Islas Marías adds sustainable agriculture and park ranger training to its eco-education initiatives

The tourer halfway connected the UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve of Islas Marías volition soon beryllium sharing abstraction with an agroecological workplace and a parkland ranger grooming center.

The national authorities has authorized the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp) to usage an country of ​​more than 70,000 quadrate meters located connected Isla María Madre, according to the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) published connected Oct. 8.

The grasslands and scrublands of the Islas Marías Biosphere Reserve are location to endemic taxon of raccoon and rabbit, and the surrounding waters teem with 21 taxon of sharks and 10 antithetic ray species. (@jenarovillamil/X)

The Conanp task is portion of the government’s National Environmental Restoration Program, whose extremity for this twelvemonth is to reconstruct 5% of the full degraded aboveground country of ​​coastal and marine ecosystems, 800 hectares of municipality parks and forests, and 26,000 hectares of wood ecosystems.

Approximately 26,000 quadrate meters of the Islas Marías task volition beryllium designated for “El Rehilete” (“The Retreat”), a self-sufficient and sustainable nutrient accumulation system. 

The stated purpose of El Rehilete is to enactment the section system and beforehand the conservation of earthy resources, portion teaching a caller procreation of young radical astir nutrient sovereignty. 

The remaining 44,000 quadrate meters volition beryllium dedicated to the operation of a grooming halfway to thatch unpaid parkland rangers astir conservation, preservation and absorption methods for Protected Natural Areas (PNAs).

Islas Marías is simply a Pacific Ocean archipelago comprising 4 main islets — María Madre, María Magdalena, María Cleofas and San Juanito — astir 94 kilometers (58 miles) disconnected the seashore of the authorities of Nayarit. 

Visitors tin circuit Islas Marías by purchasing government-regulated tourism packages with departures from Mazatlán, Sinaloa, oregon San Blas, Nayarit. 

Originally named the Magdalenas Islands aft they were discovered by Spanish explorers successful the 1520s, the islands were utilized arsenic a Mexican penal colony from 1905 until 2019. 

Islas Marías earned its Biosphere Reserve presumption successful 2010. Nine years later, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador closed the situation and announced it would beryllium converted into an biology acquisition halfway named aft the prison’s astir celebrated inmate, José Revueltas, the Durango-born 20th-century writer and dissident.

The islands are location to the Tres Marías raccoon (Procyon insularis), the endemic Tres Marías cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus graysoni), 21 taxon of sharks, 10 antithetic rays, 3 taxon of oversea turtles and steadfast coral reefs.

The scenery consists of grasslands, shrublands and tropical deciduous and subdeciduous forest.

With reports from Milenio, Reforma and Vallarta Adventures