“They talked about God in the woods, the fog was heavy and strangely warm, I don’t believe in god, and yet I am amazed to the point of superstition at the sheer beauty of this world.”
—Julio Delgado, personal communication, 2023
When the first thunder rumbles through the earth and echoes through the ravines, the ladies here cry out, ” Water is coming!”, as they rush to take down the laundry that was dancing in the wind a few moments ago. “Close the windows, turn off the TV, and quickly get the animals inside!,” as they signal and then all run … sheep, cows, chickens, and children to lock themselves in.
Seeing the sky tinged, the graying clouds about to break loose, it makes me want to cry with the sky too, because it is announcing that life will grow, that better times are coming after so much heat, and that our prayers have been answered, at last. Rain will finally come down and the rivers will grow, the swallows will return, the fireflies will light up, the frogs will sing, the earth will be moistened, the flowers and corn will revive, and the long-awaited mushrooms will finally appear in the wooded forest. Thus, everything extraordinary happens before our eyes, the beautiful Earth and its cycles provide water and food to all its beings.
After a few days of continuous rain, in the mornings we greet each other among neighbors and add, ” They say there are mushrooms in the hills…” with an excited gaze, and in between greetings we start announcing our departure in small groups to set off on foot towards the blue hills before dawn breaks.
It is estimated that there is a diversity of 200 thousand species of mushrooms in Mexico, but only 5% of these are known. Traditionally, more than 400 wild species are consumed (Garibay et al. 2006). Many of them grow in forested areas, as in Xiquipilli, my community. Their ecological importance lies in the fact that they are decomposers, since they allow nutrients to remain in the soil and thus help vegetation grow and, in short, the entire trophic chain of forests.
It is worth noting that the fruitful body of mushrooms is only a part of the organism, known for its cap and stem (seta in Spanish), while a complex network of subterranean filaments known as mycelium is actually the mushroom itself, although in practical terms we will continue to call the above-ground section, a mushroom, for the purpose of this article.
On the other hand, ethnomycological knowledge, that is, people’s wisdom that allows them to identify and prepare mushrooms, allows us to partially experience food sovereignty. The mycophagous diet is indispensable because it holds nutritional and medicinal properties (Chang 2004). In fact, some authors have proposed that edible mushrooms should be included in Mexico’s basic food requirements (canasta básica) due to their nutritional importance (Martínez 2010), since they are beneficial to the immune system, they contain antioxidants, can lower cholesterol, reduce blood pressure, and have anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic and anticarcinogenic properties (Wasser 2014).
And not only that, in addition to its nutritional benefits, traveling to the hills to pick mushrooms allows us to enjoy better physical health, by walking long distances and breathing the fresh forest air. It also brings us spiritual and psychological health. The people of the community agree that going to the hills to search for mushrooms brings us wellbeing; it is time to clear our minds, while walking for more than eight hours. It is also time to appreciate more closely our eco-affective link with the forest and have long and deep conversations among neighbors.
Doña Pascualita Castillo expressed it like this:
“Well, for me it’s therapeutic because at home, in the family, sometimes we have problems and everything, but when you go up the hill, you can free your mind and free yourself from all the problems. You focus, well, I personally focus on just finding the mushrooms, looking for them, seeing where they are, I forget about everything and everyone. It is peaceful and serene in the hills.”
On the other hand, the relationship between the cultural diversity and mycological diversity is called mycocultural heritage (Ruan Soto 2020). This heritage, as we have seen, is a complex web of life that needs to be safeguarded holistically, highlighting both its tangible and intangible aspects, since it is a set of biocultural knowledge and practices that integrate a symbiotic forest-community system, transmitted from generation to generation.
Hundreds of people depend on it to feed ourselves, but also it is through this relationship that spores are spread and the forests are cared for during the harvest.
In the community there are few people who can walk through the hills without losing their bearings, the territory is very extensive and it is easy to get lost. There are stories like that of Doña Cecy who got lost for two days. She told us that she tied herself to a tree with her shawl and that it rained very heavily that night. Fortunately, she was eventually found and today she tells us about her experience, sometimes between laughter.
