Natural Protected Areas (PAs) are a public policy instrument whose primary aim is to conserve the diversity of ecosystems and species in Mexico. From the shrublands of El Pinacate and the Gran Desierto de Altar to the depths of the oceans and the colossal jungles of southern Mexico, PAs have protected genetic diversity and Mexico&rsquo;s representative natural spaces through time. A total of 186 federal PAs have been declared since their conception just over a century ago (CONANP, 2022). Depending on their characteristics and their surface area, these can fall under any of the following categories: biosphere reserves, national parks, wildlife protection areas, natural resource protection areas, natural monuments, sanctuaries, and areas voluntarily destined for conservation. Today, let&rsquo;s talk about this last category.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Local Allies for Sustainable Development
Historically, ejidos (communal landholders) and agrarian communities in Mexico developed a strong connection between natural resource use and ecosystem conservation. Proof of this lies in the 389 areas voluntarily destined for conservation (ADVC in Spanish) established over the years. They cover over half a million hectares in at least 24 states throughout the country (Ibid).
Mexican legislation recognizes ADVCs since 2002. As their name suggests, their main characteristic is that they have been registered completely voluntarily by their owners or the legitimate landholders for the stewardship and protection of biodiversity and the sustainable management and development of their resources.&nbsp;
ADVCs take on full meaning and importance when considering that ejidos and communal property constitute just over 50% of the national territory. The landholders&mdash;owners of these ADVCs&mdash;are key actors not only for conservation and restoration of ecosystems, but also for the implementation of productive projects that have as guiding principles the sustainable use of resources, the socioeconomic development of communities, and the fight against climate change.&nbsp;
The ADVCs&rsquo; structure and implementation model is based on a management plan outlined in the ADVC guidelines that reflects the biotic and abiotic characteristics of the region and includes a description of the ecosystems present in the area, emphasizing species of flora and fauna of national significance. The management strategy is the central pillar of ADVCs: it outlines the activities that will be carried out and the ecosystem conservation, protection, and restoration actions that will be implemented in accordance with the guidelines for natural resource use.
According to several authors (Leverington et al., 2010), ecosystem conservation has been conceptualized from the top down, meaning that it has been primarily driven by governmental entities and academia&mdash;that is, with little input from those who conserve nature on their land. Even though this has allowed for the conservation of many sites around the world, the need to emphasize the inclusion and participation of those directly involved&mdash;the landholders&mdash;is undeniable. In the case of ADVCs, those directly involved are not only responsible for carrying out conservation and restoration activities, but also for monitoring and exercising shared governance in favor of sustainable development.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The Scope and Opportunities of ADVCs
While it is true that preserving ecosystem services is more economical than restoring them, it does not always translate into direct financial benefits for the primary implementers of these actions. At one point in the history of protected areas, ADVCs were eligible to receive financial support from the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) to implement conservation and productive projects. However, the agency suffered budget cuts in 2021 and ADVCs are no longer eligible to receive this kind of support.&nbsp;
Faced with the imminent environmental crisis and with little public funding available, landholders have shifted their attention towards new strategies to make nature conservation compatible with the economic and social development of communities. The shift has recently focused on the financing capacity of the private sector. Often, when we think of climate change and its adverse effects, we associate the private sector with the principal cause of this global problem. While this may be true, we shouldn&rsquo;t forget that, as we look to the future, the private sector is key to injecting capital into projects that address current environmental, climate, and even social issues.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Within the framework of these projects, activities like community monitoring to identify the state of ecosystems&rsquo; natural populations, establishing forest inventories to know their carbon stocks, and carrying out impact and social vulnerability studies for communities currently exceed the technical and financial capacity of the public sector. The main reason is that the different institutions that manage PAs and their associated projects lack a specific budget and depend exclusively on small, mostly isolated, annual subsidies. Frequently, the allocated budget is not proportional to the conserved area.&nbsp;
According to the 2022 Proposed Federal Expenditure Budget, the budget per hectare was only 9.70 pesos. This creates a latent risk to the permanence of these areas and, consequently, of ecosystem conservation. How can we reconcile ecosystem conservation and restoration with a reality that undermines the economic development capacity of those that implement these initiatives?
&nbsp;
Building Synergies for Climate Resilience
Several strategies exist for ADVCs to achieve their objectives. One of these is co-management based on planning the operations and articulating them across sectors and institutions (Pe&ntilde;a-Azcona et al., 2022). Within this framework, we may think that we have covered all the bases for the proper operation of ADVCs by viewing the public sector as the primary guide toward obtaining the ADVC certification and academia as the main ally for implementing research and scientific activities&mdash;especially environmental education workshops and community monitoring of flora and fauna. However, the economic component continues to be left out of the equation.
Because the commitments of the private sector do not focus solely on climate action and can also empower communities and their economic development, it is here that the sector could propel ADVCs toward improving and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals&mdash;international objectives set by the United Nations to face the current crises and create a path towards a more sustainable world.&nbsp;
The private sector could play a leading role by helping ADVCs to meet the following Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 8: promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all; Goal 15: protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss; Goal 11: make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable; and, finally, Goal 13: incentivize climate action where the private sector, in large part, is able to finance the climate action that is so urgently needed today. If adequate synergies are created, we may be closer to reversing the adverse effects of climate change by 2030 at the global level.
The socioenvironmental potential of ADVCs includes projects that sequester carbon and accelerate global decarbonization; that create biological corridors between ADVCs and vegetation remnants, thus connecting diverse landscapes and promoting ecosystem resilience; that improve agricultural practices by increasing production while making them more sustainable; and that restore native ecosystems to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
As an example, Toroto is developing <a href="https://toroto.com/en/projects/producing-carbon-credits-in-campeche-quintana-roo-and-chiapas-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">carbon sequestration projects with ADVCs in southeastern Mexico</a>. In addition to their climate component, the projects connect the surrounding areas of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve with vegetation remnants currently being regenerated, thereby establishing corridors for species.&nbsp;
All of these initiatives provide specific, direct benefits for the ecosystems, such as maintaining biological populations, increasing carbon stocks, and protecting endangered species. They also generate co-benefits for the local and global population, of which regulating biogeochemical cycles, improving air quality and reliable access to food, and enhancing economic growth stand out.&nbsp;
That said, it is clear that the relevance of ADVCs goes well beyond a forest project or a social group&rsquo;s stewardship: they represent the efforts of men and women in rural areas who, in most cases, have dedicated their lives to understanding and applying the sustainable relationships they have created with nature and which, in turn, are one of the most integrated ways that we have to fight the social, environmental, and climate crisis that threatens everything we know. However, we cannot ignore the complexity that their management entails and the funding their operation requires. Mexico has made great strides in ecosystem conservation and restoration, but the path of climate action is a long one and many challenges and opportunities remain. The great diversity of ecosystems can only be fully protected if the public, private and social sectors join their efforts and work together and if we recognize and value the labor and will of those who care for their territories and who dedicate them to a greater cause with global benefits.&nbsp;
 
