Chef Ruiz shops at the market for her restaurant in San Cristóbal.
In Claudia Albertina Ruiz’s indigenous Tzotzil community in Chiapas, she was expected to marry young and tend to the home, but she chose a different path.
After pioneering her own way in the culinary world, she has now been recognized by the 50 Next, a list that celebrates 50 young people around the world, from activists to app creators, who are “changing the world of gastronomy in unique and interesting ways.”
Ruiz, the only Mexican included, made the list in the hospitality pioneers category.
The young chef was the first indigenous woman to enter the school of gastronomy at the Chiapas University of Sciences and Arts. Then she became the first indigenous woman to work at Pujol, the world-renowned restaurant of chef Enrique Olvera in Mexico City.
In 2016 she went on to open her own restaurant, Kokonó, in San Cristóbal de las Casas. The restaurant serves traditional Chiapas dishes and promotes indigenous culture, but has been hit hard by the pandemic.
Claudia Ruiz, one of the ’50 Next’ in gastronomy.
“Values, family, love of art, respect for others and, above all, the acceptance of individuals regardless of their origin, are all present in our space,” Ruiz said. “That is why we not only cook, but also educate – and it is an education based on professionalism, but at the same time a more humane one.”
That education is for both clients and workers, according to the 50 Next website, a project of the creators of the 50 Best world rankings.
“At Kokonó, she provides young indigenous people with training, skills and jobs, while supporting local producers and educating customers on the origin and value of each dish. In a male-dominated industry where prejudice against indigenous communities still exists, Claudia Albertina also speaks out against sexism, racism and stereotypes. She is an active promoter of the slow food movement, which links the pleasure of food with a commitment to the community and the environment.”
After meeting Ruiz, celebrated Danish chef René Redzepi said, “I was impressed by her willpower, her knowledge of the ingredients and her instinct about the role of food in every part of life and society … now more than ever we need indigenous people to have a platform to share their abilities and ancestral knowledge with the world.”
Ruiz is currently in the process of setting up an association to help the vulnerable and a soup kitchen to help those in need.
“We want to empower and inspire the next generation to achieve their dreams without forgetting their roots,” Ruiz said.
Aerial view of the Tijuana Country Club's golf course.
A legal battle is brewing over the Baja California government’s plan to expropriate the exclusive Tijuana Country Club and its 18-hole golf course and convert the green space into a public park for residents of the densely populated border city.
The government, led by Morena party Governor Jaime Bonilla, published a decree last week that outlined its intention to expropriate the property, located in an affluent part of Tijuana. It states that people opposed to the project have 15 days to lodge their complaints with the state government.
The 15-day period will expire next Wednesday.
Bonilla has proposed converting the 50 hectares of the 73-year-old club — known locally as Club Campestre Tijuana — into a public space for sporting and cultural activities. He argues that it is one of the few green areas in Tijuana, which has few parks, that can be redeveloped for that purpose.
“With the growth of Tijuana — it’s the most densely populated city in the country — it doesn’t have lungs, and young people in the neighborhoods don’t have anywhere to play. There are no green spaces,” Bonilla said after the publication of the decree in the government’s official newspaper on April 13.
Members of the Tijuana Golf Club. including Roberto Quijano, seated, second from left, at a press conference.
“I say: there’s the green space [at the country club], we have to make a big park … for the people — with swimming pools, games for children, theater, an amphitheater, all that fits there,” he said.
The governor said the publication of the decree was the first step in the process to hand over the country club land to the people so that it is no longer the exclusive domain of just 800 members.
“The country club should be in the hands of … its legitimate owners [the people]. I said it in the [2019] campaign [for governor],” Bonilla said.
“… There are people who have lived in Tijuana for 40 years and they don’t know the [Tijuana] Country Club; they can’t even gain access to the parking lot,” he said.
Bonilla said that past governments improperly allocated the club to the current owners. (According to members, it is registered as belonging to Club Campestre Tijuana.)
“I have nothing against private property, I’m pro-private property but when it [really] is private property. You can’t call something private property … that is yours now because previous governments” transferred it dishonestly, the governor said.
