Anonymous
Unregistered
Posts: N/A
Registered: N/A
Member Is Offline
|
|
Islas Espiritu Santo & Partida Now in the Nat'l Park System!!!
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20030209-9999_1n9i...
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 9, 2003
They sit in one of the world's most pristine regions, an uninhabited archipelago in Mexico's Sea of Cortes. But for years, development pressures have
haunted Isla Espiritu Santo. Now the island and an adjacent islet called Isla Partida, both popular with hikers, kayakers and divers, have been folded
into Mexico's national parks system, and Mexican and U.S. conservation groups are hailing the move as a landmark victory.
"We've ensured the preservation of the island for future generations," said Mar?a Elena Mart?nez Delgado, general director of ISLA, a conservation
group in Baja California Sur.
An alliance between Mexican environmentalists and international groups such as the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy and the Swiss-based World Wildlife
Fund was crucial for the precedent-setting $3.3 million transfer from a landholding group to Mexico's federal government.
The agreement, reached last month, took years of negotiation and ended a stalemate over the future of Espiritu Santo and Partida, part of a chain of
900 islands prized for their biological diversity. Now, they will join the vast majority of islands in the Sea of Cortes controlled by Mexico's
National Commission for Natural Protected Areas.
Espiritu Santo, which measures 39 square miles ? nearly three times the size of the Coronado peninsula in San Diego Bay ? is a 40-minute boat ride
from La Paz, capital of Baja California Sur. The island harbors a number of endemic species, including a black-tailed jack rabbit and varieties of
lizards, snakes and toads.
"These are desert ecosystems, and extremely fragile. If there are any kinds of disturbances through introduced species, the entire equilibrium of the
island is broken," said Antonio Cant?, technical director of ISLA. "That's why it's so important to have them under a management program."
The island receives about 30,000 visitors a year, nine-tenths of them from the United States and most of the rest from Europe and Asia. The groups
will continue visiting the island under federal management.
"It's one of the prettiest islands in the Sea of Cortes," said Gabriela Anaya, who oversees 70 islands in Baja California Sur for the National
Commission for Natural Protected Areas. "This gives it an economic value for the region that we don't want disturbed."
Since 1976, Espiritu and Partida have been controlled by an ejido, a communal landholding system created under Mexico's 1917 constitution to give
landless peasants parcels to farm. But the Ejido Alfredo Vladimir Bonfil, which controlled the islands, received little benefit from the arid land.
In 1978, the entire archipelago was designated a federally protected area, restricting activity and development.
Still, members hoped to see their prospects improve after 1992, when Mexico amended its constitution to allow ejido land to be privatized and sold. A
220-acre parcel of Espiritu Santo was carved into 36 lots, one for each ejido member.
But in 1997, when one ejido member tried to build small cabins on his property to rent to tourists, Mexican environmental officials ordered them
demolished. The island, although not federally owned, was in a federally protected area.
"As property owners we weren't getting any benefit, so people began to sell their parcels," said Adrian Cabrales, the ejido's former president.
That's when ISLA stepped in and began negotiating with the ejido. The process took years and involved a number of conservation groups and federal and
state agencies.
Because most of the island remained communal property and could neither be bought nor sold, legal maneuvering had to be done to transfer the land, and
$3.3 million to compensate the ejido had to be found.
The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund each provided $1.1 million, and a Mexican group, FUNDEA, gave $850,000. The Walton Family
Foundation gave $250,000. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has donated $1.5 million toward protection of the islands.
Participants say this marks the first time that private funds have been used for such a land transfer to a government agency. They are hoping the
agreement can be a model for working with ejidos in other environmentally sensitive parts of Mexico.
The Nature Conservancy plans to continue working in the Sea of Cortes region, seeking ways to bring 10 remaining privately owned islands under federal
ownership, said Susan Anderson, director for northwest Mexico.
"Over the long term, we'd like to secure the protection for all of these islands," said Anderson.
|
|
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
Posts: N/A
Registered: N/A
Member Is Offline
|
|
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/5194392.htm
By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times
Of the 900 desert islands that dot the aquamarine waters of the Sea of Cortez, nearly all are owned by the Mexican government and protected as
national sanctuaries for seabirds, sea lions and a menagerie of other creatures.
A dozen islands, however, have remained in private hands, threatened with development in the style of Cabo San Lucas. That's been especially true for
a pair of heavily visited islands near the port of La Paz. Until now.
Mexican President Vicente Fox signed the final paperwork last month to bring Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida under control of national park
officials. The $3.3-million deal was made possible largely by donations from the Nature Conservancy, the World Wide Fund for Nature and other
U.S.-based conservationists.
"We see the purchase of Espiritu Santo as the first step in protecting all of the islands in the Sea of Cortez," said Marianne Kleiberg, the southern
Baja program manager for the Nature Conservancy.
A variety of U.S. conservation groups now focus on the Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California, and its islands and shorelines, which have
ecosystems that have been left largely intact because of their remoteness and their hot and arid climate.
The complex of islands and offshore rocks commonly known as Espiritu Santo -- "Holy Spirit" in Spanish -- is among the most heavily visited in the
sea. A 90-minute boat ride from La Paz, the islands are visited by about 25,000 people a year, who are taken there by nearly three dozen ecotourism
outfits for sea kayaking, day-tripping, bird-watching, scuba diving and fishing. Public access and most of the tourist activities are expected to
continue once the islands become part of the Mexican park system.
Conservation groups first grew interested in Espiritu Santo a few years ago when bungalows popped up. Until then, the islands had been inhabited only
seasonally by a few fishermen's camps. The decision to try to buy the land came when the former owner, a Mexican collective, carved up the island's
Bonanza Beach into lots and began advertising sites for oceanfront homes and hotels.
Ecologists, who have called the island complex a "natural laboratory," worried that development would threaten the survival of several rare species,
including a lizard found nowhere else in the world. The islands are also a refuge for 98 species of birds and a resident colony of 300 sea lions.
Conservationists also were concerned about despoiling a rich trove of Pericu Indian cave paintings and artifacts.
"All of the private islands are threatened with big tourist development like you find in Cabo San Lucas," said Susan Anderson, the Nature
Conservancy's director for northwestern Mexico. "We knew we had to do something when a private parcel was sold to a hotel chain."
After three years of negotiations orchestrated by the Mexican environmental education foundation FUNDEA, the conservation groups bought the land. The
Nature Conservancy and the World Wide Fund for Nature each paid $1.1 million, FUNDEA provided $850,000, and the Walton Family Foundation and
International Community Foundation an additional $250,000.
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation donated $1.5 million to an endowment to supplement the notoriously underfunded Mexican park system.
U.S. conservationists have discovered that their dollars stretch farther in less-developed countries than in the United States, with its pricey land.
Dollar for dollar, they can preserve far more habitat for wildlife and far more open space.
In the case of Espiritu Santo, the groups managed to set aside about 37 square miles of mostly undisturbed land for a few million dollars.
Ernesto Enkerlin, president of the Commission on Natural Protected Areas, which oversees Mexico's park system, praised public and private
organizations that banded together to preserve the island complex.
"What happened with Espiritu Santo is much more relevant than the money or the acreage," Enkerlin said. "It sets a new precedent."
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
