The WONDER Project
Weaving, Oaxacan Narratives for Nurturing Deep Ecological Relationships and Wellbeing
Our world faces two deeply entangled crises: an accelerating ecological emergency and a widespread mental health and wellbeing crisis. Anthropogenic climate disruption, unsustainable resource extraction, and biodiversity degradation are transforming the ecosystems that sustain human life. Concurrently, modern societies are witnessing rising rates of psychological distress, alienation, and chronic stress.
Conventional approaches treat these emergencies as separate problems managed by isolated fields: environmental science tackles ecological collapse, while clinical and educational psychology address mental health. The WONDER project operates on a different premise: human wellbeing and planetary health are inseparable. Healing one requires understanding our relationship with the other.
Over 70% of Mexico’s forest resources are managed by Indigenous and peasant communities. Despite stewarding 12% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, these ecosystems face mounting pressures from environmental changes, severe resource extraction, and climate vulnerabilities.
Contemporary Western and individualistic paradigms often measure success through competition and economic output rather than relational flourishing or the Good Living “El Buen Vivir”. Modern populations are increasingly disconnected from the natural ecosystems that support emotional self-regulation, resilience, and psychological balance.
Dominant global discourses have long favored a Western, universalist framework that overlooks ancient epistemologies. While Indigenous communities—such as the Mazate and Nahua peoples in Oaxaca or the Totonacas or Huastecas in Veracruz—have cultivated sustainable, reciprocal relationships with ecosystems for millennia, their perspectives remain underrepresented in international research, public policy, and mainstream education.
Historically, the voices of Indigenous and rural women have been neglected in global policy, academic science, and formal leadership. Yet, Indigenous women serve as the primary custodians of cultural practices, family well-being, ancestral knowledge, and community-based environmental care.
Meeting the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) goals requires moving beyond purely technical interventions. We need an epistemic shift.
The WONDER project directly addresses this gap by creating spaces where Indigenous Cosmovisions (For Latin American Indigenous peoples, cosmovision is a holistic, relational worldview where humans, nature, and the spiritual realm are interconnected. It emphasizes reciprocity, communal land stewardship, and living in harmony with all beings rather than dominating them), and Western psychological and educational frameworks engage in an equitable, two-way dialogue. Rather than imposing external solutions, we listen to how Mazatec, Nahua, Totonacas and Huastecas women conceptualise personal flourishing through environmental care, deriving vital lessons to foster sustainability, popular education, and holistic well-being globally.
Championing the Zapatista principle of creating “a world where many worlds fit”—challenging homogeneous development models to support diverse ways of knowing and living sustainably.
UN SDG 3
Advancing nature-connected models of psychological health.
UN SDG 5
Amplifying the agency, voices, and leadership of Indigenous women.
UN SDG 13 & 15
Integrating traditional ecological knowledge into regional conservation practices.
UN SDG 4
Fostering non-formal, popular education models that honour cultural diversity.
“By weaving worldviews and amplifying Indigenous women’s voices, we can co-create new avenues toward a more sustainable and fulfilling future—bridging ancient ancestral wisdom and contemporary science to nurture our shared planet.”