Contact Sierra Gorda Ecotours to learn about the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, which occupies nearly a third of Querétaro State and is a sanctuary of almost all the ecosystems of México.  Ecotours offers quality service and the opportunity for contact with Nature in the mountains and among forests and rivers with accommodations such as cabins and accessible hiking paths.

Sierra Gorda Earth Center:  Education, Conservation, Sustainability

During the second week of September, the second generation of the UNESCO – Sierra Gorda Diploma course entitled “Teaching and Learning and for a Sustainable Future” will begin.  Administered by the Sierra Gorda Earth Center project of the Sierra Gorda Ecological Group, this Virtual Campus course offering is accredited by the Autonomous University of Querétaro.  The online platform has us excited about the prospect of broad regional, national, and international participation, including community members with natural leadership skills.  The course also is relevant for educators who are committed to raising their students´ awareness about the environmental emergency and who understand the value and importance of awakening widespread civic participation among the students, parents, and local authorities in their regions.

DATES: The Online Diploma course is preceded with a required one-week training session August 31^st-September 5^th to orient class participants to use of the Virtual Campus platform and its contents.  The Diploma course then begins online from September 7^th until December 20^th followed by a required full week of presentations and fieldtrips held onsite in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve January 11^th-15^th, 2010.  The diploma course is offered only in Spanish.

Teachers and community support providers from across the country came to the Earth Center´s Jalpan Campus, joining the growing conservation movement during the “Week of Living the Experience.” The Campus in Jalpan de Serra is ideal for participants to meet face-to-face and to gain first-hand experience of sustainability strategies in the communities of a region with five World Heritage Sites and the beautiful landscape of a World Biosphere Reserve.  The first generation of participants, which included 70 teachers, environmental organizers, and community support providers who were enrolled in the Online Diploma course “Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future” joined one another in Jalpan for a full week of activities.  The curriculum produced by Sierra Gorda and UNESCO combined with a week of concrete community experiences inspired the participants to take action.  The participants took home with them the tools and the motivation for sharing their experience in their own communities and places of work, and they now are generating more interest and participation by carrying out the projects they developed in the course.  We are grateful for the valuable consulting advice from REDDES A.C. that effectively supported our administration of a successful virtual campus course.

Four nationally and internationally recognized leaders served as the featured panel at the workshop “Social Entrepreneurship:  Paths to Sustainability,” which was held at the Jalpan Campus earlier this month.  All four social entrepreneurs are actively seeking ways to organize local solutions that are urgently needed by the planet.   Albina Ruiz of Ciudad Saludable (Healthy Cities) came from Peru.  Panel members from Mexico included Carolina Nieto of Saber para la Vida (Knowledge for Life), Carlos Cruz from Cauce Ciudadano (Channeling Citizenship), and Pati Ruiz Corzo, co-founder of the Sierra Gorda Ecological Group.  All four are social entrepreneurs associated with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, and each has accumulated vast experience and achieved great success in their efforts.   In the workshop, they shared their keys to success in solving some of the most challenging social and environmental problems our society faces today.

Additionally, the speakers shared their ideas for analyzing the value of mobilizing civil participation and its important contribution to society, such as the carbon offset producers in the Biosphere Reserve who are participating in the global marketplace.

The Earth Center has enjoyed a strong response nationally and internationally to its workshops based on their emphasis on training multiple stakeholders to use the most innovative tools that are available and for their effectiveness in encouraging the replication of successful strategies.  During the last month, there have been participants attending courses and workshops from 11 Mexican states and three countries (USA, France, and Mexico).

July 30^th-August 1^st, we hosted 34 Ejido (common lands) members from a region in Guerrero State known as the Mountain of Guerrero.  Their visit was organized by the Global Environment Facility and the UNDP project “The Holistic Management of Ecosystems.” They visited Sierra Gorda to learn how the Biosphere Reserve is managed and the ways in which social participation is accomplished as well as how the Reserve interacts with the population to carry out conservation and development activities.  The exchange was very fruitful for the local people of Guerrero whose roots are strong and who are assuming new commitments, taking care of their resources, and seeking the means to protect their natural heritage.  Congratulations and success to them in their goals!

Sierra Gorda Earth Center and the office of Regional Management of the Central-Neovolcanic Axis Region of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas held a popular workshop about the Development of Ecosystem Services Products during the National Congress of Natural Protected Areas from July 12^th- 13^th in the city of San Luis Potosí. Hopefully, initiatives will develop in which the tools can be applied and the forests and jungles, as well as the invaluable biodiversity, can gain an economic value for environmental services.

 Photo of the month

Joya del Hielo A.C., Sierra Gorda Ecological Group, and Viva Sierra Gorda promote the Wildlands Rescue Campaign within the bio-corridor in the Eastern Sierra Madre in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve to protect the biodiversity, wildlife, and forests under special private protection.  Our thanks to the VALRUCE company from San Luis Potosí for its awareness and commitment to the environment.  We are grateful to our partner the Philanthropic Association of Cummins A.C. (AFIC in Spanish) and the work they have done to purchase lands for conservation.  VALRUCE´s contribution helped acquire the property known as El Socavón, a unique sanctuary of great biodiversity including mountain cloud forest and endangered species such as the brocket deer, the tayra (Eira Barbara), and the bearded wood partridge as well as a vertical cave where small green parrots called “Catarinas” nest.

The organizations that form the Alliance for the Conservation of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve extend our thanks for the support of donors in 2009, especially the Gonzalo Rio Arronte Foundation, Bombardier Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Development Marketplace Prize of the World Bank, the Nacional Monte de Piedad, Biodiversity Foundation, Global Greengrants Fund, Viva Sierra Gorda, and Mitsubishi Foundation for the Americas.