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From July 24 to 27, 2025, 250 people from 60 communities, organizations, and networks from different states of Mexico, Colombia, and other countries such as Valencia and Germany gathered in the community of Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico, to hold the International Encounter in Defense of Life: Corn, Water, Territory, and Mother Earth. The event was convened by Crianza Mutua México (part of the Global TapestryThe weaving of networks of Alternatives of AlternativesAre activities and initiatives, concepts, worldviews, or action proposals by collectives, groups, organizations, communities, or social movements challenging and replacing the dominant system that perpetuates inequality, exploitation, and unsustainabiity. In the GTA we focus primarily on what we call "radical or transformative alternatives", which we define as initiatives that are attempting to break with the dominant system and take paths towards direct and radical forms of political and economic democracy, localised self-reliance, social justice and equity, cultural and knowledge diversity, and ecological resilience. Their locus is neither the State nor the capitalist economy. They are advancing in the process of dismantling most forms of hierarchies, assuming the principles of sufficiency, autonomy, non-violence, justice and equality, solidarity, and the caring of life and the Earth. They do this in an integral way, not limited to a single aspect of life. Although such initiatives may have some kind of link with capitalist markets and the State, they prioritize their autonomy to avoid significant dependency on them and tend to reduce, as much as possible, any relationship with them.) in coordination with the Community Government of Ch’ich’, the Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ community, the PVIFS-Chiapas Collective, the Oaxacan Water Forum (FOA), the Working Group “Bodies, Territories, Resistances” (GT Cuter) of CLACSO, CIESAS, CESMECA-UNICACH, and Crianza Mutua Colombia.

The purpose of the gathering was to share organizational experiences in the defense of life and to reflect collectively on how to confront projects and megaprojects, as well as militarization and organized crime, which threaten life. The aim was to continue weaving radical alternatives from the territorial and community base. On the Gathering’s website (https://encuentrodefensavida.jkopkutik.org/) and that of the Global Weaving of Alternatives, you may access the full information (videos, podcasts, photos), and here we share with you the declaration—in Spanish and English—in which participants analyze the current situation lived in the territories in these times of Civilizational Collapse and Terricide. Greetings from the organizing committee of the international encounter: Mauricio del Villar (CMMCrianza Mutua Mexico-GTAGlobal Tapestry of Alternatives and Oaxacan Water Forum), Xochitl Leyva Solano (CMM-GTA and CLACSO GT Cuter), Pascuala Vázquez Aguilar (Spokesperson of the Community Government–Chilón), and Juan Silvano Morales (Councilor of the Community Government of Ch’ich’, Chilón)

Below, you can find the declaration detailing the encounter and its results.

To local, national, and international civil society To human rights organizations To the States and governments of Planet Earth To movements, dignified struggles, and rebellions To the local, national, and international press

Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico – July 25–27, 2025

With the presence of 250 people from 60 communities, organizations, and networks, we came together on July 25, 26, and 27, 2025, in the community of Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ (below the Río Grande), municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico. Our aim was to share organizational and community experiences in resistance and in the defense of life, water, corn, territory, and Mother Earth.

We are women and men, youth and elders, children and grandparents, acknowledging and celebrating our cultural, generational, spiritual, and gender diversity.

We came from many territories of Mexico—Oaxaca, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Puebla, the State of Mexico, and Chiapas—as well as from Colombia, the Valencian Country, and Germany.

We gathered to find ways of confronting destructive projects by weaving together, with greater strength, the alternatives we are already building in our families, communities, towns, regions, territories, organizations, and struggles. After three days of sharing and analyzing the situations in our regions and the world, we declare and reaffirm:

Our territories are rich in biocultural diversity inherited from our ancestors, yet gravely threatened by an extractivist development model that, under capitalist, patriarchal, and individualistic logic, strips away everything that sustains life.

We face common threats: a) violations of the rights of women, children, youth, elders, men, gender-diverse people, communities, and Mother Earth; b) the militarization of our territories by local, regional, and national security forces; and c) the advance of organized crime in complicity with governments and states.

