Lives and Livelihoods Affected by Climate Change
Excerpts from four oral histories
Climate Change and Gendered Inequalities
People used to be stronger!” Dona Maria definitively asserts. People’s bodies were stronger, they did more outdoor work, they avoided and tolerated illnesses better, and for her, most significantly, women were able to give birth multiple times without interventions like Cesearean sections. She mainly attributes health over one’s life course this to healthy eating. The daughter of a cattle rancher and wife of a milpero, Maria has lived in and around Yucatan’s countryside all her life. Her concern with the decline of a diet based on local fruits and vegetables and animals raised in the milpa and the rise of the predominance of processed foods mirrors a global phenomenon known as nutrition transition (Popkin 2003). Nutrition transition has become increasingly predominant especially across the Global South. The dual-edged effect of a very rapid nutrition transition wrought by climate change is highly evident in Pisté. People eat processed foods because they no longer have access to fresh foods produced in the milpa and at the same time, processed foods have replaced what is available for consumption.
“It’s a Test of Faith”
Don Samuel is a farmer and a beekeeper in his mid-80s. He still goes to his corn plot on an almost daily basis. His understanding of the changes he has experienced working the land and raising bees and other animals is informed not only by a sophisticated knowledge of flora and fauna but also by a faith in God’s providence over the natural world.
Don Samuel and Doña Amalia discuss how climate change has posed major threats to land, farmers, and Maya heritage.
Cultivating Amidst the Ruins at Chichén Itzá
Don Mateo remembers when he was young, growing up in the ruins of Chichén Itzá, where his family lived and worked as caretakers of the site. When he was a child, Chichén was “puro monte,” covered in forest, with moist earth good for planting all kinds of beans, fruits, vegetables, and of course, corn––quite different from how one finds the World Heritage site receiving its thousands of visitors a day now.