Monserratt Cortés Macías

Transitional Territories

Cosmopolitics | Elevating traditional ecological knowledge

Future [Arch]Ecologies | Territory, Identity and Heritage: Landscape as infrastructure for a new socio-cultural co-production in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

The exponential growth of the tourism industry in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is a threat to the environment and the indigenous communities that live in the area. The massive subdivision of land has led to ecological imbalance and risks the fragile social fabric. Indigenous communities have resisted by developing a close relationship with the environment, both in their worldview and in the way they continue to care for their land.

With Evolutionary Reserve, I propose a gradual transition between performative land and conservation areas in the heart of the Mayan Forest for new territorial management. Through a process that respects nature cycles and fallow periods, the goal is to reconnect biological corridors and to weave cultural practices, bringing forward the natural capital, ecosystem services and traditional ecological knowledge in an innovative way for a re-connection to place and a co-production of space with indigenous communities.