Since the winds in the hills can be strong, sound can be easily dampened, so we avoid walking too far apart, preferably talking loudly or whistling, always very aware of each other, and constantly looking for each other with our gaze.
Our guides are elderly people, surprising and admirable for the vitality they have for walking, their countenance changes as they enter the forest, which seems to remind them of their childhood. As we follow in their footsteps, they tell us anecdotes and teach us to recognize mushrooms, trails and shortcuts, just as their fathers, mothers and grandparents taught them. Like Doña María de la Luz Dionisio, a person known in the community for being able to distinguish at first sight an edible mushroom from a toxic one:
“I used to go with my mom when I was little, and that’s where I learned about mushrooms. That’s how I learned how to look at mushrooms, what to call the mushrooms from those I went with, and the truth is, that’s how I learned. She passed away and now I go to the hills on my own, sometimes with my brother, sometimes with other people.”
Hours go by and our buckets and baskets are gradually filling up with beautiful colors, shapes and a peculiar aroma that makes you want to inhale them deeply. The structure of the mushrooms is beautiful, when you look closely at their bodies, you can appreciate their harmonious geometry in each lamella and hymenium. It is a leap into a wonderful and mysterious microcosm.
In the middle of our journey, we often take breaks to eat, everyone brings something to share and that makes everything much tastier. In fact, a typical phrase among people who go looking for mushrooms is “in the hills the food tastes better,” and it really does! If we are close to a river, we drink water with our hands. Perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have seen is how water emanates from the ground and the rocks, how rivers are born and flow down to the foothills.
When we head back home, the elders check each basket to make sure there are no toxic mushrooms in them. Afterwards, they are separated by species on a table, there are lobitos, patitas de pájaro, elotitos, juanitos, queshimos, mantecosos, trompas de puerco, quetas…etc. Then, they are cleaned very gently and prepared to be eaten. Other times, they are bartered or sold in nearby tianguis (street markets), because it also represents a source of temporary source of family income, especially for rural and indigenous people, like us, who live near the forest areas and where there is also a high degree of marginalization (Jasso 2016).
The relationship and participation of older adults and children is fundamental for the conservation of mycological knowledge, as well as for community and forest stewardship. It is a vital that children learn at an early age about the local taxonomy, biology, and ecology of mushrooms and other species (such as plants, trees, and animals), and it is the older people, local experts, who transmit, enrich, take care of, and reproduce this ancient knowledge.
The problems we face…
Unfortunately, going to the hills for mushrooms is becoming more and more difficult and the reasons are manifold. On the one hand, there are areas of the forest that are deeply damaged by immoderate logging, a situation that is constantly denounced by the communities, without any results. It is evident that government authorities at different levels have been incompetent in stopping the logging problem. In Mexico, it is estimated that between 2002 and 2018 gross deforestation reached 32 840 hectares per year, according to the National Forest Commission report (2018).
On the other hand, deforestation and climatic conditions, which have changed considerably in recent years, prolong droughts and increase the number of forest fires. Currently, there is a national emergency due to the number of fires. According to the National Forest Fire System, the state of Mexico has the highest number of forest fires, with 494 this year, of which 24 are active.
Many problems also arise, such as the overexploitation of forest areas, water hoarding, changes in land use, open dumps contamination, forest pests, and extensive livestock grazing, which make it increasingly difficult for some kinds of mycetes to grow and, therefore, places people’s food and mycological knowledge at risk.
There is also an accelerated and progressive loss of biocultural knowledge due to the lack of participation and involvement of the new generations. This is a matter of concern because intergenerational communication is essential to sustain life systems and our culture, and the transmission of knowledge provides us with greater tools for coexistence.
Sadly, community ties are increasingly weak and social problems are worsening as a result, such as insecurity and drug use among young people. Community trust, identity cues, and recognition/bonding with the shared territory are thus breaking down.