The news agency Reuters reported that ownership of the property has been disputed for decades, “with the government saying it was not properly transferred to new owners in 1969, after the deaths of two joint owners.”
The newspaper Milenio reported that an announcement by Bonilla late last year that his government would expropriate the club came after a disagreement with then Tijuana mayor Arturo González Cruz.
Cruz was seeking to become Morena’s candidate for governor at this year’s election. González, who was unsuccessful in securing the candidacy, is a former president of the Tijuana Country Club.
Addressing the media last week, Bonilla asserted that the club got away with not paying its taxes due to complicity with past governments. His government cites property tax and water debts as further justification for expropriating the property.
Mario Gastón Toledo Castillo, president of the country club board, rejected the governor’s claims.
“Those who assert that we’re not the legitimate owners are lying,” he told a press conference. “They’re falsely saying … that the country club has debts,” Toledo added.
Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla says the club owes back taxes, but the club’s members dispute the claim.
Although Bonilla asserted that the plan is not designed to win votes at the upcoming elections in Baja California, the optics for Morena — which could be seen as playing a Robin Hood-type role — could help it electorally.
The party’s candidate for governor, Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, said the arguments of both sides must be heard and that any decisions related to the expropriation plan must be taken in accordance with the law.
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Baja California Government Secretary Amador Rodríguez stuck to the “public good” line proffered by the governor.
“Studies have shown that what we need for Tijuana is an area that would raise the standard of living,” he said.
“The expropriation will be decreed” 15 days after the publication of the expropriation plan if there is no challenge to it. Whoever the courts recognize as the legal owners will receive more than 1.2 billion pesos (US $60.2 million) compensation over a period of two years, Rodríguez said.
The government won’t reach that point easily since there is most certainly opposition to the government’s plan. According to the newspaper Reforma, members of the Country Club are preparing a torrent of injunction requests. Adolfo Solis, a lawyer for the club’s members, said legal action has already begun.
Property ownership is one of the most important rights, he said. Such an expropriation would set a dangerous precedent.
“Any opponent, any journalist or any official, any group that is not aligned with the government, could simply have their property removed,” Solis said. “This debate is going to be won in the courts.”
Toledo, the club president, also expressed confidence that the club will win the battle.
Roberto Quijano Sosa, a club spokesman, said the expropriation plan “stinks of political revenge between two politicians,” an apparent reference to Governor Bonilla and former mayor González. “It doesn’t smell of a social claim,” he said.
Lupita Jones, who will represent an alliance of the PAN, PRI, and PRD parties at the June 6 gubernatorial election, blasted Bonilla for his expropriation plan and warned that his government could also attempt to take away the homes and businesses of everyday citizens.
President López Obrador, who founded Morena, said Tuesday that he was looking into the matter.
The complex’s clubhouse in the background.
There is also opposition to the expropriation plan among residents of neighborhoods that adjoin the Tijuana Country Club.
“The residents … are worried about the right to own private property because, with your hands on your waist, they could strip you of your wealth – that generates uncertainty,” said Eduardo de la Peña, head of a residents’ group in the neighborhood of Hipódromo Chapultepec.
The Tijuana-based news website Uniradio Informa reported that residents have warned that they will protest and could even set up human blockades to stop any attempted government “invasion” of the country club.
De la Peña said that people who live near the club are worried that the value of their properties will significantly decline if the land is expropriated and turned into a public park.
“… We have special affection for the country club,” he added. “We had our graduations here, it’s part of the history of Tijuana.”
México state native Xiye Bastida addressed the Leaders Summit on Climate on Thursday.
A 19-year-old Mexican environmental activist delivered a sharp rebuke of world leaders at the Leaders Summit on Climate on Thursday, criticizing them for their lack of ambition in tackling the climate crisis and blaming the problem on colonialism and capitalism.
Xiye Bastida, an Otomí-Toltec woman from San Pedro Tultepec, México state, who emigrated to the United States with her family in 2015 due to drought and later severe flooding in her hometown, addressed leaders on the first day of the summit, which is being hosted virtually by United States President Joe Biden.
