Mexican Wildlife Experts Doin it With CEMEX, S.A. de C.V. !!

THE EL CARMEN - BIG BEND MEGACORRIDOR ..

Adapted from the article "Beauty on the Border" in the February 2007 National Geographic .

Pages 70-71.

"This is a different model of conservation.

"Mexico lacks the funds to purchase land for parks or wildlfe habitat, a situation becoming increasingly common in the United States.

"So on the Mexico side of the corridor, much of the protected land is privately owned.

"Mining has been allowed to continue.

"Rather than removing the 5,000 ranchers and farmers living within the protected areas, as U.S. national parks historically have done, conservationists are teaching them why it's in their interest to protect the land.

"The goal is to give residents a sense of stewardship that national parks do not.

You have to understand, the concept of wilderness doesn't presently exist in Mexico,

"Says Patrico Robles Gil, an environmentalist and architect of the parftnerhsip with Cemex.

In Spanish, we don't have a word for wilderness.

This is all new, but it could be the model beyond a national park.

"After a long day working in the desert, a group of ocnservationists gathers for a dinner of steaks and tortillas at the Cemex reserve's main lodge.

"There is talk of the future.

"Already couple of adjacent areas are being proposed to join the two protected areas on the Mexican side.

"They discuss reintroducing the grizzly bear, the Mexican gray wolf, and bison -- all believed to have been native to the area.

"In the Transboundary Megacorridor, such dreams seem possible.

"And why not?

"Decades ago, only a few remaining black bears could be found tucked away in the isoolated mountain ranges of Coahuila.

"A group of Mexican ranchers decided to quit hunting bears and start protecting them instead.

"Now you see black bears on the Texas side of the [Rio Grande] river again.

"Wildlife pays no attention to international boundaries."

And you can just bet on that!