Projects are imposed on our territories without the free, prior, and informed consent of the peoples; consultations are manipulated as tools of dispossession. Institutional powers systematically instigate community division in favor of capitalist companies.

In an exhausted world, we affirm that our enemy is the same everywhere, and we reject colonialist and patriarchal models of development, which have never served us.

Through our sharing, we have heard and embraced:

• The struggles of MODEVITE (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory), the Community Government of Chilón, and their Autonomous Communal Pluriversity Yutsilal Bahlumilal–Ch’ich’ Community Government, who have resisted for more than ten years against the San Cristóbal de las Casas–Palenque Highway, misnamed the “Highway of Cultures.”
• The struggles in Oaxaca against the Interoceanic Corridor, the Margarita Maza de Juárez dam, and mining concessions.
• The fight in Coahuila against an illegal toxic waste dump and in defense of the San Miguel stream.
• The resistance in Hidalgo against a planned solar park in Sahagún and against water contamination in Tula.
• The denuncia from Veracruz of government programs distributing fertilizers and agrotoxins that poison the soil and communities.
• From Colombia, the struggles of Crianzas Mutuas to defend rivers in Suárez (Cauca Valley) and the Cabildo de Taganga, Santa Marta, where fishing communities fight for their maritorio (fishing grounds).
• We have shared our pain, but also our hopes: community organization rooted in normative systems, our spiritualities and ceremonies, and collective work that sustains the alternatives we practice in daily life. Together, we weave our capacity to dream in the midst of violence and war.
• We denounce the strategies of governments, political parties, business elites, and local caciques who seek to destabilize our communities for capitalist gain.

We demand:

• Respect for our rights and those of Mother Earth.
• Protection of the lives of defenders of territory and human rights across Latin America and the planet.
• Respect for the autonomy and self-determination of Indigenous, Black, and Afro-descendant peoples, and recognition of their collective rights as established in national and international law.
• An immediate halt to megaprojects—highways, concessions, dams, mining, and other extractive schemes—that dispossess Mother Earth.
• Respect for women, youth, children, and gender diversity, especially within Indigenous, peasant, fishing, Black, and Afro-descendant communities.
• The right of youth to flourish in their own communities, contributing their skills and knowledge.
• We stand in solidarity with Colombian movements resisting oil and gas exploitation, destructive dams, and mining; with MODEVITE; and with all collectives resisting predatory megaprojects.

From this sacred Maya territory, we call:

• On Indigenous peoples and civil society—locally, nationally, and internationally—to accompany, in person or from afar, the August 9 pilgrimage called by the Believing People of the Jesuit Mission of Bachajón, rejecting the imposition of the highway across Indigenous Maya lands. This project, alongside the Interoceanic Corridor, the so-called “Maya Train,” and water privatization, is part of a territorial reorganization serving big capital.
• To continue weaving together ancestral wisdom, spiritualities, and struggles in the search for peace with justice and dignity, and in the defense of life.
• To revalue the life of peasants and communities that sow our food, defend native seeds free of GMOs, and restore the fertility of our lands through natural farming.
• To recognize that governments and states will not solve our problems; only through collective organization, solidarity, and autonomy can we defend life—our bodies, our territories, our lands.

We salute and embrace:

• The community of Cherán K’eri—your struggle is our struggle.
• Jlumaltik Candelaria, fighting for recognition of their government and community autonomy.
• The Zapatistas and their “Some Parts of the Whole” Encounter (August 2–17).
• The Organización Sociedad Civil Las Abejas, for their struggle for justice, peace, and dignity.
• The organizers of the Regional Forum in Defense of Territory and Autonomy against Megaprojects in Chontal and Istmo (August 9).
• The International Congress on Communality in Oaxaca (August 7–9).
• The education workers of the CNTE.
• Our sisters of the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, the Modern Democratic Academy, the Kurdish women’s movement, and Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan.
• Our comrades in the Global Tapestry of Alternatives: Crianzas Mutuas Colombia, Vikalp Sangam of India, and MASSAMovement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (South East Asia) in Southeast Asia.

