Wixarika Community Demands the State Provide Dignified Opportunities to its Inhabitants

The inscription of the Wixárika Route through the sacred sites of Wirikuta as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, both cultural and natural, on July 12th, during the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee, is “a strategic tool that strengthens the protection of Wirikuta and many other sacred sites along our ancestral routes to prevent their deterioration and destruction,” stated members of the Wixárika Regional Council for the Defense of Wirikuta.

Traditional, civil, and agrarian authorities from the Wixárika communities that make up the Regional Council held a press conference at the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Prodh), where they emphasized that the Council, along with its allies, has worked for years to achieve this international recognition and to publicize the importance of this work. Furthermore, this recognition “does not mean surrendering our ancient culture, but rather protecting it to prevent its plundering, commodification, and extinction.”

The inscription, in turn, “commits the Mexican State more than ever to providing sustainable development options for local inhabitants to prevent the exploitation of the territory by agribusiness and extractive projects.”

The recognition “obliges Mexico to increase its efforts in protecting peyote from plunder by groups that do not belong to the Wixárika people, who have brought it to the brink of extinction.” The Regional Council demands, now more than ever, that Wirikuta and other sacred sites be free from threats and that dignified and sustainable opportunities be provided to their inhabitants, stated Maurilio Ramírez Aguilar, general coordinator of the organization, who was accompanied by Aurelio Torres Carrillo, commissioner of communal lands of Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán; Felipe Seriochino, representing the Wixárika community of San Sebastián and Tuxpan; and Sofía García Mijarez, communications coordinator.

The members of the Regional Council categorically rejected the defamation and criminalization of their defense of sacred sites, as well as of their members, specifically their colleague Santos de la Cruz, since their defense is for life itself. They remembered their comrades who lost their lives defending sacred sites.

In light of the new international obligations assumed by the Mexican State, the Regional Council demands the cancellation of all mining concessions held by national and foreign companies in the Sierra de Catorce, the Wirikuta lowlands, and their surrounding areas. In 2010, 78 mining concessions were registered within this sacred territory.

They also called for elevating the Wirikuta Protected Natural Area in the state of San Luis Potosí to federal status and, concurrently, for the adoption of appropriate legal, scientific, technical, administrative, and financial measures to protect, conserve, and restore their sacred sites and ancestral pilgrimage routes.

Planning Programs

Other demands include adopting a comprehensive policy aimed at protecting cultural and natural heritage through regional planning and development programs developed with the participation of the inhabitants and the Wixárika people, as well as “recognizing and supporting the Wixárika people’s ancestral forms of organization for the management, monitoring, and regeneration of our sacred sites, with an inclusive and participatory approach involving local residents.”

The Wixárika people are an ancient ethnic group settled in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range, between the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Durango, and Zacatecas. In 2010, their population was 44,788. Wirikuta is a sacred site of vital importance to the Wixárika people, located in the municipalities of Catorce, Charcas, Vanegas, Villa de Guadalupe, and Villa de la Paz, in San Luis Potosí.

The Wixaritari people make pilgrimages from their communities, more than 400 kilometers away, visiting various sacred sites to perform their ceremonies, until they reach Wirikuta, an area that also has high ecological value due to its biodiversity and the environmental services it provides to society as a whole. However, it is threatened by open-pit mining to extract silver and other precious minerals.

Among UNESCO's recommendations are prohibiting mining activities, guaranteeing rights of way and transit, and ensuring dignified work activities that "do not affect health."

The legal protection of the site is guaranteed by various federal and state laws. The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) is the federal agency responsible for the conservation of cultural heritage.

At the end of the press conference, Francisco Vidargas, INAH's Director of World Heritage and Cultural Focal Point to UNESCO, reported that in 2026 they will receive the certificate of inscription from UNESCO so that,