Protecting Wild Cat Habitat

The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve is a verdant refuge in the heart of Mexico and a vital habitat for the wildlife kingdom where the jaguar reigns. It is also home to many rural communities and towns that harbor a rich and unique cultural heritage.

Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda is the steward of this sacred redoubt. With hundreds of daily activities and several strategic lines of action, we strive to preserve its forests and develop opportunities for its communities.

Rural women employing other women in their roadside restaurants, setting a higher bar for sustainable tourism; local youth groups learning leadership skills in order to make decisions in community; school principals and mayors creating sustainable solutions for solid waste management; regenerative agricultural and livestock planning; participative forest and watershed management; expanding capacities and tools to make progress from the ground-up: This is what Sierra Gorda is about.

This year, we began a process of replicating our most innovative and successful initiatives. We are allying with the governments of Chihuahua, Baja California Sur, and Nuevo León to replicate Querétaro’s Carbon Offsetting Mechanism. Our environmental education program is being replicated in Coahuila. Finally, our holistic and regenerative soil management programs are expanding in Chihuahua, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí.

Other notable achievements include: 5,956 children in 87 schools benefiting from environmental education; 114,000 hectares under regenerative soil management in Querétaro, Chihuahua, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí; the first sighting of a black bear in one of the 7,000 hectares under strict conservation; 34 million Mexican pesos entering local communities; and 61 community workshops held this year for 319 farmers and gardeners.

When we work together, we can move mountains to educate, influence, and make conservation a reality. We need your help to continue growing this grassroots movement and achieve our goal of re-greening Mexico. This year, help us potentiate every possible social, economic, and political opportunity by donating to one of the campaigns listed below. By giving, you will build resilience and better livelihoods, hope and joy for communities and for Nature.

Links:

• https://www.worldlandtrust.org/who-we-are/partners/grupo-ecologico-sierra-gorda/

The Deer of the Sierra Gorda:

The White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and the Temazate Deer (Mazama temama)

 Status in the Sierra Gorda: White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and Temazate deer (Mazama temama) populations are extremely vulnerable in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve due to habitat loss, hunting, and climate change. They have lost thousands of hectares of habitat in the Sierra Gorda to wildfires, agriculture, logging, and infrastructure development. Poaching is a major threat, as are packs of domestic and feral dogs that have become efficient and abundant hunters in the region. Finally, climate-change-induced draughts further threaten local populations of these species.

Distribution in the Sierra Gorda: The white-tailed deer can be found in all of the Sierra Gorda’s ecosystems, while the temazate makes its home only the temperate forests and the cloud forests in the western Sierra Gorda.

Habits and Habitat: A very flexible species, the white-tailed deer has been able to adapt to degraded habitats, paddocks, and even the outskirts of urban areas. The temazate deer, however, are much more sensitive to changes in their habitat and need large expanses of preserved forests with dense vegetation. They are agile navigators of the forest, moving with ease through the labyrinths of thicket and limestone outcrops.

Deer are a fundamental part of the forest ecosystem, providing food for predators and dispersing seeds from the plants they consume. Many species, and the forest structure itself, depend on healthy populations of deer.

Conservation Actions in the Sierra Gorda: By keeping private reserves free from human activity such as illegal logging, poaching, and land clearing, Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda’s provides white-tailed and temazate deer with undisturbed habitat and an important refuge.

We also provide payments for environmental services (such as carbon sequestration) to owners of forests where these species are distributed. These payments allow forest owners to invest in forest regeneration, creating more habitats for the deer.

Finally, we offer a rigorous environmental education program in the region’s schools that teaches youth about the importance of conservation in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve.

We must act to protect the the White-tailed and Temazate deer before they are seriously threatened! Join our work!

Links:

• https://www.facebook.com/sierra.gorda/