“The climate crisis is the result of those perpetuating and upholding the harmful systems of colonialism, oppression, capitalism and market-oriented greenwash solutions,” said Bastida, the organizer of “Fridays for Future” climate strikes in New York, an international movement founded by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
“The 40 leaders who are in this summit are in the majority from the global north, which has historically perpetuated these systems. The communities who are the most affected — those who have endured displacement because of drought, flooding, wildfires, crop failure and human rights abuse — are not fully represented here today,” she said.
“Solutions must be aligned with the fact that climate justice is social justice. We can no longer keep having summits and conversations around what needs to change because we already have all of the solutions that we need, so all we have to do is implement them.”
Bastida emigrated with her family to the US in 2015 from San Pedro Tultepec, México state, after it experienced drought and then severe flooding.
Bastida bluntly told leaders that they “need to accept that the era of fossil fuels is over,” asserting that, “we need a just transition to renewables worldwide so that we can stop emitting carbon.”
She enumerated a long list of demands, telling the leaders participating in the two-day summit — among them President López Obrador, President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom and President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil — that they must stop fossil fuel investments and subsidies; put an end to existing fossil fuel extraction; and provide “comprehensive, non-Eurocentric and intersectional climate education, including literacy on climate justice, environmental racism, ancestral and indigenous wisdom, disability justice, green careers and sustainable living.”
“… You will often tell us, again and again, that we are being unrealistic and unreasonable, but who is being unrealistic and unreasonable with unambitious, nonbold, so-called solutions? You are the ones creating and finding loopholes in your own legislation, resolutions, policies and agreements.
“You are the naive ones if you think we can survive this crisis in the current way of living. You are the pessimists if you don’t believe we have what it takes to change the world,” Bastida said.
In a Twitter post, Bastida said she felt proud to have represented Mexico and youth at the summit, “especially when AMLO’s speech fell short in ambition.”
López Obrador’s address was also criticized by other environmentalists, including the director of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, Gustavo Alanís, and the head of the Mexico Climate Initiative, Adrián Fernández Bremauntz.
Xiye Bastida at the TED World Theater event in New York in February.
“It’s clear that the president didn’t understand what the meeting was about; he minimized environmental issues as much as possible and particularly those that have to do with climate change,” Alanís said.
“What is obvious is that [addressing climate change] is not a priority for him, nor does he care [about the issue],” said Fernández, referring to a president who has abolished a public climate-change trust and implemented policies that favor the use of fossil fuels over renewable sources of energy.
In his address, López Obrador said that Mexico will discontinue exporting crude oil and use its reserves to meet domestic demand for fuel. In addition, he indicated that hydroelectric plants are being upgraded to reduce the use of fuel oil or coal in electricity production.
But the central message of the president’s remarks to the summit was an invitation to President Biden to support the expansion of Mexico’s Sembrando Vida program (Sowing Life) in southeastern Mexico and Central America by planting 3 billion trees and creating 1.2 million jobs.
Also critical of López Obrador’s address and the federal government’s climate initiatives was María Daniela Rivero, founder of the Red de Jóvenes Ambientalistas (Network of Young Environmentalists), an activist group.
“Mexico does not have strong environmental discourse,” she said. “… The majority of our political leaders are not even qualified to [address] these issues. A paradigmatic change is urgent. … The Sembrando Vida program has a facade of being a pro-environment and reforestation program, but, on the contrary, it’s removing trees to plant trees,” she said.
Athletes representing Mexico at the Tokyo Olympics will wear inauguration uniforms with traditional Zapotec embroidery on the lapels after the design was selected in a national competition.
The Mexican Olympic Committee and High Life, the brand that will design the uniforms, opened the competition on April 9, inviting the public to choose among three possible Olympic uniforms, all designed by High Life.
Thousands of people voted, according to committee president Carlos Padilla. The winner was a suit featuring traditional embroidery by women of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. The uniform was made with dry-fit technology and designed with stretch jogger pants and a loose fitting suit jacket for the comfort of the athletes.