About the Author:
Teresita is a graduate in biology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with experience in ecosystem restoration. She wants to be an agent for change and strives to understand the complex relationships between society and nature.&nbsp;
 
References:
<ul>
<li>Borrini-Feyerabend G.; Nigel Dudley.; Tilmas J.; Lassen, B.; Pathak Broome, N.; Philips, A and Sandwith,T. (2014). Protected Area Governance: from understanding to action. IUCN. Available at: <a href="https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/pag-020-es.pdf">https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/pag-020-es.pdf</a></li>
<li>Chacon, C. M. (2008). Will to conserve. Selected experiences of conservation by civil society in Iberoamerica. The Nature Conservancy.</li>
<li>CONANP. (2022). Protected natural areas decreed. http://sig.conanp.gob.mx/website/pagsig/datos_anp.htm.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Leverington, F., Costa, K. L., Pavese, H., Lisle, A., and Hockings, M. (2010). A global analysis of protected area management effectiveness. Environmental Management, 46(5), 685-698. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9564-5. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9564-5">https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9564-5 </a></li>
<li>Morett-S&aacute;nchez, J. Carlos, and Cos&iacute;o-Ruiz, Celsa. (2017). Overview of ejidos and agrarian communities in Mexico. Agriculture, society and development, 14(1), 125-152. Retrieved on January 03, 2023, from <a href="http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&amp;pid=S1870-54722017000100125&amp;lng=es&amp;tlng=es">http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&amp;pid=S1870-54722017000100125&amp;lng=es&amp;tlng=es </a></li>
<li>Pe&ntilde;a-Azcona, Ivett, Ortega-Argueta, Alejandro, Garc&iacute;a-Barrios, Ra&uacute;l, and Elizondo, Cecilia (2022). Voluntary conservation areas in Mexico: scope and challenges. Revista de Ciencias Ambientales, 56(2), 120-145. https://dx.doi.org/10.15359/rca.56/2.7. <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.15359/rca.56/2.7">https://dx.doi.org/10.15359/rca.56/2.7</a>.</li>
<li>Pe&ntilde;a-Azcona, I. (2015). Socio-environmental perception of areas voluntarily set aside for conservation in the Oaxacan Isthmus (Master's thesis). El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Mexico.</li>
</ul>

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Unlike in many countries, people in Mexico can own land through a system of social land tenure. This particularity has led to nature conservation falling, in part, on the shoulders of landholders who, by their own volition, manage their natural resources for a more sustainable world that benefits everyone. Let’s delve into this alternative conservation framework that not only joins in the fight against the climate crisis, but also recognizes and values the endeavors of these vital actors.

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