5) Description of initiative: To achieve the continuity of vital services of nature within a Reserve of the Biosphere eminently social: production of oxygen, water, capture and storage of carbon, sustainability of the biodiversity, climate regulation, Earth productivity, etc. with the participation of local communities for the building of a sustainable development for and with the people, with management programs and territorial order, establishing rules and norms in a participative and condensed manner, using multiple strategies of raising awareness, coordination with the three levels of government and the private sector, agreements, amicable credits, preventing future conflicts to assure the regional stability. Negotiated defense against institutional abuses, negotiation in aggressive tributary procedures or that represent an unfair tax to community groups, social order and norms built from bottom to top, with expedite procedures, shared criteria, participative work, watching development conditions that would favor the population, generating conditions for peace in the long term. Above all, maintaining the habitat and ecosystems that support us in the best conditions, preventing shortage of water, loss of soil and lack of employment and creating development opportunities, building agreements where the human components participate in conformity and close collaboration for the common good. The aspects of greater conflict are disorderly growth, the public works of great impact on natural resources, mega works such as dams and highways, mistaken development pretensions, lack of order, weak application of the rules and lack of definition in the possession of land. The initiative pursues a regional administration with ordered procedures, clear situations, encouraging processes towards a harmonious and sustainable development: - Growth of a culture, education, and training for a sustainable development. - Strengthening and diversification of the regional productive activities. - Integral management of solid waste and waters. - Protection and restoration of hydrologic basins and water sources. - Conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.

6) Description of innovation: We are the only Reserve of the Biosphere in Mexico that was decreed at the federal level from bottom to top, with the acceptance of the communities, together with its rules. - A project that characterizes itself by the large social participation that has achieved, since its conception by a representative group, until its current implementation.

- A consistent educative program at all levels as a spine of the conservation and regional development.

- A pacific government and cohabitation result of a reflection and collaboration of society.

- Innovative processes of economic development: community ecotourism, apiculture, ceramics, alternative crops, intensive stockbreeding, hunting ranches, management units of wildlife, payments for the provision of ecosystem services, a lot of training, transfer of capabilities and alternative technology, infrastructure and equipment.

- Innovation of a voluntary compensatory mechanism applicable to beneficiaries in conditions of extreme poverty through an encapsulated product, a “gourmet” product that enriches the Kyoto Protocol, that positions the relation of poverty and biodiversity, capture and storage of carbon, production and quality of water and productivity of soils that stimulate and makes possible a continuity through compensatory payments in the long term. This implicates strategic alliances with public and private organizations, just as giving value to vital services of ecosystems and move from an extreme poverty use of forestry and livestock to producers of environmental services more and more emerging. - In the opposite direction to the general tendency of loss of forests and jungles, the Sierra Gorda has recovered thousands of hectares of forestry coverage, just as menaced species of the wild fauna, becoming a refuge through the collaboration of its communities.

- In short, a region with good possibilities of preserving its ecosystems and functions, of supporting conditions of peace and harmony to men and life in general7) Delivery model: The initiative is developed in the western centre of Mexico, in the Reserve of the Biosphere of Sierra Gorda, 384,000 hectares with the greatest eco-diversity in the country and 100,000 inhabitants distributed in more than 600 communities. To assist such an expanded and populated and achieve its conservation at the same time as satisfying the necessities of its inhabitants implicates a delicate and loving work that allows to support in the long term the fragile and difficult equilibrium between both aspects so that they also produce order and stability.

7) Delivery model: The initiative is developed in the western centre of Mexico, in the Reserve of the Biosphere of Sierra Gorda, 384,000 hectares with the greatest eco-diversity in the country and 100,000 inhabitants distributed in more than 600 communities. To assist such an expanded and populated and achieve its conservation at the same time as satisfying the necessities of its inhabitants implicates a delicate and loving work that allows to support in the long term the fragile and difficult equilibrium between both aspects so that they also produce order and stability.

The initiative emerged from a large process of participative diagnostic and search of opportunities and solutions with all the involved sectors of society. Also from the direct knowledge of the region, of the population and of the regional problematic since it is about a local group with strong roots and acceptation that along 21 years has earned the respect and social trust through its extended and continuous labor, engagement, persistency, respect for the communities, fulfillment of obligations and results obtained. From the beginning we have been working in close collaboration with the communities, pacific and participative people that recognize and accept the current emergency, to which it has been given employment and support and that collaborate voluntarily willing to improve its living conditions. In a continuous manner out promoters interact with communities, both inside the Reserve and in its areas of influence, raising awareness, promoting and coordinating actions, organizing work groups, advising and following up, evaluating and accompanying processes until its end. There have been established community alliances in the entire territory of the Reserve and its surroundings, with leaders, authorities, teachers, link women, producers, land owners and security guards. Leaders and community “link” women are trained to improve their self- esteem and their management skills and participate voluntary and coordinately.