High Life will also launch a public collection of designs inspired by the Olympic uniforms.
Mexico has selected 93 athletes to compete at the games but expects to send as many as 150 in spite of uncertainty about the event due to the coronavirus pandemic. The games are scheduled for July 23 to August 8 in Tokyo, Japan.
Travel restrictions didn’t stop a grandfather from wishing his 4-year-old grandson a happy birthday across the border.
In a video circulating on social media, a grandfather in Eagle Pass, Texas, sang the traditional Mexican birthday song Las Mañanitas to his grandson, who listened from the other side of the Rio Grande in Piedras Negras, Coahuila.
The user who uploaded the video to YouTube identified the man as Isidro González and his grandson as Santiago.
Abuelito canta Mañanitas a su nieto en el Rio Bravo Entre Estados Unidos y Mexico
González showed up on the river bank with microphone, keyboard and sound system. In the video, he shouted across the river, “I love you! Te amo mucho!” before congratulating the boy, who replied, “I love you too!”
For many families residing in Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, the pandemic restrictions imposed by the United States have meant they cannot cross the border to see family. González did not let that stop him from wishing his grandson a very happy birthday.
A shrimp boat sank Wednesday after a collision with a ferry off Topolobampo, Sinaloa, causing the discharge of 14,000 liters of fuel into the ocean.
Authorities in the nearby town of Ahome have asked beach-goers not to enter the water and are monitoring beaches for any fuel that might wash ashore.
According to Baja Ferries, the Mexico Star was following its usual Topolobampo-La Paz route, carrying passengers and cargo, when it struck a fishboat with seven people on board. The ferry tried to communicate with visual and audio signals as well as by radio but the fishing vessel did not respond, the company said.
Two crew members on the shrimp boat were seriously injured.
Ahome Mayor María del Socorro Calderón held a meeting to evaluate the risk of ecological damage due to the fuel spill and asked Civil Protection and police to monitor the area for any signs of fuel.
The news portal Línea Directa reported that the port captain inspected the area Thursday and reported that the fuel had been successfully contained and there was no contamination outside the containment area. The Mexico Star was able to resume its normal schedule on Thursday.
“There is no marine contamination but we have to take the correct actions and preventative measures to avoid a pollution event. At the moment it is contained, it is controlled, we already checked the beaches and everything is normal. There is no sign of fuel,” said Port Captain Jesús López.
Omar Mendoza, the head of Civil Protection for Ahome, said that it will fall to the navy to investigate the accident.
A replica of the frieze from Calakmul's main pyramid.
Situated in Campeche 35 kilometers from the border with Guatemala, in the second-largest tropical forest in the Americas, Calakmul is one of the most significant Maya ruins in present-day Mexico.
UNESCO declared Calakmul — located in the Calakmul biosphere reserve — a World Heritage Site in 2002. The area that includes the protected biosphere was declared a Mixed Natural and Cultural Property in 2014. The site is located 60 kilometers from Highway 186, through the jungles and much wildlife — notably ocellated turkeys. On our trip from Xpujil, we saw only a few tourists.
Discovered in 1931 by biologist Cyrus Lundell, calakmul is Mayan for “Two Adjacent Mounds,” referring to its two largest structures. Calakmul is thought to have been occupied from 550 B.C., peaked in development during A.D. 250–900 and abandoned around A.D. 1000.
During A.D. 636–695, the city developed an extensive sociopolitical network before being defeated by the rival Maya city, Tikal. The kingdom continued afterward, and subsequent rulers had focused on establishing relationships with other cities like Río Bec in the north.
During its peak, the kingdom controlled an area over 13,000 square kilometers with an estimated population of over 1.5 million. Around 18 rulers have been identified by archaeologists so far.
Calakmul’s most significant pyramid, known as Structure II.
Researchers have determined that Calakmul was a pilgrimage site during A.D. 1000–1500 due to the offerings discovered inside buildings.
The archaeological zone extends over 70 square kilometers with more than 6,000 structures, but only a portion is open to the public. The site has around 120 stelae, carved or inscribed stone slabs or pillars used for commemorative purposes, the greatest of any Maya site.
