Ecotone waltz – Oaxaca, Mexico

Photographer’s comment: “As in a dancing floor, ecosystems and ecotones intertwine and dance with different land uses in the mountains of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Coming up from the dry Central Valleys south of Cuajimoloyas –the village in the picture–, pine and oak forests thrive on the edge of the clouds that come to die in this mountain range after rising from the Gulf of Mexico. Cuajimoloyas is one of the seven villages that compose the community of Pueblos Mancomunados. Sustainable extraction and management of non-timber forest products, like wild mushrooms and flowers, traditional methods of agriculture, and a well-developed ecotourism industry have allowed its villagers and fellows from elsewhere in the community to work on a landscape level, conserve biodiversity and generate jobs dwellers of this lands.“