MY LIFE IN TERRA
Our first years were perhaps the most exciting
because we planned without limits. We worked to
both identify the areas of highest conservation value,
and where we had a chance of actually making a
difference. From this, we ended up focusing on two
areas, quite a distance apart from each other. These
were the borderlands east of Tijuana (an area we call
“Las Californias”), and the land stretching north from
Valle de Los Cirios (at 28° N) to the bay of San Quintín. Both of these areas are important not just because each was amazingly diverse and relatively intact,
but also because they are corridors, that connect
the mountains to the desert, and allow migration to
maintain healthy populations and allow adaptation
to climate change.
Our projects in Las Californias focused on sustainable use, creating economic activities that are tied
to conservation. We created a joint venture with a
local ejidatario (owner of communal land) to protect
land for ecotourism, and worked with the Kumeyaay
Indian Community of San Antonio Necua to create
a visitor center.
In Valle Tranquilo, where the parcels are larger and
tourists are fewer, we concentrated on land deals,
where we would use simple title, or other mechanisms to protect the land from development.
But our most ambitious project, and to me the
most satisfying, has been our project at Punta Mazo
in San Quintín. The idea of conserving Punta Mazo—a
10 kilometer dune system that forms the border of
one of the most pristine and important bays on the
Pacific coast of North America—had been a dream
for so many conservationists for at least two decades. But clouded title, and the delusion of touristic
development had frustrated all attempts to proceed.
We had almost given up hope of being able
to make any progress at San Quintín, when we
heard in June of 2012 that Mexico’s highest
court had cleared all the title disputes, and
we cou