earthDECKS Mexico

There are many reasons for earthDECKS to have a node in Mexico, the world’s eighth largest plastic producer. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has been working to try to save the vaquita dolphins. Mexican innovation, entrepreneurship, programming talent, Mexico’s major capacity for film production, and the impressive arts community in San Miguel de Allende, make Mexico a logical node for some of earthDECKS’ creative work.

earthDECKS’ five minute film PLASTIC is the first of a series.  Fifty years ago Dustin Hoffman was advised in The Graduate: “One word. PLASTICS.” The power of the media made plastics a hot career. As The Graduate foretold, plastic production has boomed to twenty times what it was fifty years ago and now has changed our civilization and environment in significant ways. Our five minute short film PLASTIC is a fast montage citing the classic clip from The Graduate, ending with the realization that “We’ve got to clean up this plastic.”

The media can impact the future by focusing a mass audience. 50 years ago the media used its influence to make PLASTIC into a hot career. Now that media power can make the public aware of the great environmental problems arising from our overuse of plastic for disposable products, which end up  in our oceans and ultimately in our own food chain.

Ocean Foundation – Engagement Projects in Mexico

The Ocean Foundation, fiscal sponsor for earthDECKS.org Ocean Network, already has several sponsored projects in Mexico. For example, the Ocean Foundation is spearheading development of a marine sanctuary in the municipality of Loreto in Baja California Sur, Mexico, which Mark J. Spalding, President of The Ocean Foundation, traces back to his first visit in 1986.

Mexico applied and was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2005 for the Loreto Bay National Marine Park, a designation recognizing its importance to the common heritage of humanity, as agreed by the 192 nation states who are parties to the Convention, making it one of the most adhered to international agreements.

In 2004, The Ocean Foundation was invited to create the Loreto Bay Foundation to receive 1% of gross sales from the sustainable green resort development known as the Villages of Loreto Bay, which was operated as a specially branded foundation and subsidiary of The Ocean Foundation for nearly 5 years. During this time, Mark Spaulding worked with local grantees on many different aspects of this community to create a sustainable development model, which had other components, such as the National Park of the Bay of Loreto and the program, “Keep Loreta Magical.”

Pro Esteros was founded by a group of scientists from Mexico and the US to protect Baja California coastal wetlands. Today, they are an Asociación Civil in Mexico. As part of their mission, Pro Esteros studies coastal wetlands, for educational, scientific and conservational purposes, monitoring shorebirds on these wetlands. Below: the long-billed curlew.

With 16 years of continuous work, Pro Esteros is one of the oldest established environmental organizations in Baja California. They have been working closely with communities, government agencies, and stakeholders to reach their goals, and implement their environmental education programs, scientific research projects, conservation of natural resources and community capacity building programs. More>

Tortugueros Las Playitas has a mission to protect, conserve and replenish the fragile marine eco-systems of Baja California Sur, Mexico. In addition to their sea turtle population recovery program, they place special interest on habitat protection, environmental education and community outreach in Todos Santos, Las Playitas and Agua Blanca.

One of their goals is to help restore the critically endangered pacific leatherback population which is on the verge of extinction. Their incubation greenhouse stabilizes sand temperatures, creating an ideal nest habitat, where hatch rates are maximized and gender ratios are balanced.

A range of entrepreneurial and environmental initiatives are growing and evolving in Mexico. Bravo Motor Company is launching a pilot test of their shared electric van system in Mexico City, working with the University of Mexico. A model regenerative community is on the drawing boards for Tulum, Mexico.

The Climate Institute has already established a network of Climate Institute Learning Centers in Mexico. They describe how “the Tickell network aims to link climate science research, large-scale climate education and tools to empower the citizenry to understand global climate change and implement climate solutions.”

Two grand challenges to save life on Earth, reversing plastic pollution and addressing climate change, are increasingly linked:

• a diet of plastic instead of real food is increasingly killing marine life;
• oil use for plastic, a petroleum product, and for energy has a great environmental cost.