There are several reservoirs in the area built by the ancient Mayas to collect rainwater; the largest measures around 242 by 212 meters. There are also useful notices with historic information at the site from the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Anthropology and History. You can climb most of the buildings.
The display area at the entrance has replicas of art and sculpture, including a model of the large frieze from the main pyramid.
We entered the Great Plaza from the north, by a stela from around A.D. 721, and a small pyramid with a possible astronomical purpose. The stela’s visible text is said to depict an ancient name of Calakmul, Uxte ‘Tuun, meaning “Three Stones,” as well as a reference to the most powerful rulers.
The plaza, measuring 250 by 150 meters with six structures around it, is the center of Calakmul, where ceremonies and political events took place. Archaeologists have identified this section as having the oldest and longest-running occupation. It was continuously occupied until A.D. 1000. Most buildings here have held tombs of rulers and elites.
You can climb most of the structures here, but prepare for the journey to be a bit steep.
South of the plaza is Calakmul’s most significant pyramid, the spectacular Structure II, measuring around 55 meters in height, on a 140-meter square base. There are four buildings on top of the main structure. To the north are the palace buildings, and to the rear is a temple. It is the highest point of the pyramid and not visible from the ground.
Some notable findings from the Structure II pyramid are nine tombs, including that of King Jaguar Claw, who ruled during A.D. 686–695; a frieze depicting different characters and large stucco masks. The pyramid is thought to represent the mythical sacred mountain Witz, whose interior was believed to have access to the underworld.
There are several stelae on the base of the pyramid. One dates back to A.D. 431, the time of the earliest known ruler. The most prominent stela on the pyramid, from A.D. 692, is thought to represent Jaguar Claw’s wife or mother performing a ritual. There are remains of large masks on either side of the main stairways.
Over time, this complex had been used for a variety of purposes: a residence for the rulers, elites, and their workers; a burial site and a location for political, ceremonial, and religious activities. The views from the top of the Structure II pyramid across the biosphere are breathtaking, and you can visualize the great kingdom from here.
North of the Great Plaza is a temple pyramid measuring around 24 meters in height, facing the Structure II pyramid. There are five stelae in front and room structures on top. An eighth-century tomb with jade masks and other ornaments was discovered here. Another notable discovery was the Mask of Calakmul, now in the Museum of Mayan Architecture in Campeche city.
East and west of the plaza are a set of buildings called the E Group, considered to be astronomical in purpose since solstice and equinox observations can be done there. The stelae on top of one of the buildings are considered possible observation points. Another building, referred to as Structure IV, has three main buildings — the central Structure IV-B and two temples on each side. A stela depicting the birth of Jaguar Claw, now in San Miguel’s Museum in Campeche city, as well as the tomb of a ruler were discovered here. While the tomb was looted, some of its funeral offerings have been recovered.
A bird’s-eye view of Calakmul’s main pyramid, off in the distance.
Another monument in the plaza worth seeing is a stela from A.D. 721 created by King Yuknoom Tok’ K’awiil, recording a ceremony conducted in A.D. 593 by an ancestral ruler, The Coiled Snake.
The 12-room elite residence building known as Lundell Palace, to the east of the plaza, is also worth seeing. A tomb of a possible ruler was found here.
West of the plaza is the Great Arcópolis, a complex which features residential buildings, temples and a ball court. The tallest building here is a pyramid with a two-layered building on top. The stela on the stairway is said to depict a woman with a ceremonial staff.
In another building in this section, there are the tombs of three elites.
Unfortunately, the Acrópolis has been cordoned off to visitors with the ongoing pandemic, but if the state of Campeche stays green on the coronavirus stoplight map, that might soon change.
The Chii’k Naab’ Acrópolis to the north of the plaza, with its mural paintings discovered depicting scenes from daily life, is also significant. Chii’k Naab’ means “House of the Water Lily,” and the acrópolis here is a quadrangular area with 68 structures.
