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Sierra Gorda Mountains | | Martha Ruiz Corzo believes conservation and economic development for the poor
must go hand in hand. High in the mountains of central Mexico, she is crafting a
unique project of sustainable growth that protects jaguars and butterflies while
also empowering the poor as full participants in grassroots democracy. |
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One of Mexico's most biodiverse
yet threatened natural areas is coming back to life as an innovative
educator makes conservation profitable for the thousands of poor
families who live in the Sierra Gorda mountains.
Two decades ago, seeking a simpler life for her family, Martha Ruiz Corzo
traded urban life for the backwoods of Mexico's Querétaro State. Yet Ruiz
Corzo, a teacher and musician, grew concerned as she watched forests disappear
and rivers go dry. As the natural diversity of her new mountain environment
diminished, many of her neighbours began to migrate to other countries
in search of jobs.
In 1987, with her husband and some friends, Ruiz Corzo formed the Sierra
Gorda Ecological Group to reverse environmental degradation and encourage
sustainable use of the region's rich resources. She trekked through the
mountains to conduct workshops with poor farmers, convincing them it was in
their own best interest to take responsibility for the environment. Dragging
along her battered accordion, she taught schoolchildren songs about conservation.
She used radio programmes to promote conservation and lambaste those who
sought to destroy the forests. |
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The
red-crowned parrot, one of the many vulnerable species
protected by the Sierra Gordo Biosphere reserve.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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Her campaign paid off as mountain
residents built cooking stoves that consumed less firewood and reforested
steep hillsides denuded by improper farming techniques and livestock grazing.
Villagers started small businesses that used the forest in sustainable ways.
Ruiz Corzo then took her fight for nature to Mexico City, where her persistent
lobbying led to the creation in 1997 of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve.
At the crossroads between South and North America, the 3,837km2 reserve
hosts animals and plants that do not usually mix. Black bears and military
macaws live side by side, and cactuses grow adjacent to pine and oak forests.
The reserve, with 14 distinct ecosystems, is one of the world's most ecologically
diverse spots.
It is also the first such natural area in Mexico to be established in response to
pressure from civil society, and Ernesto Zedillo, then Mexican president, rewarded
Ruiz Corzo in 1997 for her relentless campaign for nature by naming her the
reserve's director. |
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For her pioneering efforts to combine
conservation with economic development for the poor, Ruiz Corzo was named
an Associate Laureate in the 2002 Rolex Awards.
Yet not everyone was pleased with her advocacy for the reserve and the
100,000 people who live in it. In 2004, Ruiz Corzo came under attack from logging
mafias and others who wanted to exploit the Sierra Gorda without restrictions.
They attacked her in the press and filed spurious charges against her in the
courts. Ruiz Corzo says the Rolex Award helped her weather the attacks. "The
recognition by Rolex had incalculable value because our work is very difficult
in a region where we've touched the economic interests of very powerful
groups," she says. "The Award gave us new visibility that made it more difficult
for those who wanted to step on us, hurt us or even exterminate us. It gave us
credibility with other sectors of the population and helps us to keep our balance
in those times when we're attacked and overwhelmed." |
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Through all her trials Ruiz Corzo kept
her eyes on the mountains. Several recent scientific studies show key
species like jaguars are increasing in number. With Ruiz Corzo on its side, the
natural environment is winning the battle against those who would destroy it.
"The mountains are greener than ever, and we have more fauna than we've had
for years," Ruiz Corzo says. "The increase in big animals – the umbrella
species – provides evidence that there is more diversity below them."
Ninety-seven per cent of the Biosphere Reserve is in private hands, and
Ruiz Corzo believes that the orchids, butterflies, wild turkeys and macaws are
thriving today because residents have assumed responsibility for conservation,
in part because they stand to profit from maintaining a healthy and diverse environment.
"If you give value to the habitat, the people will care for it," she says. |
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Ensuring the sustainability of
water resources is one of Ruiz Corto's main objectives.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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A key element of Sierra Gorda's
approach to conservation is an innovative programme of "payment for ecosystem
services", which in 2003 began to compensate landowners who preserve
critical environmental treasures. In assigning economic value to water, for
example, and recognising the economic cost of erosion, the reserve – using
funds from the federal government's forestry commission – pays $30 to $40
per hectare to landowners who protect the viability and quality of watersheds
by keeping cattle out and not cutting down trees.
The programme guarantees not just the health of mountain environments,
but also reduces flooding and assures plentiful and safe drinking water for
cities downstream. In a country facing worsening droughts and water conflicts
in several regions, the Sierra Gorda region has become a model of community-
based solutions to national problems. |
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Funding can disappear as political landscapes
shift, however, and Ruiz Corzo is concerned about the long-term sustainability
of any scheme to finance conservation. So she has begun laying the
foundation for market-based solutions by working with scientists at the University of
Querétaro to document how hydrological processes in the reserve provide financial
benefits to businesses downstream – including hydroelectric, mining and
wood-product companies. By monitoring precipitation, filtration and water flow at
12 different sites, Ruiz Corzo hopes the project will compile sufficient data in the
next three years to enable her to convince the companies that paying for conservation
is a good business investment.
