GALLERY
MAPTIA
SIERRA GORDA BIOSPHERE RESERVE
ike a great wall extending all the way from the U.S. border in Texas, from Coahuila to Puebla states, Mexico’s Eastern Sierra Madre captures all the moisture held in the winds and clouds blowing inland from the Gulf of Mexico. It hosts a mosaic of ecosystems and species, and latitude, altitude and rain patterns that make it a mountain range that is more diverse, rugged, and higher in elevation than its sister range farther west, the Western Sierra Madre. Seen from the air, it is a massive raised area formed by jagged limestone rock, that succumbed to the pressure of tectonic plates, marked by the great incisions of canyons, abysses created by sinkholes, and high peaks that reach 3,700 meters in altitude.
THE HIDDEN MAGNOLIAS
Deep in Mexico´s Sierra Madre Oriental, two new magnolias were waiting for a conservationist and nature photographer, and a botanist to find them in an ancient cloud forest.
In Mexico’s rugged Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, new species from a variety of plant families have recently been discovered. Located in the northern third of the state of Querétaro, this section of the Sierra Madre Oriental has been particularly blessed with biological diversity by evolution. Its high peaks cause rain shadows and its latitude allows it to host both neo-arctic and neo-tropical flora and fauna.
I had the privilege of growing up in this region and, perhaps not surprisingly, developed a strong affinity for nature from an early age.
