Land in Mexico includes vast territories that are legally registered as communal. They represent over 100 million hectares and 52 percent of the country´s territory. Not only have they been an important recourse for villagers to maintain access and control of farmland, they have allowed cultures to endure, helped preserve 63 indigenous languages, 350 spoken dialects and various forms of craft and culinary traditions. They have also produced a unique cultural landscape of patchwork-like agricultural fields, small villages and wooded forests, synthesized into shapes of color in paintings by Mexican artists. Unlike most other Latin American countries, where between 90 and 95% of inhabitants are urban dwellers, even today 20% of Mexicans remain rural land tenants. As we have become increasingly skeptical of civilization’s eminent progression toward cities, it is worth examining the inner workings imbedded in Mexico´s land use organization. Work we have been doing both professionally and academically in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, has given us a window into understanding the complexities of this territory, its vulnerabilities and the strength with which it has preserved its cultural landscape and lifestyle.
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