Lands for Conservation Project
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The Lands for Conservation project includes two lines of action:
1) Outright purchase of lands for their strict conservation as private nature reserves, and
2) Payments for environmental services which serve as a way to compensate the private landowners of the Sierra for the conservation of their temperate and tropical forests which benefit us all with the provision of environmental services.
Taking advantage of resources from the National Forestry Commission, the Global Environment Facility and the Gonzalo Rio Arronte Foundation, we are making these payments available to a growing number of Sierra Gorda residents. We are in the process of designing and marketing pioneering ecosystem products for investors, which package avoided deforestation and carbon storage, protection of biodiversity, hydrologic recharge, and poverty alleviation.
1) Started in 1996 through the partner NGO Joya del Hielo A.C., the Lands for Conservation Project now manages 2,826 ha of priority cloud forest and pine-oak forest in private nature reserves. This has been possible with support from the projects own partners as well as organizations like the World Parks Endowment, Netherlands National IUCN Committee, World Land Trust and the Peoples Trust for Endangered Species. This project represents an effective conservation scheme that permits the permanent elimination of many conservation threats such as livestock grazing and timber harvest, protecting especially valuable sites for the conservation and protection of threatened and endemic species of flora and fauna.
2) Payments for environmental services have also turned out to be an indispensable tool for conservation, in an area where the majority of the lands are privately owned by extremely poor communities. Providing a just compensation to landowners for the conservation of their natural resources is a great way to protect the landscape as well as create an economy of conservation. With resources from the National Forestry Commission, The Global Environment Facility, and the Gonzalo Rio Arronte Foundation, a total of 28,647 ha of temperate and tropical forests are benefiting from Payment for Environmental Services schemes, assuring the protection of their biodiversity and consequently of the environmental services they provide us with.
Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda
MEXICO - The mission of Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda (GESG) is to conserve the natural resources and promote the sustainable development of the Sierra Gorda through the uniting of citizen and institutional efforts. Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda (GESG) was founded ...
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