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Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda and Bosque Sustentable aim to reduce
climate change by empowering individuals,
businesses and organizations to offset their CO2
emissions with Sierra Gorda Carbon
Offsets.
While the most important solution to global warming is to reduce CO2 emissions, and this can be done at a
personal, business as well as at an organizational level by reducing use of
fossil fuels, it is not possible to eliminate all CO2 emissions immediately. In the interim, the impact of those emissions can be
reduced by planting trees.
Trees absorb CO2 as they grow, and therefore the work of reforestation in the Sierra Gorda is a positive step for individuals, businesses and
organizations hoping to counter global warming. It can help fight climate change at a
low cost while improving living standards for some of the world's poorest people,
safeguarding biodiversity, and preserving other ecosystem services.
Businesses & Organizations
More and more businesses and organizations are understanding the
business case for sustainable development as consumers increasingly demand more
environmentally friendly products. Governments need to respond (through new regulations if
needed) to pressing environmental problems like climate change, water shortages, pollution
and loss of biodiversity. The financial community seeks greater assurances from companies
in demonstrating their ability to manage environmental risks,
while companies compete to
attract and retain skilled workers who want to identity with
sustainable corporate values. For
this reason more and more international companies (including the increasing number that are
contributing to the growth in manufacturing, retail and services in Mexico) are
considering going green in their workplaces, their day-to-day operations, their products
and services, their business and supplier relationships and in their community relations.
Sierra Gorda Offsets can offer an important tool to businesses and
organizations in meeting these higher business standards for sustainability. This is
especially true at this time when there is an effort to
bring Mexico as well as Brazil,
China, India and South Africa into the G8
alliance (“G8 plus five”),
which combined account for 75 per cent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, to craft a
climate-change plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
Homes & Lifestyle
We as individuals have an impact on the global environment everyday
by building homes, driving our car to the store, to school, or work, keeping warm in
winter and cool in summer, and deciding which foods to buy in the supermarket or
which products to buy in stores. These actions inevitably lead to the release of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere. Sierra Gorda Carbon
Offsets provide
the opportunity for individuals to offset the impact of their everyday lives
on global warming. There is also a rapidly growing
interest among foreign citizens in re-locating or retiring to Mexico and Sierra Gorda
Carbon Offsets
can provide the chance to take local action to offset the emissions
we generate in our everyday lives.
Travelers
Tourism is one of the world's largest industries. It generates about
10% of total world GDP, employs over 10% of the global workforce, and
is on the verge
of tremendous growth. Mexico has become a globally significant travel destination largely
as a result of its geographic and biological diversity including desert landscapes,
snow-capped volcanoes, ancient ruins, colonial towns, resorts, beaches and world-class
diversity of flora and fauna. However, travel, especially by air, is one of the fastest
growing sources of CO2
emissions. Sierra Gorda offsets provide
travelers the opportunity to offset the impact of their trips on
global warming, contribute to the protection of Mexico's and the Sierra Gorda Biosphere
Reserve's rich biological diversity and help to alleviate poverty linked to
environmental degradation.
Sierra Gorda Offsets help sustain biodiversity in the
Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve's million acres by funding sustainable activities for its
100,000 residents that both further conservation and combat rural poverty.
For more information read sections
on the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve and Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda.
A carbon footprint is a representation of the effect an
individual or an organization has on the climate in terms of the total amount of
greenhouse gases produced (measured in units of carbon dioxide).
Footprinting is now widely used around the globe as an indicator of
environmental sustainability. It can be used to measure and manage the use of resources
throughout the economy. It is also commonly used to explore the sustainability of
individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods,
cities, regions and nations.
Unfortunately, there are both global and local environmental impacts
connected to the things businesses, organizations and individuals buy, use and do each
day.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a significant greenhouse gas and the massive CO2 emissions
resulting from our modern
consumer-oriented society are a major contributor to the Greenhouse Effect - the warming
of the Earth's climate. If present trends continue, global temperatures will rise
significantly this century, leading to widespread flooding of coastal areas, changes
in
rainfall patterns and an increase in stormy weather.
Through the impact of our personal lives, we each contribute to the
build-up of CO2 in the
atmosphere, so we each have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to do something
positive to solve the problem. Government-level initiatives, such as the Kyoto Protocol,
will only slow the rate of warming, so we each need to take personal action to achieve a
real solution.
Just
as individuals are responsible
for CO2
emissions,
governments, companies, organizations and other institutions also
generate emissions through the use of energy in their industrial processes, shipping of goods
to market, business travel, etc. They too need to take action to reduce their emissions.
The variety of life on Earth, or
its biological diversity, is commonly
referred to as biodiversity. The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms,
the enormous diversity of genes in each species,
and the variety of ecosystems on the planet,
such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth.
Human economic activity is causing
widespread extinctions of species and even entire ecosystems. There is a
link between biodiversity and climate change. Rapid global warming can affect an
ecosystem's chances to adapt naturally. The costs associated with deteriorating or
vanishing ecosystems will be high.
Mexico is one of the most biologically rich countries in the world.
