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More recently, however, this strategy also inspires alternative
approaches, based on the local appropriation of these concepts by
people conscious of the wealth of inherited knowledge that can be used
to ameliorate environmental problems. These alternative discourses
and perspectives have been used mostly in the southern countries, in
part by theorists, intellectuals or practitioners working directly with
peoples who express their demands in terms of territorial defense,
alternative development, autonomy, sustainability and self-suffi ciency
(Escobar 1995, Barkin 1998, Toledo 2000). The more successful of
these proposals are designed from the local point of view, where the
inhabitants become the protagonists of the recovery and preservation
of their resources.
These Mexican projects draw on a long history of struggle by different
social groups and refl ection by southern thinkers who have promoted
alternative approaches to sustainability. The basic tenets of this work
are: a) the active participation of the local population in the design
and implementation of the plans and programs, so that they generate
a capacity for self-management and a recuperation of social institutions
and cultural identity; and b) the enhancement of the ecological diversity
as part of a program that contributes to diversifying the local economic
base (Bonfi l 1996). Thus, sustainability itself is a complex set of ideas
that is understood differently as people assimilate the lessons into
their own individual ethos. From the market perspective, the model
enables the 'guardians of the forests' to refrain from joining the low-
waged labor force
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—a transitory opportunity, concentrated in the
development poles—so that they can become protagonists of their
own sustainable regional development.
An example to rebuild a watershed involved an effort to reverse
deforestation and compensate for the excessive withdrawals resulting
from a mega-tourist development. An environmental rehabilitation
program invited the communities to recover their life styles, reinforcing
local institutions and diversifying the productive structure, rejecting
the standard paternalistic and clienteles' approach; it had three
objectives: a) to reconstruct and conserve the region's basins and
forests; b) to use the ecosystems in a sustainable manner; and c) to
join the inhabitants of the coast of Oaxaca in their efforts to recover
their dignity (Barkin and Pailles 2000, 2002). It helped diversify the
rural economy by introducing alternative productive systems to
raise incomes and strengthen local institutions, blending traditional
knowledge systems for conservation with modern production
techniques. If the project had not considered the enormous potential
of traditional knowledge in ecosystem management, the project would
have encountered greater resistance from the local communities, as is
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