The site is 60 kilometers from Highway 186, through the jungles and much wildlife, notably ocellated turkeys.
There are other structures to explore, including the Small Acrópolis to the east of the plaza and residential buildings to its north, but a must-see, however, is the Calakmul Museum of Nature and Archaeology, around the 20-kilometer marker on the road to the site. It has information about the kingdom of Calakmul and the region since the time when a meteor hit Earth on the Yucatán Peninsula over 65 million years ago.
Thilini Wijesinhe, a financial professional turned writer and entrepreneur, moved to Mexico in 2019 from Australia. She writes from Mérida, Yucatán. Her website can be found at https://momentsing.com/
A group of scientists has erected a plaque that officially acknowledges the “death” of the Ayoloco glacier, an erstwhile ice mass on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano that disappeared in 2018.
Experts from the National Autonomous University (UNAM) faculty of geophysics, ecologists and others trekked to the site of the now nonexistent glacier on Wednesday to install the metal plaque, which reads:
“To the future generations: the Ayoloco glacier existed here, but it retreated until it disappeared in 2018. In the coming decades, Mexican glaciers will inevitably disappear. This plaque is to leave proof that we knew what was happening [climate change] and what needed to be done. Only you will know if we did it.”
Hugo Delgado Granados, one of the scientists who completed the 7-kilometer hike to the glacier site, told the newspaper Milenio that the main consequence of the disappearance of Ayoloco and other glaciers is a reduction in the quantity of water on Earth. Without large ice masses on mountain peaks, he added, temperatures will increase.
In addition to being ecologically and environmentally important, the Ayoloco glacier has inspired a range of artists. It was extensively photographed, filmed and depicted in artworks, and inspired many Mexican writers.
The message left at the site, said UNAM faculty member Ana Pérez, tells of the “shame we feel” for not addressing climate change.
“For sports people, volcanoes are one thing, for the people who dedicate themselves to literature, they are something else and for geologists, they are another thing,” said Ana Elsa Pérez Martínez, director of literature at UNAM’s culture dissemination department.
Pérez, who also completed the hike, said the plaque acknowledging the disappearance of Ayoloco is not one of honor but rather of dishonor. It’s a sign of the “shame we feel” as a result of the inadequate response to the climate emergency, she said.
Delgado, a geologist, vulcanologist and keen mountain climber, said that Ayoloco was one of Mexico’s most emblematic glaciers, explaining that it was visible from the Valley of México, which includes Mexico City.
“This loss will have a definitive impact on … water, flora and fauna, since it is on these peaks where the liquid originates,” he said.
Today, on International Mother Earth Day, it is fitting and just to honor the strength of the feminine.
It is not a celebration that refers specifically to women — neither as mothers, partners, daughters nor sisters. I illustrate it as a tribute to the complementary powers that manifest themselves, often epicene, sometimes opposing one another, within the feminine and masculine of the animal kingdom.
What drives a leatherback sea turtle that feeds in Japan to swim 11,000 kilometers across the Pacific to lay her eggs on the same beach where she was born decades before on the Mexican coast of Michoacán, Guerrero or Oaxaca?
What kind of invisible force does a pregnant gray whale respond to by swimming 8,000 kilometers for five months, day and night, without stopping or eating, from the Arctic to the coastal lagoons of the Baja California peninsula to give birth?
What drove the famous whale shark, Rio Lady, probably pregnant, to depart Isla Mujeres in the Mexican Caribbean to navigate 8,000 kilometers across the Atlantic to Africa, by way of the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, a thousand kilometers off the coast of Brazil?
Gray whale and her calf. Sergio Martínez-PRIMMA-UABCS
And why does a monarch butterfly, weighing just half a gram, fly 3,000 kilometers from Canada and the United States to reach the oyamel, pine-oak forests of central Mexico, where she mates to ensure the survival of her species?
The truth is, we don’t actually know. Certainly, these are manifestations that have been nurtured over millions of years and form part of the intricate evolutionary-ecological web of life. Perhaps they are ancestral expressions of archetypical appeals that affirm the feminine, the yearnings of a deep, shared animal subconscious.
