Biodiversity conservation in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve

• GESG's strategy of combining resource protection with sustainable use has created a demand for.specialised services. Bosque Sustentable, A.C. was formed in 2001 to provide quality technical assistance, monitoring, and development of forestry management proposals and offer productive diversification options. Bosque Sustentable also has responsibilities for carrying out important parts of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve project, including restoration, conservation, forestry management and use, soil protection and sustainable productive alternatives.
• Among the community business being supported with equipment and training by the project are carpentry, ceramic workshops, flower production, beekeeping, fruit and vegetable dehydration, goat keeping, the raising of collared peccary (a small, pig-like animal); fish farming, oregano cultivation, a hunting ranch and various ecotourism projects. A ceramics expert from Japan has been financed by JICA to train local potters while two ecotourism experts from Catalonia spent four months in the region advising on its future potential.
• During the dry season GESG organised the painting of 19 murals with themes of forest fire prevention and water conservation in key communities and villages of the reserve.
• To promote the cultivation of blackberries as a an additional productive alternative the project organized a visit from APROCAM in Costa Rica which has developed a commercially successful blackberry operation among 800 rural producers in Costa Rica.
• CESG has become a distributor of solar cooking pots and is promoting this fuel-saving technology to residents of the reserve.
• Rural women are targeted by the Community Improvement and Cleansing Program. More than 800 (average of 20 from each of 40 communities) women have attended programme activities. The majority come from low socio-economic backgrounds and have low scholar levels. A small percentage is illiterate. In addition to promoting cleansing and recyclable material separation campaigns, the programme provides women with management abilities for economic development, Security and self-esteem workshops Family economy and welfare strengthening (including use of the solar cooker) and general environment knowledge. Women with productive abilities (e.g. culinary and manual skills) are made conscious of their ability to create products with good market acceptance, helped to start their own small productive projects.
• A 'Needlework with Nature' programme is harnessing the embroidery skills of more than 30 local women who produce pillows, hats, shirts and mats decorated with the birds, butterflies and orchids of the reserve. The project will be extended to other communities.
• The cleansing sub-program of the Community Improvement and Cleansing Program, has a team of four dedicated exclusively to regularly visiting 120 participating communities to promote cleansing and recyclable material separation campaigns, carrying awareness reunions and promoting the construction, maintenance and usage of the recycling community centers. Waste materials are transported to the regional recycling centre in Jalpan de Serra, from where 250 tons of useful materials are redistributed annually.
• The project is helping construct a Sustainability Training Centre (CECADESU) in Jalpan de Serra which will offer classes, workshops and certified courses. A biodiversity monitoring centre - the Earth Centre - is also being established and will be housed in the same building.
• Inventories are being made of key flora and fauna, key habitats and threatened or endangered species. Activities in the reserve's core areas are being monitored.
• A series of 25 Fiestas de la Terre were organized to celebrate Earth Day and World Environment Day in 2005. Events, involving 2,700 students, their teachers and parents included locally produced foods, ecological quizzes, poetry readings and student theatre productions. Student influence on parents was evident from the latter's requests for nature appreciation tours for adults.
• The Sierra Gordo Earth Centre completed its first certified capacity-building curriculum at the beginning of 2006. The Community-based Environmental Education package, which includes 50 hours of classroom work and 200 hours on hands-on practice, will add points on the career scales of teachers who complete the course. An ecological curriculum for basic education teachers haa also been completed.
• A report has been published on birds and mediums sized mammals, a study on the jaguar and great curassow
• CESG has been organising clean-up campaigns and recycling programmes among the reserve communities. More than 100 community recycling centres have been set up.
