In commemorating the National Conservation Day, the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), Alicia Bárcena, recognized this Wednesday the protection undertaken by the state of Durango for the care of more than one million hectares that are part of the scheme of Protected Natural Areas (ANP), among which are the Biosphere Reserves of La Michilía and Mapimí.
Bárcena highlighted in a video that the Biosphere Reserves were born in Durango more than 45 years ago, “and it represented a watershed for conservation in Mexico and a legacy for the World Network of Biosphere Reserves of the Man and the Biosphere program of Unesco.” She highlighted that it is positioned as the eighth state in terms of national protection, since it currently takes care of the Biosphere Reserves of La Michilía and Mapimí, the Sierra de Órganos National Park, and the Natural Resources Protection Area Feeder Basin of the National Irrigation District 43.
With 232 NPAs in the country, Bárcena assured that Semarnat, together with the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, will work so that “they have a viable and functional management program, which allows us to implement it with the help of communities, ejidos and indigenous peoples.” With this type of measures, she argued that the goal is to achieve the 30 percent protection goal of the national territory by 2030, “one of the most important goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.”
On this day, the Official Gazette of the Federation published a summary of the Management Program for the Protected Natural Area for La Michilía, created by the institutions of the Semarnat, which establishes mechanisms for policies, strategies and programs for the conservation of its biological diversity. This will be achieved along five axes: protection, management, restoration, knowledge, culture and management.
During her message, Bárcena also recognized the career of those who “carried out outstanding research, their entire lives generating knowledge and creating the bases for the conservation of biodiversity in Mexico,” mentioning the deceased Gonzalo Halffter, Héctor Mayagoitia, Alfredo Barrera, Jerzy Rzedowski and Alfredo Garza, in addition to Arturo Gómez-Pompa and Sergio Guevara, who “continue to build on this legacy.”
He recalled that on a day like today, but in 1917, the then president Venustiano Carranza decreed the creation of the First National Park, known as the Desert of the Lions and this “historical event”, since 2001, allowed all the entities that make up the environmental sector of Mexico to celebrate the National Day of Conservation.
Source: jornada