Another element of making conservation pay involves recognising the role
of the Sierra Gorda forest in capturing carbon dioxide – a key contributor to
global warming. "Through the miracle of nature, the trees capture carbon from the air and
convert it into wood, storing it away, providing yet another ecoservice to the
planet," Ruiz Corzo says.
Under the Clean Development Mechanism of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, forests
that sequester carbon from the atmosphere can sell this service on the international
carbon market. Ruiz Corzo spent eight years trying to peddle such a scheme
involving Sierra Gorda, but was not successful. She finally decided that the
provisions of the international treaty did not fit the reserve. |
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Women tend one of the 350 vegetable
gardens set up at the reserve to supply locals without damaging the habitat.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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The sustainable felling
of forest trees gives Sierra Gordo residents a regular
income.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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"The gap between Kyoto and the
conditions of extreme poverty is too great. You need extensive properties
with legal titles, yet in the reserve no one has such titles, even if they've been
living here for generations. Nor do we have the extensive single-owner properties.
People own one hectare here, one hectare there. And the expenses of
monitoring and certification under Kyoto are too high for poor communities,"
Ruiz Corzo says. "So we finally declared independence from Kyoto."
Pioneering a new approach, Ruiz Corzo last year hammered out a voluntary
carbon deal with the United Nations Foundation in which the U.S.-based
organisation is paying the reserve to capture and sequester 5,500 tons of carbon.
"This one deal doesn't have a huge impact for the region, but it opens the door
for other extremely poor communities to create a mechanism that's viable for them,
and that can benefit people who live way up in the mountains," Ruiz Corzo says.
Seeking other ways to link reserve residents with an international marketplace
that can fund conservation, Ruiz Corzo will soon unveil a "gourmet" environmental
investment product that will combine carbon sequestration, water
conservation, protection of jaguar habitat and the economic development of poor
communities, all in one package. |
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Children in Laguna de Pitzquintla. The biosphere reserve was created
as a result of pressure from civil society.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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| Ruiz Corzo also remains committed to education as a
fundamental tool of conservation. Last year she opened the reserve's Earth Centre, a comprehensive training centre that
also houses the biosphere's offices. Funded in part by her Rolex Award, the Earth Centre offers a variety of training programmes,
including a degree in environmental education for elementary school teachers. The Earth Centre is used extensively for training local
residents in sustainable economic activities, and hundreds of families in the reserve today earn an income from carpentry,
bee-keeping, ceramic production, food dehydration and other small business activities that use the forest without destroying it.
Sierra Gorda Ecotours, an enterprise of the Sierra Gorda Ecological Group, has begun bringing tourists into the reserve – and
their money into the local economy. An ecotourism corridor of eight sites has been established and cabins built, with local
residents trained as guides. Trekkers, birders and mountainbikers are flocking to the reserve, which last year won a
"Tourism for Tomorrow" award from the London-based World Travel and Tourism Council. |
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The biosphere has proved so successful
that it is being expanded, with an adjoining section of Guanajuato State
being set aside as a reserve. An organisation modeled on the Sierra Gorda
Ecological Group has been established to strengthen civil society, while promoting
conservation and economic development. Ruiz Corzo is helping shepherd
along that process, and looks forward to someday establishing similar reserves in
the nearby states of Hidalgo and San Luis Potosi.
For Ruiz Corzo, Sierra Gorda's success proves that conservation is not something
imposed by elites, nor does it run counter to economic progress. "In Sierra
Gorda we've strengthened the idea that conservation has to be carried out
through and with the people in the villages," she says.
The battle for Sierra Gorda is far from over, however, and she remains vigilant,
recently working to block a large hydroelectric project that would have flooded
huge swaths of forestland while providing no benefit to mountain communities.
To defend Sierra Gorda, Ruiz Corzo travels constantly, averaging one
international trip each month and travelling weekly to Mexico City. If she laments
anything about her work in recent years, it's that she has had little time for music.
Her accordion, which accompanied her in the early days as she sang with
the children of the mountains about conservation, remains in its case. "I miss
it. Part of my heart is there in that case, but I have little time to play," Ruiz Corzo
says. "And when I do take it out and play, I sound really bad." |
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Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, where four climatic zones converge to produce an
astonishing variety of ecosystems.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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Martha
Ruiz Corto has long used music and songs to educate
children about the environment.
© Rolex Awards / Paul Jeffrey |
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Mrs Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo
Directora, Reserva de la Biosfera Sierra Gorda
Comisión Nacional de las Areas Naturales Protegida/SEMARNAT
Arroyo Seco No. 306
Colonia Estrella, Queretaro
CP: 76030
Mexico
Email: gesgiap@prodigy.net.mx
Website: www.sierragorda.net
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