This week we participated in the Sustainable and Social Tourism Summit in Leon, Guanajuato with a Sierra Gorda Ecotours booth to promote our tours and lodging services for the whole family. This year the Summit calculated 100 tons in carbon emissions and offset them through our Carbon Neutral Planet platform to be a net zero event. SustenTur and the Government of Guanajuato collaborated to calculate emissions from ground transportation, conference and exhibition spaces, meals, air transportation and guest accommodations. Offsetting their footprint supports the owners of the Sierra Gorda forests, ecosystem restoration and poverty alleviation.

We initiated an excellent process with the public education entity, Unidad de Servicios para la Educación Básica del estado de Querétaro (USEBEQ), as part of the climate action initiative of the Secretaría de Desarrollo Sustentable (SEDESU). The project promotes public awareness, which is essential in a scenario of unavoidable drastic climate effects, where education must be planned for a world without abuse of natural resources. We seek to strengthen community resilience starting with teachers to link the community with actions that mitigate the effects of climate change and allow us to adapt to the new conditions of the future.

CNN en Español, Pati Ruiz Corzo in interview with Camilo Egaña:  

• What is the role of Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda in your fight to protect the environment?
• Meet “Pati” Ruiz Corzo, the savior of Mexico’s Sierra Gorda nature reserve.
• “Pati” Ruiz Corzo went from being a “woman in a blind spot” to become a defender of the Earth

Following the national launch of the Querétaro Climate Action Model convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government of the state of Querétaro and Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda I.A.P., we have held meetings with the governments of Chiapas and Nuevo León in response to their interest in learning more about the strategy, advice that we are very willing to provide.

The Querétaro Climate Action Model consists of the regeneration of landscapes, forests and pastures under a management that favors the strengthening of ecosystem capacities, recovering biodiversity, hydrological infiltration and achieving greater carbon dioxide capture. The project is implemented in rural communities, allowing landowners to receive economic compensation in exchange for caring for their forests, thus mitigating poverty and recovering natural heritage.

We thank Nikon Mexico for providing our photographer Roberto Pedraza, for two weeks, with the best equipment currently available for wildlife photography: the Z9 camera and the powerful 800mmPF lens.  A variety of species were documented in the best way, from a family of green parakeets that can nest in one of the reserves that we effectively protect, to the lowland owls, the tiny dwarf hummingbird and the magnificent green macaws. The protection of these treasured species is the central goal of our work.

Learn more about Roberto’s work and wildlife photography on Instagram and Facebook.

As part of the project for the use of aromatic and pine nut species in the semi-desert of Querétaro, work meetings and field trips were held with the Ejidos Maguey Verde, El Pilón and Enramadas, belonging to the Municipality of Peñamiller to organize and regulate the use of these species and generate economic alternatives.

This project is financed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Secretariat for Sustainable Development of the State of Querétaro (SEDESU).

We acknowledge the valuable support of Alejandro Diaz and Tom Lovett of the Commonland Foundation of the Netherlands, partnering with GESG for the regenerative landscape restoration project.