• CESG is gathering scientific evidence of the region's hydrological importance, with 20 sites gathering evidence on precipitation, filtration and flow in the reserve's different ecosystems - cloud forest, pine forest and jungle. The aim is to attract downsteam water users such as mining and hydroelectric companies into funding conservation of the forest which plays an important role in moderating the hydrological cycle. Mexico is thought to have one of the world's worst rate of deforestation with more than a million hectares logged each year (much it illegally).Mexico's federal forestry commission (CONAFOR) has been paying Sierra Gordo's high-altitude residents an incentive of $30-40 per hectare/per year if they agree not to log forest on their property. This scheme now protects 13,000 hectares in the reserve and makes payments to 45 local residents. Inspired by the project's success the federal government plans to extend it to carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.
• Other forestry and reserve management activities include the reforestation of 200 hectares each year, the protection of biological corridors, control of forest diseases and prevention of forest fires, the renting or purchasing of lands for conservation and the recruitment of volunteers from 50 different communities to prevent illegal logging or poaching.
• CESG is exploring the possibility of selling biodiversity credits, to companies looking to offset development impacts elsewhere, as a way of funding the long-term prospects of its programmes. CESG also acts as a cording body for funding and support from Mexican federal, state and local government agencies and helps form partnerships with national and international organisations.
• To attract eco-tourism, cabins have been built in one of the area's prettiest and poorest valleys, bird watching guides have been produced, hiking trails organized and local residents licensed as guides.
• The project's educational and public awareness component aims to reach 12,000 students in 110 communities and 22,500 adults each year as well as promoting its messages though the media.
• CESG was recently accepted as the 1,000 th member of the IUCN.
• Sierra Gordo was second place winner and received a special distinction at the Global Development Network's Most Innovative Project Award in January 2006, competing against projects from India and Pakistan. More than 700 projects entered the competition from which 10 semi-finalists were chosen for site visits from the judges.
• The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve has also received the Distinguished Achievement Award, Society for Conservation Biology (2003); Premio Razón de Ser, Fundación Merced (2004), Outstanding Social Entrepreneur, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (2001), National Conservation Award, Ford Mexico (2000), National Ecology Award, Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Fish, Social Sector Category (1999); Eugenio Garza Sada Award, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (1996); Rolex Award for Enterprise (2002) and received an Honorable Mention for the National Ecology Award, Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Fish (1995).
• The Sierra Gordo Eco-lodge network won first prize in the World Travel and Tourism Council's Tourism for Tomorrow Awards. A promotional DVD has now been produced to market the seven sites in the Eco-lodge network.
• The project has listed its environmental awareness achievements as: 26 school areas protected (as 'children's forests'): 35,593 environmental awareness school sessions; 2,047 awareness generating reunions with adults; 279 Earth Festivals: 1,166 puppet shows; 6732handicraft sessions; 1,181 nature appreciation and birding tours; 10,660posters posted; 316 wall paintings with environmental messages; 3,327 environmental messages signs made and posted; 1,774 educational material packages; 4,717 video screenings; 1,470 community work days; 13 environmentally-themed videos produced; 1,596school and community cleansing campaigns; 795 tons of recyclable materials recollected; 597,162 delivered trees; 11,865 brochures on environmental themes delivered; and 95 classes have been held on whole food nutrition with the use of solar stoves

Meetings

• A CESG participant joined 150 people from 45 countries at the UN's Community Commons event at Fordham University, which produced the Community Voices Declaration.
• The social strategies being used by the project were presented at the World Water Forum in Mexico City (March 2006). The project also participated in the recent 3 rd World Environmental Education Congress (Italy, 2005) and that 5 th International Environment and Development Convention (Cuba 2005)
• The Sierra Gordo Biosphere Reserve has participated for the first time at a workshop organized by the Women's Global Green Action Network, which bonds women environmental leaders from 15 countries.

Partners etc

Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gordo (GESG), National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP) of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), the Reserve's management office, the Integrated Ecosystem Management of Three Priority Eco-regions project, Bosque Sustentable, A.C. and UNDP.

A complex network of governmental agencies, national and international foundations and financial bodies, social networks, universities and research institutions, non-governmental organizations and local communities play an active and participatory role

Dedicated project website: http://www.sierragordamexico.org/en/index.html

Project newsletter: Yes

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