The agricultural practices behind two famous beverages During our stay in Oaxaca we got to understand that local communities have found various ways to consult among each other for proper management of their common watershed. However, different from past decades, communities now are no longer concerned with only subsistence agriculture. …
In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to create a standard of quality for public water systems and protect citizens from waterborne disease. Faced with the costs of drinking water filtration infrastructure and upkeep, New York City officials chose to instead adopt a watershed management program to …
I duck under the tin roof of the cooking enclosure and my lungs immediately fill with smoke. Gabby is explaining how they use the ash from the cooking fires in their newly installed dry bathrooms at the #131 Secondary School of San Miguel Suchixtepec. We are 8,000 feet above sea …
As a Westerner, when I ask myself what marginalized remote indigenous communities can do when facing severe water shortages and little in the way of modern technological resources, I am sometimes at a loss. Much to my surprise and pleasure, Bard CEP’s visit to the community of San Juan Cieneguilla …
What do coastal resort towns and mountainous coffee farms have in common with peri-urban Oaxaca? Other than places visited by Bard CEP during our time in Mexico this January, they are home to communities that recognize the value of nature and natural spaces and are working at the local level …
In January of 2018, the first-year students at Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy (CEP) travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico to visit and learn from indigenous and local communities. We had an opportunity to talk about methods for environmental conservation as well as practices that make life easier (to that same end) …
This January, Bard CEP students visited the state of Oaxaca, Mexico to study watershed management and sustainable development. While traveling to the Pacific coast, we met with Omar Gabriel Gordillo Solís, a Director at the National Commission on Protected Natural Areas (CONANP). Omar told us about the history and …
This January, first-year Bard CEP students went to Oaxaca, Mexico for a course examining resource management, sustainable development and international trade dynamics. The activities of the trip highlighted how community dynamics and global economic drivers influence resource management and the sustainability of development. One approach to sustainable development that I …
During the Bard CEP Oaxaca course trip I learned about a new technology that I’ve been fixated on since: dry toilets! I’ve always specialized in waste management, but I’ve never had much exposure to human waste management. When we visited the community of Cieneguilla, our hosts mentioned dry toilets as …
Mist billows up from the valley, swirling around the green mountains of San Miguel Suchixtepec. Standing by the snow-white superadobe house of Don Claudio, I see a kaleidoscope of alternating bright greens and dark greys, as the sun breaks through the clouds and then ducks behind them again. Looking out …
