PROGRAMS:

Assessment and forest management

This program provides organization, training and accompaniment to the processes of forest product extraction, transformation and commercialization. This is done in a way that allows small landowners to improve their economic situation by using their resources in a sustainable manner.

Establishment of plantations

This program establishes small plantations on lands previously deforested for agricultural and livestock purposes, many of which have become unproductive. It seeks to produce the wood necessary to satisfy regional demand, thus reducing the pressure upon natural forests and the core protected areas of the Reserve.

Soil and water conservation

This program promotes and monitors the construction of soil and water retention structures in the high and mid-areas of the main watersheds and hydrological recharge zones within the Reserve. This reduces erosion and increases the aquifer recharge that feeds the springs and streams that supply the residents with water. This program is especially important given the serious water shortages that Mexico currently faces and will be facing in the near future.

Fire prevention and control

Personnel are being trained and equipped in order to quickly detect and combat forest wildfires. The program includes the training and equipping of 20 voluntary community brigades, construction of surveillance facilities and installation of radio communication equipment.

Forest Disease Management

This program seeks to control the pine bark beetle, which is causing the loss of a great number of pine trees, especially in the primary range of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Other plagues, such as mistletoe, are also causing significant damage.

Productive diversification

This program establishes small enterprise projects to provide residents with sustainable alternatives for generating income. Bosque Sustentable supports the communities with organization, training, equipment, fund raising and monitoring. Projects include ecotourism, carpentries, ceramic workshops, flower production and dehydration, hunting ranches, bee keeping and others.

Land management for conservation

This program seeks the protection of the most valuable areas in the Reserve, including those important to hydrological recharge, with high biodiversity, or in a high degree of conservation. When these areas are threatened by productive activities, we seek to rent or buy the land in order to assure its conservation.

Participatory surveillance

This program trains 50 community surveillance volunteers dispersed throughout the Reserve and its zones of influence. These volunteers monitor ecosystems and important species and report activities such as illegal land use, poaching, trapping of birds, illicit timber cutting and dumping.

Environmental service payments

This program consists of negotiating with the federal government to compensate forest owners in important hydrological recharge areas for the environmental services their lands provide. Landowners of 13,000 hectares of forests and jungles within the Reserve and its buffer zones in the municipality of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí are currently receiving payments under a program of the National Forestry Commission.

Services

The Services that Bosque Sustentable A.C. offers are the following:

• Technical training and consultation in:

  • reforestation
  • natural regeneration management
  • plantations and reforestation management
  • sustainable commercial use
  • soil conservation

• Forestry census
• Preparation of documents required for the operation of forest plantations
• Formation of forestry business organizations
• Identification of commercialization strategies
• Elaboration of management programs
• Elaboration of environmental impact assessments
• Productive diversification support
• Advising regarding collection of forest germoplasm
• Technical assistance and promotion for sustainable agricultural alternatives
• Development of payment for environmental services programs
• Land purchases for conservation