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Mission Possible:
Restore 20 Traditional Reservoirs!
Plant 50,000 Native Trees!
Tikkun Eco Center is working to ensure water security and climate change resilience in rural San Miguel.
Tikkun’s Model Ecological Restoration Project
In 2022, Tikkun restored the historic rain water reservoir in our pueblo of San Jose de Gracia, increasing its capacity from 5 million litres to 50 million liters and extracting 1400 truckloads of rich soil to use for reforestation.
With the help of the San Miguel Ecology Department, we were able to plant 1000 native trees and cactus, using captured rain water to irrigate the saplings.
We extracted over 200 truckloads of the water hyacinths currently choking the Presa Allende, using them for compost and mulch - making a resource of this invasive plant, and lowering water needs by 50%.
We stocked the new reservoir with fish, and installed a solar pumping station to bring water up to the village.
This model project has garnered the collaborative support of local NGOs Caminos de Agua, Salvemos el Rio Laja, the San Miguel Community Foundation, and the Municipal government of San Miguel.
In 2024, Tikkun is developing two new reservoir projects in the communities of Santa Barbara and Los Torres.
We can transform drought and poverty to abundance.
Ecological destruction and climate impacts are now driving a global resource crisis leading to water and food insecurity, social conflict, and mass migration.
But there is good news.
As the 5 Most Epic Earth Healing Projects video shows, solutions can be implemented on a large scale in to transform semi-arid and arid regions, bringing immediate improvement in human and ecological health, and reversing desertification.
Watch and be inspired!
Learn More
Why we must capture the rain.
As climate change and drought increase, San Miguel and our Upper Rio Laja watershed are already facing a serious crisis of water insecurity and desertification.
Water in San Miguel is currently projected by state authorities to run out in 2030.
Meanwhile deforestation spreads as we lose trees to over-development, drought and erosion, driving the watershed death spiral.
An immediate solution is to restore the traditional rainwater reservoirs of our region which have fallen into disrepair, then use the excavated soil and newly captured rainwater to reforest.
In San Miguel, and throughout the drylands of Mexico, the majority of our water comes from the short monsoon rainy season.
Historically, rainwater capture reservoirs have sustained campesino farming communities through the long dry season. However, rural electrification at the end of the 20th century created a new reliance on deep-drilled electric wells. The traditional reservoirs were neglected and many were abandoned. Today they are filled with silt and soil, their dams are broken, and they no longer hold enough water to last the dry season.
At the same time, agribusiness is creating an unfolding catastrophe: Our deep aquifers are being drained for export agriculture, and our wells are now running dry. Remaining wells are contaminated with arsenic and flouride, causing serious childhood illness.
Meanwhile, the extreme heat and drought of climate change is lengthening and strengthening the dry season. This is exacerbating severe water shortages and food insecurity, driving rural migration to urban areas and to the dangerous U.S. border.
Before restoration : May 2022
After restoration: October, 2022
The San Jose de Gracia Restoration
In May of 2022, Tikkun began restoration of the historic reservoir in our pueblo of San Jose de Gracia. We are told that for over 200 years this reservoir served four villages, but had fallen into disrepair and was little more than a mud flat for most of the year.
Meanwhile, our local aquifer is being drained by the many export agribusiness farms in our valley, and our village well had run dry. A new, deeper well (up to 400 meters) was dug that serves five villages. Now our community is forced to ration, with each family receiving only two hours of well water a week for all their needs. This is scarcely enough for cooking and bathing, let alone growing food or maintaining livestock.
In the course of just one month, we restored the San Jose de Gracia reservoir. Using an excavator, bulldozers and trucks, we removed over 1400 truckloads of rich soil that had washed in from the surrounding farms.
We dug a quarry, excavating hard tepotate to raise the pond edges and restore the dam, and we created better water management systems to prevent further erosion of soil into the water. We returned much of the soil to surrounding local farms, and with the rest we began a reforestation project around the reservoir.
Tikkun donated over 100 native tree saplings and hundreds of magueys. The San Miguel Municipal Ecology department donated 1000 native trees. Both villagers and expats volunteered to plant, including the elderly and children.
When the rains came and filled the reservoir, Tikkun stocked it with tilapia from our own ponds. The trees are now thriving in the rich soil, with a thick mulch of water hyacinths, and irrigation of captured rainwater.
Thanks to a grant from the San Miguel Community Foundation and other funders, in Spring 2023 we built a kiosk by the reservoir that is both a community meeting place and a solar pumping station to bring water from the reservoir up to the village. Our plan is build a distribution system so that families can keep their gardens alive even during drought.
This is a model ecological restoration project that can significantly improve the health and resilience of the San Miguel community and the Upper Rio Laja watershed.
