The Value of Sacred Sites

MEXICO CITY - For the indigenous people, Mother Earth is not only a source of economic wealth and the means of subsistence but also the origin of our holistic conception of the world and the cosmos.

From the beginning, wherever they lived, indigenous peoples have considered the Earth sacred. She gives us life and is the fundamental element of our worldview. Because of this we respect and venerate her. Far from attempting to subjugate nature as if we were her owners, we have inherited from our ancestors a form of harmonious coexistence with nature.

The Earth is the root and source of our culture, and we must return to her daily to renew ourselves. She contains our memory, she shelters our ancestors, and for this she requires that we honor her and respectfully give back the goods she provides for us.

We must watch over and care for Mother Earth so that our children and grandchildren will also experience the bounty she provides. If the world doesn't learn to respect nature now, what future will there be for the generations to come?

In recent years mother nature has suffered tremendous and in some cases irreversible damage. The destruction of the forests, the contamination of the rivers, lakes, and the oceans, not to mention the pollution of the earth's atmosphere that is causing global warming, have become an issue of overwhelming urgency that we must address if we are to avoid becoming the witnesses to the slow and agonizing end of humanity.

However, despite the accelerated advance of the voracious modern appetite for green spaces, various initiatives undertaken by environmentalist movements have succeeded in creating so-called protected areas and in slowing the ruthless depredation of the Earth that seemed destined to end in tragedy. In these cases, the environmentalist community acted in a parallel manner to the indigenous community.

From the beginning, the indigenous peoples have preserved among their values the importance of maintaining a harmonious and balanced coexistence with nature based on spiritual respect. This is the reason why many of the places that surround our communities, the lands we sow, the forests, the rivers, the lakes, resonate with a greater spiritual dimension that renders them sacred sites.

The collective nature of the indigenous peoples and the spiritual form of our relationship with the land around us makes the Earth and all that inhabit it part of our cosmic worldview, such that not only do we respect her, we revere her.

This ancestral practice has been systematically forgotten by governments and too many of the inhabitants of the big cities. However, over the last few years there has been a growing recognition of the historic importance of sacred places and the traditional practices for protecting natural areas that the indigenous peoples have cultivated throughout history.

It is no coincidence that many of the areas protected by environmentalists are places that have been inhabited, worked, and conserved by indigenous peoples, who were able to transmit from generation to generation the respect for nature and for Mother Earth.

Unfortunately many of the processes or initiatives that governments and national and international organizations put in place to protect nature give rise to conflicts with the indigenous peoples because they fail to take into account the value that sacred places hold for these populations. Other initiatives have gone ahead without due consideration of indigenous traditional practices.

For this reason it is necessary to advance new processes to exchange experiences and strengthen previous alliances between the indigenous peoples and the environmentalists.

With improved communication and a willingness to listen to, understand, and assimilate the ancestral practices of the indigenous peoples, national and international organizations that are genuinely concerned about the Earth would enrich their strategies for the implementation of viable and lasting initiatives to reverse the terrible environmental devastation. This would make possible the survival and effective management of the traditional and sacred sites of our peoples.

With initiatives of this type we can reverse not only the rampant destruction of the environment but also the discrimination against indigenous culture and its wealth of knowledge of our planet that the world so desperately needs.

(COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Rigoberta Menchú, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, serves as Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).