The Sierra Gorda Ecology Group has developed an official Management Program for the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, with approval and concensus from all levels of society. It establishes rules that manage activities in the region, including tourism, road building and maintenance, and forest management.

Pati Ruiz: And after it's going to be published in the official newspaper, it's going to be the rule, with all the legal structure that we need to make it happen. I am very glad that I am now a kind of a sheriff (chuckles) because many things now depend on me.

Now I'm working for the Ministry of the Environment, and I have a federal cap, but under that cap I have my citizen cap, with my passion heart for the earth. For the first time, those things are going to be dealt with, [with] passion – and because we really care about the earth.

It's going to be in our hands. And when I say "our," it's all the team, all the citizen participation, that we have.

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