Mexico is a country of "megabiodiversity", in which it is estimated that 12% of the world's species are represented – including an estimated 23,522 known plant species. Many of these species hold great potential for use in both the agricultural and forestry sectors.
From semi-submerged coastal mangroves, to arid ‘forests’ of arborescent cacti, to temperate cloud forests, arctic taiga, and lowland jungles, these forest ecosystems benefit from conservation and restoration work, improved connectivity, expanded areas and sustainable forestry management.
Guardians of the Coast
David E. Hernandez is known as ‘the cool teacher’ – he teaches 4th grade at Francisco I. Madero urban primary school, located in the municipality of Benito Juarez in Quintana Roo, Mexico. With a tattoo of a birdcage on his left leg, and liberated birds flying free on his right leg, 25 year old David enjoys spending time getting to know each of the kids – ‘each one is different’. He also takes great pride in ‘building their conscience to think about the future’.
Five months ago, his students were given mangrove seeds to take care of, as part of a unit on conservation.
‘The kids take the seeds to their house and grow them, and when they are big enough we bring them here. A few of the seedlings die and the kids feel bad, but this helps them understand the importance and the time it takes to cultivate’.
When students subsequently visited the Nichupté Mangrove Flora and Fauna Protection Area with their carefully cultivated seedlings, each student was provided with a plastic tag to keep a record of their own plant. These mangrove restoration activities assist students in understanding the vulnerability and importance of these ecosystems – and in learning how to take care of them.
Mexican mangroves previously covered 1.5 million hectares, but according to a 2005 estimate, they were estimated at just over 650,000 hectares.
Mangrove forests serve as crucial habitat and shoreline protection. The Nichupté Mangrove Flora and Fauna Protection Area was established in 2008 in recognition of its important diversity of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including low deciduous forest, mangrove, tule (rushes), and reeds.
The Nichupté Mangroves protected area is also home to nationally-significant bodies of water, such as the Río Inglés and El Amor lagoons, as well as several springs with endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna, subject to special protection or in danger of extinction.
For several years due to the population growth and the tourist demands in Cancún, infrastructure works were carried out that caused a fragmentation of the wetland affecting the hydrological regime resulting in the loss of the mangrove cover. To address this, Nichupte is one of the 17 protected natural areas supported by a UNDP project designed to improve the management and strategically expand the coverage – ensuring strategic connectivity that benefits people and biodiversity.
The project is working to promote the effective management protected areas to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on Mexico’s incredible biodiversity.
Guardians of the Desert
Another area that is protected is the Botanical Garden "Helia Bravo Hollis".
The Botanical Garden, located in the Biosphere Reserve of Tehuacán has more than 80 species of cacti, some of which are endemic and currently in danger of extinction.
In the Biosphere Reserve, visitors can discover the ritual, medicinal and nutritional uses of the plants that were used in pre-Hispanic times; learn about commercial uses; find exemplars of edible and ethnobotanically significant species such as nopales, pitahayos, biznagas, nopalillos, alicoches, guamúchils, agaves, and jiotillas; and hear about the mechanisms developed by semi-desert plants to survive the long periods of drought they are exposed to.
Catalina Serrano Hernandez, the secretary for the Community Property Commissariat of Zapotitlán Salinas, was born as close as one can be to the Biosphere Reserve, in the adjacent town of Sabado Salina.
‘Most special is the capacity to live in a semidesert. To appreciate the biodiversity as a way of life. The interaction between human and plants is very special. When you live with the cactus you know how important they are. You have to have patience because a cactus takes a long time to grow’.
The different representatives of the Community Property Commissariat of Zapotitlán Salinas, Puebla, have worked for almost 27 years to make this space a living center that inspires the population in general to protect and conserve the environment.
‘The people here live because the forest exists. They understand this delicate balance and they cultivate growth in a difficult landscape’.
Guardians of the Mayan Forest
On the Yucatán Peninsula, the average forest stores 110 tonnes of carbon/hectare
‘The wood in these forests offer a rainbow of biodiversity. The beauty, the colors, the differences in weight. It’s incredible. It’s the rainbow of life’. - Sébastien Proust, Coordinador nacional del programa de pequeñas donaciones del FMAM, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo
With the support of the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) – implemented by UNDP, Trópica Rural Latinoamericana, AC received a grant to contribute to improved forest technologies for tropical hardwood sawmills. The project grant was used to increase the profitability of sustainably harvested tropical hardwoods, with a simultaneous focus on conservation and management of forest resources in those communities where commercial stocks of mahogany and cedar were exhausted.
As with Fair Trade and Organic labelling, Forest Stewardship Council certification for wood production serves as an important signal to consumers about the care taken in management and production processes.
Perhaps equally important is the incentive that such certifications provide to producers, by securing fair returns for operating in an environmentally, economically, and socially responsible fashion.
In this spirit, Trópica Rural Latinoamericana was supported in securing certifications for its hardwood operations, thereby boosting forest management practices and production. This had a positive affect not only forest ecology, but also local livelihoods and social relations by providing new income opportunities and broadening the sectors of society working to protect these precious forest ecosystems.
Matias Reyes, 85 years old, was a chiclero (gum harvester) for 62 years, and is a father of 7. ‘This tree is how my kids went to university. The trees provide. All the trees have a story behind them. This tree grave my family life. … I was always against logging. … But the sustainable logging that they do now, the whole community owns the forest. This is how you pay back. Thanks to these trees this is how you are here now’.
While on many places of Mesoamerica mahogany is practically extinct, the Mayan Forest is one of the last refuges where it still is present in densities and volumes that can be utilised commercially.
The state of Quintana Roo has more than a century of wood extraction, mainly mahogany, but also cedar (now protected) and for sapodilla gum extraction. In the beginning, logging was in private hands or under concession, as was the case of the company MIQRO, but today it is mostly under the administration of ejidos (communally-farmed land administered by the government). Many of these ejidos, with technical support, sustainably manage forest resources and achieve a balance between economic viability and conservation. However, in less than a decade, market conditions changed, with decreases in profit felt by many forest companies, to the point of threatening sustainable logging altogether.
Sustainable forest management has proven one of the most effective approaches to forest conservation.
However, when this activity becomes unprofitable, degradation and deforestation start to take over. Local communities feel the need to sustain their livelihoods through other means, and resort to land use changes for agriculture and ranching. Herein lays the importance of sustaining responsible forest management efforts in the forests of Quintana Roo.
With the support of organizations like Trópica Rural Latinoamericana AC, an Alliance of Forest Ejidos was established, covering five ejidos in southern Quintana Roo.
The Noh Bec Sawmill is part of the Selva Maya alliance, which seeks to market flooring and furniture directly to consumers, including the hotel sector in nearby tourist destinations Riviera Maya and Cancun. The Selva Maya alliance is composed of five ejidos, who sustainably manage 113,000 hectares of the Maya forest, including 49,000 hectares under community conservation.
From Mexico to Paris
These projects are working to preserve and protect the forests, so that they can reciprocally provide for local communities.
Tackling climate change goes hand-in-hand with maintaining and expanding our planet’s forest coverage. We must recognize the power of trees and forests as the single simplest, most affordable means of carbon capture and sequestration currently known – and therefore perhaps the most efficient way of supporting the Paris Agreement.
Climate change adaptation and resilience-building efforts are an essential building block of a zero-carbon future, and will be key drivers in supporting Mexico to reach its commitments to the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
As part of these commitments, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. In Mexico work towards executing on these NDCs also provides a framework to build resilient industries, protect ecosystems and natural resources, and support a climate resilient future for all people.
