Integrated Ecosystem Management in 3 Priority Ecoregions

The project will protect biodiversity and sustain vital ecological functions within three globally significant ecoregions: the Tehuantepec Moist Forest, the Pacific Dry Tropical Forests, and the Sierra Madre del Sur Pine-Oak Forest. These ecoregions contain a range of forest communities including pine forest, pine-oak forests, cloud forest, tropical rain forest, tropical dry forest and mangroves, which provide habitat for native fauna, act as carbon reservoirs, and protect watersheds. Yet they face a suite of growing anthropogenic pressures that imperil their ecological integrity and functions. This situation is mirrored in other parts of Mexico and the Government has responded by founding the Sustainable Regional Development Program (PRODERS), which aims at integrating biodiversity conservation and development objectives in 24 discrete regions. Working at three sites: Chinantla in Oaxaca State, Montaña in Guerrero and Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, the project will strengthen and cross-fertilize PRODERS by piloting integrated and replicable ecosystem-management models that conserve biodiversity and sequester carbon, while foreclosing land degradation. The objective is to establish the institutional framework and local capacities to manage a mosaic of biodiversity-friendly land and resource uses, including set-asides for biodiversity protection, compatible agro-forestry and silvo-pastoral systems, and ecological restoration. A number of cross-sectoral interventions are advanced to remove barriers to integrated ecosystem management. The Government of Mexico will then systematically replicate the management paradigm in other bio-regions.