will then become the focus of inquiry, and explanations of the results will be formulated in terms of a series of ecological and cultural variables, in particular altitudinal gradients and regional social interaction networks. This analysis, combined with archaeological, paleoecological, and historical research, will enhance an understanding of the emergence and persistence of such diversity in environments characterized by dramatic altitudinal differences. These results will be compared to similar analyses conducted in other areas of the world, for example, the Andes, the Alps, and the Himalayas, to contribute to a general model of the processes by which humans, plants, and animals adapt to such “vertical” environments.

To begin this analytical stage, a meeting is planned for 2003 in which PDST participants will identify the range of theoretical issues to be considered and the most effective mechanisms for ensuring the exchange of knowledge and perspectives required to address them. In addition, a volume will be organized in which PDST participants produce summaries of current knowledge about the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Sierra Tarahumara and their assessment of the biocultural diversity in this ecoregion

Also as part of this next project stage, an evaluation the impact of traditional resource management strategies on the biological diversity of the region will be completed, considering the relationship between these strategies and the perspectives on the environment maintained by local residents. This work will enhance an understanding of how such perspectives are encoded, preserved, and transmitted through distinct languages and cultural practices and, in conjunction with other PDST research, will establish a solid scientific base for developing programs of conservation, sustainable development, and locally controlled cultural and natural resource management that will benefit local residents and the region as a whole.

The Project on Diversity in the Sierra Tarahumara is ultimately directed toward addressing one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today: understanding the complex interrelationships among the earth’s biological, cultural, linguistic, and physical processes in order to ensure the future health of the planet. These interrelationships must be considered within the framework of a global perspective but research on them must first be completed in projects focused on specific regions. By exploring these linkages in one of the world’s most diverse and seriously threatened ecoregions, the Project on Diversity in the Sierra Tarahumara will contribute to the advancement of knowledge in a number of scholarly and applied disciplines and will provide a model for international, interdisciplinary, and intercultural research collaboration that can be adapted to similar projects undertaken in other areas of the world.