No to genocide in Gaza! No to wars! Yes to Life!

Planet Earth – Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ Community – Chilón, Chiapas Sunday, July 27, 2025

• Crianza Mutua México part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
• Crianzas Mutuas Colombia part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
• Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y el Territorio, Chiapas, Mexico (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory - MODEVITE)
• Association of Community Councils of the Municipality of Suárez, Cauca, Colombia
• Gobierno Comunitario Chilón, Chiapas (Chilón Community Government)
• Indigenous Council of Taganga, Santa Marta, Colombia
• Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ Community, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
• Pluriversidad Autónoma Comunal Yutsilal Bahlumilal de Gobierno Comunitario Ch'ich', Chiapas, Mexico (Yutsilal Bahlumilal Autonomous Communal Pluriversity of Ch'ich' Community Government)
• Movement of Living Rivers of Colombia
• Corporation of Chinchorreros of Taganga, Colombia
• Proyecto de Educación Alternativa (PEA), Selva Ocosingo Region, Sección VII de la CNTE Chiapas, Mexico (Alternative Education Project of the National Coordinator of Education Workers)
• Water Custodians of southeastern Coahuila, Mexico
• Bachajón Mission, Chiapas, Mexico
• Centro de Derechos Indígenas A.C, Chiapas, Mexico (Center for Indigenous Rights A.C.- CEDIAC)
• Colectivo Proyecto Videoastas Indígenas de la Frontera Sur, Chiapas, Mexico (Collective Project of Indigenous Videographers of the Southern Border - PVIFS).
• Foro Oaxaqueño del Agua, Oaxaca, Mexico (Oaxacan Water Forum)
• Working Group “Bodies, Territories, Resistances” - GT CUTER CLACSO
• Colectivo Sí a la Vida, Jalpa Coahuila (Yes to Life Collective)
• Comunidad de Pedagogas(os) Críticas(os) y Educadoras(es) Populares de Chiapas, México (Community of Critical Pedagogues and Popular Educators of Chiapas)
• Universidad de la Tierra Huitzo Yelao, Oaxaca, Mexico (Huitzo Yelao University of the Earth)
• Centro Universitario Comunal de Guelatao de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca (Guelatao Community University Center of the Autonomous Communality University of Oaxaca, Mexico)
• Observatorio de Participación Social y Calidad Democrática de la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico (Observatory of Social Participation and Democratic Quality of the University Iberoamericana Puebla)
• Observatorio Ciudadano/Comunitario del Agua y Medio Ambiente de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, Mexico (Observatory of Citizen/Community on Water and the Environment in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca)
• Observatorio de las democracias: sur de México y Centroamérica - ODEMCA (Observatory of Democracies: Southern Mexico and Central America)
• Colectivo Tsijilba Bij de Agua Clara de Chiapas, Mexico
• Tejidos de Sanación de Oaxaca/CDMX (Healing Networks of Oaxaca/Mexico City)
• Servicios Comunitarios de Oaxaca, Mexico (Oaxaca Community Services)
• Kokopelli Collective of Northern Veracruz, Mexico
• Centro Universitario Comunal de San Pedro Comitancillo de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca, Mexico (San Pedro Comitancillo Community University Center of the Autonomous Communality University of Oaxaca)
• Cooperativa Editorial de la Red Transnacional Otros Saberes (Transnational Network of Other Knowledge RETOS Publishing Cooperative – RETOS).
• Machtia Collective of Hidalgo, Mexico (Free Learning)
• Silvestra Project: Compost Toilets of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Satil Film, Chiapas, Mexico
• Savi Network of the Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Colectivos Nichimal Cuxlejalil, Chiapas, Mexico (Flourishing life)
• Musiqueros Principales, Región Ch'ich’, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico (Principal Musicians Collective)
• Ach'ix Querem Ec' Chilón, Chiapas, México
• Tejido de Colectivos Universidad de la Tierra Caldas y Suroccidente Colombiano (Network of Collectives of the University of the Earth, Caldas and the Colombian Southwest)