Unfortunately, Mexico has significant challenges associated with deforestation. More than
one million hectares are logged each year (many of them illegally) which is impacting
water and soil quality, depleting aquifers
and threatening biodiversity.
The amount of water in the world is finite.
Our global population is
growing quickly and our water use is growing even faster. A third of the world's population
now lives in water-stressed countries. By 2025, this
number is expected to rise to two-thirds. As
important as water quantity is
water quality - with pollution increasing in some areas, the amount of
useable water declines. Climate change will also have an impact
on water availability. Some areas will probably
benefit from increased rainfall, but others areas are likely to become
drier.
Seventy percent of the water used worldwide is
dedicated to agriculture.
Much more water will be needed if we are to feed the world's growing population - predicted to
rise from about six billion today to 8.9 billion by 2050.
Water consumption will soar
further as more people choose Western lifestyles and diets - one kilogram of
grain-fed beef needs at least 15 cubic meters of water, while a kilo of cereals needs only
up to three cubic meters.
Mexico is representative of this trend
towards grave water problems
associated with deforestation and pollution. It has less drinking water per capita than
the desert nation of Egypt, and 60% less water than 50 years ago.
Seventy-three percent of its
water supply is contaminated and
a danger to public health and 93% of its rivers are
polluted.
Global living standards have risen dramatically over the last
decades. The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic
poverty -- defined as living on less than $1 per day (equivalent
to $1.08 in 1993, adjusted to
account for differences in purchasing power across countries) -- has fallen from 28
percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001.
While there has been great progress in reducing poverty, it has been
far from even, and the global picture masks large regional differences. The uneven
progress of development is cause for concern and encouraged governments and international
development agencies to re-examine the way they operate. In September 2000, 189 countries
signed the Millennium Declaration, which led to the adoption of the
Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). The seventh goal (MDG 7) addresses the environmental context, calling for
environmental sustainability in recognizing the linkages between poverty and the
environment.
Mexico has closely followed these global trends joining the ranks of
the Latin American countries considered to be well on the way to living up to the goal of
cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015, based on 1990 levels. However, Latin America is
the region with the largest disparity of wealth. In the case of Mexico, there
are still huge gaps between rich and poor, north and south, urban and rural. Many
of Mexico´s inhabitants are
economically marginalized, practicing traditional agricultural and livestock production
that lead to forested hillsides being cleared or used for grazing. This is contributing to
a number of environmental problems including deforestation, loss of
biodiversity, flooding, soil erosion, lower rates of water infiltration and falling water
tables along with water pollution.
It is not possible to truly ‘offset’ carbon emissions, as
the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon that has not been in the carbon cycle for
millions of years. Thus burning fossil fuels represents
a net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
However, planting trees absorbs carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. This represents
an important way
to help reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and the associated problem of
global warming.
By supporting tree planting
in a tropical country, you will not only be
helping to reduce the effects of your carbon emissions on the climate but
you will also be providing
habitat for a wide range of wildlife and protecting water resources
by reducing the
incidence of flooding, soil erosion, and falling water
tables and water pollution. In
addition you will be helping to create more
sustainable livelihoods for individuals and families by promoting agro-forestry, an
alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture, that leads to new forestry-management jobs,
income and resource protection.
Sierra Gorda Carbon Offsets use a calculator called SafeClimate (©
SafeClimate.net all rights reserved) developed by the World Resources Institute.
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NOTE: World Resources
Institute and the Global Footprint Network have allowed GESG to use their carbon and
ecological footprint calculators, but in doing so are not necessarily endorsing Sierra
Gorda Carbon and Environmental Offsets. |
This calculates the carbon dioxide footprint for individuals
based on the two areas of energy use that make up the majority of most individuals' carbon
dioxide emissions which are home energy consumption and transportation by car and plane.
It bases the calculations on data available at the website of the GHG protocol initiative.
SafeClimate for Business has also developed guidance and tools to
assist companies and organizations in measuring GHG emissions. SafeClimate for Business is
a joint project of the
Sustainable
Enterprise Program,
World Resources
Institute and
Center for Environmental
Leadership in Business (CELB), a division of
Conservation International.
If you are interested in learning more about SafeClimate, please
visit
http://www.safeclimate.net.
For individuals who do not have the time or information necessary to
calculate their carbon footprint, they can use standard offsets to offset
some or all of their carbon footprint based on national estimates for
carbon emissions.
The benefits of Sierra Gorda Offsets in terms of carbon
sequestration, biodiversity preservation, hydrological services and improving the
livelihoods for the people of local communities are being verified through ongoing
scientific assessments and social return on investment analyses.
The University of Monterrey
and Bosque Sustentable have measured the amount of carbon
stored in the various ecosystems of the Sierra Gorda
and
inventories are underway to determine how much carbon
has been captured thus far in reforestations. Current studies are also
examinig various flora and fauna, including jaguar, in the
reserve.
Scientists at
the University of Queretaro are using data, in combination
with information about land cover and soil type, to model improvements to
hydrological processes throughout the Reserve resulting from reforestation and soil
conservation measures.
Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda has also undertaken a Social Return on
Investment Analysis to assess the range of impacts of their
programs on the communities in the Sierra Gorda.
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