8) Key operational partnerships: In 1997, when the Reserve was decreed, we achieved a strategic alliance with the federal government when it designated one of the founders of the project as director of the reserve, transforming the NGO Ecology Group Sierra Gorda as its operator in the field and establishing an innovative outline of co-management of a Reserve between the federation and a local initiative. In 2001 the GEF approves the project “Conservation of Biodiversity I the Reserve of the Biosphere of Sierra Gorda”. This allows the execution of more than 150 lines of action that cover both the regional conservation and socio-economic development in an unprecedented effort in Mexico. Parallel to that, through a successful management and public relations effort we achieved to weave an expanded network of alliances with public organizations and the private sector that allows to support such a large project. We are members of Ashoka Social Innovators, Social Entrepreneurs of the Shwab Foundation, Group Katoomba, and Forest Trends.

We have achieved the participation of the three levels of government, such as the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, National Forestry Commission, Secretariat of Social Development Secretariat of Tourism and Training Centre for the Sustainable Development. Foreign dependencies such as USDA Forest Service, US Fish and Wild Life Service, International Cooperation Agency of Japan. International foundations such as Inter-American and Kellogg, and national such as the National Monte de Piedad, Río Arronte and the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature. Companies such as Cummins, Group Bimbo, Hewlett Packard, Avangard. Educative institutions such as the Autonomous University of Querétaro and the Technology Institute of Monterrey.

9) Financial model: a) The project acts as a link between institutions and communities, managing and replacing differences. Considered as an area of extreme poverty, the projects acts to preserve, restore, and clean up the area and improve the living conditions of the population, which it will not be implemented without its implementation. The communities have annual access to the governmental mechanisms of advice through the Committees of Municipal Development Planning The Reserve has an Advisor Council integrated by the three levels of government and the private sector that focuses the public investment, gives the approval and validates projects, programs and actions that will be carried out in the area. It also has operational Sub-Committees of the Council that follow up those programs and actions. The municipalities of the Reserve also have Municipal Councils of Agricultural Development, where the actions of each municipality are agreed and validated.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 91%

          • Financing: Until now, with donations from very diverse public and private sources. The main current sources are the GEF, PNUD, Foundation Río Arronte, National Monte de Piedad, Secretariat of Social Development National Commission of Protected Areas of Nature, National Forestry Commission, IUCN, provision of labor from beneficiaries and time donated by staff of the project. To assure the sustainability, we transfer our environmental education programs and community clean up for 16 years, to the public education authorities and municipal city halls, reducing operational costs and the operation of two initiatives for auto-financing of the project in the long term: the Centre Earth Sierra Gorda, that will provide education and training to society and the company Products and Tourist Services Sierra Gorda that will commercialize community products.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: the Reserve and areas of influence, of the institutional assistance that the communities receive, the collaboration of the population, the application of rules and the regional socio-economic situation, the vegetal coverage of the Reserve has been recovered notably, just as the menaced species of wild fauna, more than 150 communities participate in the preservation, the replanting of trees and restoration, they separate recyclable materials and are cleaner, the municipal authorities manage environmental agendas and promote sustainable public work, 550 teachers undertake own actions in their schools and communities, new leaders are training in “Eco-clubs”, more than 20 productive community projects are functioning and in spite of a new political alternation that Mexico is living we live a situation of tranquility and stability.

          • Number of clients in past year: During 2005-2006 the environmental educative program operates in 172 communities with the support of 152 committees, 32,260 students and 24,517 adults received environmental education, 46,316 inhabitants benefited with cleaning and recycling campaigns, we had 8,379 volunteers. The productive diversification has generated new products and it is becoming an integration company that will give advice and services for the administration, production, and commercialization. The region has capitalized in new skills, organization, infrastructure and equipment. Through the Centre Earth Sierra Gorda we are training on this initiative with new tools that respond to the necessities of the communities. The program of conservation and restoration operates in 67 communities, with 94 community committees and 887 participants.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: To continue our labor of public relations to position Sierra Gorda as a global priority for preservation. To consolidate the operation of the Centre Earth Sierra Gorda, that will offer training to five different levels of society as main strategy to increase a new culture of regional sustainability and achieve a deep change in people’s perception about the Earth, educating leaders and creating networks for the expansion and replication of the project. To elaborate a new Management Program of the Reserve that will give legal support to the rules for investigation, preservation, restoration, production and regional development activities during the next five years. To continue the promotion for the sale of ecosystem products generated by the forests and jungles of Sierra Gorda, as the best way of preserving our home healthy and as a strategy of greater environmental and socio-economic impact for the area. To position in the national market the products and services that the community projects offer.

12) Origin of the initiative: In 1984 I decided with my husband Roberto and my two children to change the living conditions of the city for a simpler life in the country in the mountains of Sierra Gorda. To change rooted consumer and waste customs for simplicity and austerity. Five years of exercise, clean air, harmonious cohabitation, intense enjoyment of peace and the beauty of paradise change my perception of reality and truth, the value and importance of the Earth and our connection to it and all beings. In 1989, after reading “Operation Survival” by the Spanish writer José Lanuza, to learn about the serious situation of the planet, the recommendations of the scientists of the Club of Rome, be aware of the fragility of “our paradise” and observe around us the felling of trees, furtive hunting, contamination of rivers and streams with waste and drainage, poverty, lack of employment and opportunities for the population, we decided to act locally and start the NGO Ecology Group Sierra Gorda with friends that lived in the sierra.

Contact Information:
Martha Isabel (Paty)  Ruiz Corzo
Ashoka Fellow
Coordinadora
Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda, IAP
(ONG)
Mexico
Website: www.sierragordamexico.org