In the case of logging and the reduction of organic matter due to anthropogenic activities, these have contributed to the reduction of 36 species and the fragmentation of the mushroom habitat by 95% in the Valley (Jasso et al. 2016), where Xiquipilli is located. This is one of the main ecocidal activities that threaten the region’s ecosystems and poses dangers to the forests and mushroom collectors, who are sometimes even intimidated by loggers. It is worth mentioning that this activity is also linked to corruption practices and lack of political will/ethics of political and business agents.1
The presence of transportation and traffic in the forest, furthermore, as well as grazing and the increase of tourism, generate soil compaction and thus erosion and loss of local biodiversity (Jasso et al. 2016). Some governments and universities have extensively promoted mushroom picking2 (Martinez et al. 2009) as a mycotourism attraction that, together with ecotourism, alters the regeneration of ecosystems and also forces mushroom collectors to walk farther and farther to find mushrooms. The chain of extractivism and overexploitation of resources is thus prolonged until they are exhausted..
The growing demand for the ecotourism or mycotourism experience, without a sustainable and intercultural management of the area, places the ecosystems at risk and further violates the life systems of the territory, the mushroom people, the communities, and their knowledge. Therefore, mushroom collecting needs to be recognized as a biocultural heritage at risk and its situation needs to be critically addressed with the intention of understanding its complexity, placing life at the center.
Strategies for the sustainable management of forests and mushrooms are still minimal, and there is a lack of participatory methodologies to energize local knowledge to care for, reproduce and restore life networks. Likewise, there is a lack of transdisciplinary efforts that account for the issues and situated alternatives, with empirical observations and collective histories, as well as the documentation of local, theoretical, and scientific contributions that are ethically, ecologically, and culturally relevant.
On the other hand, the work of mushroom gatherers in the community should be analyzed from a decolonial lens, which could help us to rethink some keys for community and territorial management in an intercultural way, as well as to avoid biopiracy,3 while strengthening local identities through community memory and the preservation of mycocultural heritage.
These are some of the conclusions we have reached among neighbors, thanks to these long walks. We are concerned about the situation of the forest hills, every time we run into a burned or logged area, our sorrow grows. We share the pain of seeing what we love being destroyed, exploited, extracted, and contaminated. This situation summons us to organize and to denounce it, even if they do not listen to us, and also to shed tears of impotence and rage because we are aware that without forest there is no life, no water, and there will be no mushrooms. The joy of sharing a taco of wild mushrooms at home, with our families and friends, is disappearing.
Faced with this scenario, generational questions arise that invite us to ask ourselves what should we do, what we have within our reach to preserve our local knowledge and how to re-articulate the community fabric in order to face the onslaught of the present, with the conviction that other worlds are possible, if we build them together.
Bibliography
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Estrada-Martínez, Emma, Gastón Guzmán, David Cibrián Tovar and Rafael Ortega Paczka. (2009). “Contribution to the ethnomycological knowledge of wild edible mushrooms from regional markets and communities of the Sierra Nevada (Mexico).” Interciencia, Vol. 34, No. 2, 25-33. https://ve.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0378-18442009000100006.
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Footnotes
- Based on my own notes as a defender of the forests of Jiquipilco in 2019, when local organized residents held dialogue and mediation meetings with representatives of the National Guard, PROBOSQUE, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the municipal Environmental Directorate, and local residents. During these meetings we found there are no permits for such logging, but neither are there clear commitments to stop it. ↩︎
- “It would be worthwhile to include the possible influence of mass dissemination on the importance of traditional knowledge that has been done in Mexico, mainly in relation to health and food, where public universities and research centers have played an important role” (Martinez et al. 2009, p. 28). ↩︎
- “Biopiracy is a central part of the privatization of indigenous traditional collective biological wealth and knowledge […] due to several factors: the development of a complex scientific and technical revolution (biotechnology, genetic engineering, geographic information systems), the concurrence of various types of crises (economic, political, social, and environmental) and the profound ignorance of civil society on the subject” (Barreda 2001, 21). ↩︎
