MINDAHI BASTIDA is Director of the Original Nations Program of the Fountain, a caretaker of the philosophy and traditions of the Otomi-Toltec peoples, and an Otomi-Toltec Ritual Ceremony Officer. He is a consultant with UNESCO on issues related to sacred sites and bioculture. Mindahi has also served as Director of the Original Caretakers Program at the Center for Earth Ethics, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York; and General Coordinator of the Otomi-Toltec Regional Council in Mexico.
Born in Tultepec, Lerma, Mexico, Mindahi holds a Doctorate of Rural Development from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and an M.A. in Political Science from Carleton University, Canada. He has written and published extensively on biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge and related topics, and has taught on subjects ranging from sustainability, ethics and earth spirituality to Indigenous voices, communitarian links and intellectual property rights. Mindahi frequently lectures on Indigenous Peoples-Nation State relationships, intercultural education, sustainability and Indigenous peoples, cosmologies and philosophies of indigenous peoples, and biocultural sacred sites. He is also deeply involved with the Biocultural Sacred Sites for Humanity, Original Peoples proposal, UNESCO, the Timekeepers Program and the Process of Unification in charge of the Latin American and the Caribbean region. Mindahi is also President of the Mexico Council of Sustainable Development, a member of the Steering Committee of the Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative, and has served as a delegate to several commissions and summits on Indigenous rights and the environment.