Whatever the case, today let us not miss the opportunity to rejoice in the natural world and the vital force of the feminine essence — one that, in the broad sense, is found within the chromosomes of all human beings and surely also in the cosmos.
In that context, let us go back to the insects, to those millions of species of bugs whose ascendancy has given them jurisdiction over our planet’s terrestrial world for over 400 million years, those ever-present arthropods equipped with two antennae, three pairs of legs, two pairs of wings.
On this Earth Day, let us think about the 380,000 species of beetles, over 20,000 species of bees, 135,000 species of flies and mosquitoes, and 120,000 species of butterflies and moths. Why? Because without them, Earth, us, would not be what we now are. Without the work of insects, especially the pollinators, humans would be in dire straits.
My favorite insect, by far, is the monarch butterfly because it embodies the essence, the reach, of the feminine. No wonder that the Greek word psyche refers to the soul of a woman, or to a butterfly!
A whale shark. Gustavo Costa
The monarch: that indefatigable traveler that performs the second-longest migration of all insects — the first being the globe skimmer, Pantala flavescens, a transoceanic dragonfly that travels 14,000 kilometers between India and East Africa. The monarch: a migrant without a visa, the butterfly that travels the skies of three countries to unite them as an indivisible landscape.
Because of its genetic assemblage, the monarch knows when to depart from Canada, how to maneuver the inhospitable heartland of the United States and when to arrive at its Shangri-la on top of the mountains of the states of Michoacán and México. Its journey is a natural wonder that is today threatened by the glyphosates that destroy its habitat in the United States, by the illegal logging in its hibernation forests in Mexico and by climate change.
If we allow the monarch, and other insect species for that matter, to be taken from us, it is not just a butterfly or a magnificent migration that we will have lost. We also lose the enormous environmental services associated with the pollination of wild plants and humankind’s crops. We would lose the ancestral stories and folklore that bond the three countries. We would lose the superstar ambassador of the feminine element of being.
On Earth Day, as a tribute to the feminine component in all of us, let us pause for a moment to think about the metamorphosis of each of those 400 little yellow eggs of 0.46 milligrams each that a monarch lays — the eggs that after just two weeks turn into caterpillars 3,000 times larger than the egg.
Let us rejoice in the chrysalises, the butterflies, their daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters and the great-great-granddaughters; the latter are precisely the ones that have flown back to Mexico every winter since primeval times.
I finish these thoughts on a personal note. One winter, 15 years ago, my daughter, Pía (at the time, just 4 years old) and I walked, hand in hand, at 3,000 meters above sea level among oyamel and oak forests at El Rosario, a community monarch butterfly sanctuary in the state of Michoacán.
Monarch butterflies. Eduardo Rendon WWF Mexico
We will never forget that deafening stream of lepidopterans that mowed us down, those fast-flying “flutterbys” that descended to gulp the droplets left by the morning mist. With our eyes closed and curling up, we hugged each other, waiting until the orange-and-black winged Danaus plexippus crowd chose to dissipate.
Now I wonder if they were perhaps the descendants of the yellow butterflies that always accompanied the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia, that magic character of Gabriel García Márquez´s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
I am wholeheartedly convinced that the survival of all species, and of Planet Earth, rests on the vitality and generosity of the feminine.
These lines, I have written for Pía.
Omar Vidal, a scientist, was a university professor in Mexico, is a former senior officer at the UN Environment Program, and former director-general of the World Wildlife Fund Mexico.
The scene of Thursday's accident in San Luis Potosí.
A pedestrian overpass crushed two trucks Thursday morning after it collapsed onto the Querétaro-San Luís Potosí highway, 39 kilometers from San Luís Potosí city.
A truck hit the overpass causing the collapse and as it fell it struck and trapped the truck as well as another which was passing.
No serious injuries or fatalities have been reported.
The accident happened at kilometer 164+400, near the community of Enramadas in the municipality of Santa María del Río, San Luís Potosí.
At around 3 p.m. the National Guard announced that limited through traffic had been reestablished in both directions on the highway.
