Women building a sustainable future: The Mexican violinist who saved the Sierra Gorda | UN News
Forty years ago, Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo, known as Pati, left the Mexican city of Querétaro with her family in search of a simple rural life. Instead, she ended up leading and inspiring a group of some 17,000 local environmental activists, devoted to protecting the remote and beautiful Sierra Gorda.
Among the group’s most recognized programmes is one related to sustainable forestry. It is based on a scheme called Payment for Environmental Services, which also monitors carbon in the forests of the Sierra Gorda.
Miguel Flores Pedraza, a 60-year-old forestry landowner, has been participating in this project for a decade, dedicating his land – about a hundred hectares – to conservation.
" I have been receiving the support for Payment of Environmental Services or carbon capture and other benefits, by leaving the land in their natural state so that it can be regenerated", he says.
"This project has helped us a lot since it is an income that compensates us" he explains and provides a concrete example of what can be done: "If I brought five or ten heads of cattle, grazing on this land, that gave me an average profit of 50,000 pesos. This is exactly what I receive today for Payment of Environmental Services by the Ecological Group.”
"This satisfies me economically and has also raised my awareness of ecological matters. I liked to see that the environment is enriched, that ecosystems are becoming restored, and the diversity of the flora and fauna has increased. Today on my land I see wild boar and pumas which, thirty years ago, did not appear in this area.”
Keeping the gears of this new environmental conservation economy oiled, requires time, and a great deal of work, not only from the owners of the land, but from those in charge of designing, implementing, and monitoring the projects.
Education, the best weapon
One example is ecotourism, which successfully began in an area called Cañada de las Avispas, used for bee-keeping.
"We started the adventure by building cabins”, recalls Pati. We had an excellent team and created wonderful cabins. We set up a carpentry shop in the village, and a famous teacher came to live in the community, to train young people. You can't imagine the work that went into this project!”
For Pati, the best weapon to defend and restore nature is education, which is why, 34 years ago, she began touring schools in the mountains with an accordion, singing with children and educating them about the environment. Today, in the hands of teachers, the program is running in the region's more than 150 schools.
The result is that the general population is now aware of the issues and, in some municipalities, cabinet members are ecologists.
"If you go to the market and talk about the zero-waste campaign, people know what it's all about. The merchants are in favour of the campaign and ask people to bring their own containers and baskets. It's undeniable that environmental education works", she says.
“The key figures are the teachers”, she emphasizes, arguing that the only hope for the planet is one that can be generated with a different vision, "fostering in children a love of the earth.”
This story is part of multimedia UN News series featuring women leading initiatives for a more sustainable, equitable future, published ahead of this year’s International Women’s Day on 08 March.
