Geraldine Patrick Encina, PhD
Indigenous Relations Advisor, One Earth
Geraldine Patrick Encina, PhD is the mother of climate justice activist Xiye Bastida and music producer Danzaki and wife of Mindahi Bastida Muñoz, a principal authority in the Grand Council of the Eagle and the Condor. Geraldine has Mapuche and Celtic ancestry, and her ethnoecological approach has led to groundbreaking findings about the astronomical and ecological basis of timekeeping in Mesoamerica.
She is a member of the Otomi Council of the High Lerma River Basin that achieved legal protection of the headwater wetlands in Toluca Valley, Mexico State. She is a board member of the Biocultural Heritage Network of the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), the American Renewable Energy Institute, Land Healers, and Y on Earth!
Over the past decade, she has worked with community leaders and teachers in the Yucatan Peninsula and Central Mexico to promote the use of original calendars in year-round biocultural activities for good and harmonious living in their ecosystems. Among her publications are Biocultural Sacred Sites in Mexico and Ecology and Wetland Culture in Almoloya del Río, 1900-2004. Towards a Sustainable Management of Chiconahuapan, a Remnant of the Lerma Wetlands.