Dressed in their distinctive hand-embroidered costumes with broad-brimmed sombreros and carrying feathered power-wands, over 650 men and women from Mexico’s indigenous Huichol community have been staging a "sit-in" in a remote forest clearing on their communal lands in the Sierra Madre Occidental since 6am on February 11.

They are attempting to halt a highway, construction of which began in November and which the Huichol claim to be illegal. The road has now reached the Huichol heartland in the remote state of Jalisco, an area renowned for its sacred sites and biodiversity.

The Huichol territory, which covers zones of tropical forest as well as high montane pine and oak forest, is listed by the WWF and the World Conservation Union as one of 200 priority eco-regions in the world. A refuge for wolves and mountain lions this remote region is also an important habitat for birds such as the endangered pygmy owl and golden eagle; and the Military Macaw, a red data species which has seen a dramatic loss of habitat over the last decade due to logging.

The Huichol, who number around 20,000, are a native people who live in close harmony with nature. Deliberately reclusive and wary of outsiders, they can justifiably claim to be the only indigenous tribe left in the entire continent of North America whose culture remains intact. They grow maize, hunt deer, and commune with the gods of their sacred landscape using the hallucinogenic peyote cactus. Their territory, which spans about 39,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of the most inaccessible areas of Jalisco and Nayarit, has provided them with an effective "zona de refugio" – a sanctuary from the outside world – for centuries.

“Not since the Cristeros in the 1920s have such serious incursions been made into Huichol territory”, says Humberto Fernandez Borja, Director of Conservacion Humana, an NGO representing the Huichol, “This road is totally illegal. It is being constructed without consultation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and in contravention of national and international law.”

The Huichol, he goes on, are the natural guardians of this globally important eco-system and a source of extraordinary cultural, biological and medicinal knowledge. “The road”, he says, “threatens not only the forests and fragile natural water-systems of this area, and the rare flora and fauna dependent on it, but the indigenous people who hold the key to understanding it.”

The road, which is planned to route through the Huichol communities Amatitan-Bolanos-Huejiquilla El Alto, threatens to bring the region within easy access of illegal settlers, miners and loggers.

For further information contact Conservacion Humana AC (chac@chac.org.mx; tel: (+52) 55 55641126)

Times recommends

• The three best routes to the Med
• How to cash in on your holiday money
• 10 tips for the perfectly packed suitcase