The Plastic Pollution – Climate Change connection is well articulated by the United Nations Environment Program, which states that 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are produced by decomposing organic material in landfills. Roughly half is methane, which over two decades is 86 times as potent for global warming as carbon dioxide, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For every ton of material produced, the Israeli company UBQ claims to prevent between three and 30 tons of CO2 from being created by keeping waste out of landfills and from decomposing.

The Climate Institute’s work addresses both climate change and plastic, as shown in their featured Alert on “a better recipe for plastic.” The Climate Institute is working with a range of Mexican environmental leaders and describes how “this rapidly growing Interactive Network, named for Sir Crispin Tickell, the Climate Institute’s Chairman and an environmental hero in Mexico and the UK, seeks to achieve widespread public education in climate science while inspiring the visitors to climate theatres at museums and educational parks to become climate problem solvers using their smart phones, laptops and desktops. The Mexico Observatory Team  of Carlos Diaz Leal, Dra. Aurora Elena Ramos, Sir Crispin Tickell, Barbara Hernandez, and Luis Roberto Acosta spearheaded the development of the Tickell Network, which now consists of the Tickell Observatory, 14 climate outreach centers and theatres in Mexico, the Center for Environment Leadership Training, and the Wild Center in the US.”

The Sir Crispin Tickell Climate Observatory built by the Climate Institute is the world’s highest climate observatory (4581 m, or 15,030 feet high) on the top of the Sierra Negra peak in Pico de Orizaba National Park in the State of Puebla adjacent to the Large Millimeter Telescope , the largest and most sensitive single-aperture telescope in its frequency in the world.

As a High Altitude Global Climate Observation Center, it is optimally positioned to measure greenhouse gases and dust particles, track global and regional climate and assess hurricane risk, and drive extensive environmental study that fills a gap in the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), which lacks an observation center anywhere in Middle America (Mexico, the southern United States, Central America, and the Caribbean). The Observatory, named in honor of Sir Crispin Tickell, Chairman of the Climate Institute, aims to catalyze climate protection efforts in Mexico and the world.

The earthDECKS node in Salvador de Allende, Mexico will not only explore working with these Climate Institute Centers, and with the Director of E-Learning with the Climate Institute, but also will link with other environmental initiatives in Mexico.

For example, Lake Chapala is Mexico’s largest freshwater lake. Located in the municipalities of Chapala, Jocotepec, Poncitlán, and Jamay, in Jalisco, and in Venustiano Carranza and Cojumatlán de Régules, in Michoacán, this lake is a critical habitat for several species of migratory birds, such as the American white pelican, and home to thousands of indigenous plants and animals. The Audubonistas de Laguna de Chapala holds an annual Audubon Society sponsored Christmas Bird Count. In 2006, some 117 species were identified. In 2007, the count was 125. By January, 2011, some 173 species had been recorded.

Lake Chapala was named by the Global Nature Fund the “Threatened Lake of the Year” in 2004. Lake Chapala highlights political issues with water. The city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, has relied on Lake Chapala as a principal source of water since the 1950s. Consecutive years of poor rainfall dramatically decreased the water level of the Lake. The level rebounded until 1979. But again, Lake Chapala’s water level began rapidly decreasing due to increases in urban water consumption. The drop in the lake’s water level uncovered political issues that were hidden for many years. The lake’s fast decay has raised concern in the surrounding areas and in the scientific community. 

By 2007 and 2008, the level of Lake Chapala increased drastically, though the levels have yet to surpass the level in 1979, when the levels began a precipitous decline. Although still subject to agricultural, domestic, and industrial sources of contamination, actual levels of hazardous materials have not been officially assessed with regularity.

Although Lake Chapala water level and quality improved due to water treatment plants along the Lerma River, in 2017 the water quality of Lake Chapala water was assessed as a risk to public health.

Mexico is one of many countries in Latin America participating in the Initiative 20×20: Witness to Restoration.

Mexico also hosts a major initiative, led by The Nature Conservancy, to save the formerly threatened American bison, now on a preserve in Mexico and there is much academic exchange, even more potential: