You see me and my dog Agosto at a *milpa field* amongst bean landraces (Phaseolus spp.), edible cactus (*Nopalea cochenifillera*), varieties of squash (*Cucurbita* spp.), and edible greens. *Milpas* are managed traditionally and people often have to walk several kilometers to get to their fields. Photo: Eduardo Lara Carrizales

From Indigenous Crops and Mexican Food Systems to Cultural Values of German Peatlands

Cultural landscapes are reservoirs of biodiversity, traditions, and knowledge. They provide ecosystem values that contribute to human well-being and sustainable development. Our new team member Claudia Heindorf takes us on a journey around the world: from the agroecosystems of the tropical regions of Mexico to her current research on the cultural ecosystem services of peatlands in Northern Germany.

Published in

People • Nature • Landscapes

8 min readJan 5, 2022

Claudia has recently joined our research group of Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems to work on the “People and Peatlands” project funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture. She is a forest scientist and has worked and conducted research in Mexico for more than ten years. Here, her research focused mainly on ethnobotany, indigenous land use and, sustainable food systems.

Claudia, welcome to People • Nature • Landscapes. Please let us know, how did you come from indigenous food crops and sustainable food systems in Mexico to cultural ecosystems of peatlands in Germany?

Before entering the university, I wanted to work with biodiversity in pristine ecosystems. Yet, my interests changed quickly when I learned about human-nature relations and the ways in which natural resources are diversified and utilized by humans. At first sight, my research topics seem to be very different from each other, but they all share similar complex, fascinating social-ecological interactions.

Photo of the Neustaedter Moor, one of the research sites of the People and Peatlands project. It shows part of the restored peatland area. Vegetation consists of sphagnum moss (Sphagnum spp.), cotton-grass species (Eriophorum spp.), bog-rosemary (Andromeda polifolia), and the endangered and carnivorous sundew plants (Drosera spp.). Photo: Claudia Heindorf

Peatlands combine a lot of my research interests. Moreover, there is an enormous research demand: Peatlands are extremely important concerning the global climate crisis. Mires and bogs function as huge carbon sinks. Peatlands only cover 3% of the global land area but store twice as much carbon as all forests together. Yet, if peatlands are destroyed and converted to farmland, they also become a threatening source of greenhouse gases. “Business as usual” in terms of resource use of peatlands triggers the climate crises. This trend has to be stopped if we want to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. Peatlands also have a long cultural history and are valued for their ecological, economic, and cultural benefits.

There are a lot of potentials and challenges to harmonize social-cultural needs with conservation, and restoration efforts. Thus I am pleased to contribute with my new project to practical and sustainable strategies regarding peatland management. And, after a long and enriching time abroad, it is also a wonderful opportunity to investigate how people in my home country value and manage their natural resources.

Tell us more about your background as a researcher in Mexico.

The agroecosystem complex of the Huastec Maya, which consists of swidden maize fields (milpas or emlom), (coffee)-agroforestry systems (kapéjlom or te´lom), secondary forests (alte´), and home gardens (éleb). All these land-use systems are important reservoirs of agrobiodiversity and traditional knowledge. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

It all started with an ethnobiology course, which was part and specialization of my Master’s in Environmental Resource Management in the Tropics and Subtropics at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí in Mexico, and ITT Cologne, Germany. I would say this course was crucial for my personal development as a researcher and a professional. Mexico is one of the biocultural hotspots and belongs to one of the centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants. Hence, this country is a great place to learn and investigate plant domestication, indigenous knowledge, and the use of plant resources. During the Master's, we went on a field trip to the Huasteca region in Northeastern Mexico. When I saw this mosaic of different land-use systems in the Huasteca and when I met the local warm-hearted people, I decided to work in this region.

However, due to violence issues I had to postpone my research in this region. Meanwhile, I was working for an NGO in sustainable forest management and started an urban agriculture project in Mexico City. Almost five years later, I came back to the Huasteca to conduct my Ph.D. research on the in-situ conservation of plant genetic resources of the Huastec Maya (Tének). My work included investigating the diversity of food crops at the local markets, in home gardens, in extensively managed forests for fruit tree or coffee production, as well as in traditional milpas. The traditional milpa is an ancient Mesoamerican slash-and-burn farming system with a focus on maize production together with multiple other crops (e.g., beans, squashes, and edible greens).

Some examples of the Tének food crop diversity. I registered more than 347 species and variants. Most of them were registered only once, which highlights the importance of traditional land-use systems for the use and conservation of plant genetic resources. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

After focusing on agrobiodiversity and indigenous land-use systems, I decided to amplify my research horizon and started a postdoctoral research led by Dr. Balvanera-Levy at the Institute for Ecosystems and Sustainability Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. As part of the transdisciplinary action research project “Cocina Colaboratorio” (Co-Laboratory Kitchen), I investigated the impact of COVID-19 and other crises on local food systems in three contrasting research sites, including a community in the Maya Lacandon rainforest, a Zapotecean community in Oaxaca, and Xochimilco, the only Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) in Mexico.

The chinampa farmers of Mexico City are ranking local adaptation measures regarding the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the local food system. The COVID-19 crisis had a strong impact on farmers’ income and production. Some of the adaptation strategies are product and income diversification. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

How were your experiences with fieldwork in Mexico?

Fieldwork was a central part of all my investigations in Mexico. This was probably the most enchanting and challenging time at once, but a unique opportunity to explore new landscapes and to learn from locals. I often spent several weeks in a row in the local communities and stayed with rural families. This was necessary for plant inventory, workshops, seed fairs, and interviews, but foremost to bond with people, to build trust, and to dive deeper into their local and cultural contexts.

In the Huasteca, I also had the chance to learn a little bit of Tének (at least plant descriptors and uses, local names, and how to present myself). This inspired me and my Ph.D. committee (Dr. Reyes-Agüero, Dr. Anuschka van ´t Hooft, and Dr. Fortanelli Martínez) to investigate the folk taxonomy as well, which was a completely new research field for me at this time. Understanding how local people name and classify their plants enriches our understanding of the management and use of natural resources and of their biocultural importance for a region.

“La Danza del Maíz” (the maize dance) is one of the rituals of the Tének to honor the harvest of their milpa fields. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

During the fieldwork for my postdoc, I had the opportunity to collaborate with a transdisciplinary team of artists and scientists from all over the world, as well as with local people. Besides a new world of possibilities for collaboration, I learned that transdisciplinary work is challenging, under constant evolution, and a very important process for the transformation of knowledge systems. This transformation is crucial for the search for solutions to complex problems.

How can your experience from Mexico contribute to your current “People and Peatlands” project in Germany?

One of the main target groups of this project will be peatland farmers. In Mexico, I mostly worked with rural farmers, often in marginalized environments. Of course, in Northwestern Germany, the socioeconomic context is different. For example, a small-scale farmer in Germany owns up to ~20ha of land, meanwhile small-scale farmers in Mexico manage less than 5ha and produce mainly for subsistence.

Still, small- and medium-sized farms all over the world face similar challenges. They have to compete with global markets and low prices in major distribution centers. At the same time, conservation projects and government programs are more likely to benefit big agro-industrial farms than family farms. Furthermore, farmers are made responsible for climate change and pollution, while at the same time they are most affected by climate crises. I think my past experiences in strong collaboration with local people, discussing their problems and needs, will be a great asset for designing and executing my research project here.

A Tének farmer in the lowlands of the Huasteca region. Every day after cleaning the milpa, he takes his donkey to a small pond to provide it with water. Like many subsistence farmers in Mexico, he cannot effort a lot of agricultural inputs. His knowledge about plant management and plant selection helps him to produce food crops in this difficult tropical environment. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

Farmers are the practitioners who work with and live for the land they manage. They are one of the basic pillars of our food system. They have acquired knowledge through experiences and from earlier generations. In Mexico, the documentation and analysis of traditional knowledge and ethnobotany have a long and strong history. I would like to incorporate these aspects into the peatland project, and complement scientific methods with local knowledge.

Also, during my last project, we co-produced and co-designed different activities and communication products to promote knowledge transfer and exchange as well as to foster collaboration between different stakeholders. For example, we constructed a moving biocultural archive, organized cooking events, and community fairs. I believe some of those activities and ideas could be incorporated into the People and Peatlands project as well.

One of my main objectives is to bring together different stakeholders to define and discuss future strategies for sustainable peatland management. I am looking forward to a fruitful collaboration with our future project partners and stakeholders in the project area.

The mobile bicultural archive of the Co-Laboratory Kitchen project makes a stop in front of one of the houses in Loma Bonita, Mexico. Local people come to learn, taste, and experience local seed varieties and to participate in a seed exchange. Photo: Claudia Heindorf

As a last question, could you briefly describe the research area you will work on during this project?

Last week we took our first field trip to the Diepholzer Moorniederung in Lower Saxony in northwest Germany. It covers 24,000 ha of mires and is one of the most important wetland ecosystems in Lower Saxony. The region includes important sites for nature conservation and was declared a Ramsar site in 1979. It is also home to the Moorschnucke (Ovis aries (ammon) f. aries), an old endangered domesticated sheep race that is used for landscape management and valued for its meat. The peatland landscape of this region has a long agricultural history and competes with conservation and restoration efforts. These diverse conditions make this place a perfect research site.