Cuenca Los Ojos

Pearce, AZ, USA

An Overview Of Our Solution

Cuenca Los Ojos owns and manages 45,000 hectares in Sonora, Mexico with a primary focus on increasing water, as the primary driver of ecosystem services. We employ a restoration model focused on keeping water in the local system, while raising the water table to benefit nature and agricultural production. We have converted agricultural fields to the production of native grass seed, which greatly drives down the price of grassland restoration, which provides benefit to grassland birds, which are in decline. An increased water table allows us to water agricultural crops without taking water from the natural system and the plants and wildlife that depends on this limited natural resource. We have been successful in exporting this model through outreach to, and the training of, other landowners in Sonora, Chihuahua, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

Sem fins lucrativos

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Deserts

Forests

Freshwater

Grasslands

Oceans/Coasts

Population impacted

2500

Size of agricultural area

45,000 ha

Production quantity

250 cattle, 65 hectares of native grass seed under cultivation, 25 bee hives, 1200 pistachio trees.

People employed

13-25

Describe your solution

Our solution has been to improve watershed functions and increasing surface water while raising the water table. Part of this requires a strategy where we not only focus on riparian areas but on the uplands as well. These uplands have suffered from desertification, and were primarily shrublands with little grass remaining, due to bad management practices over the past century. A significant challenge in native grassland restoration has been the high cost of native grass seed, which can cost as much as 100,000 dollars per year. We have addressed this cost, by converting former agriculture fields into the production of native grass seed. We currently have 65 hectares in production and this is providing the seed we need to initiate new restoration. Education is very important and we focus a great deal of effort on outreach and education. This takes many forms. We conduct trainings for area ranchers and for our neighbors on the Ejido. We host school children a number of times per year and provide hands-on instruction on the importance of biological diversity and restoration.

Describe your implementation

Our primary focus has been on improving watershed functions. To accomplish this, we construct trincheras (loose rock structures) that slow water & allow infiltration. In larger riparian systems, we construct gabions, rock structures held together in wire baskets. We have converted 8000 acres from shrubland, back to the native grasslands that once existed here, further improving watershed conditions. While successful in bringing back trees and other riparian vegetation, flowering and fruiting plants that would have been found here historically had disappeared. We noticed a scarcity of flowering plants in the early summer months, when both resident and migrating hummingbirds were attempting to nest. Due to this lack of food resources, we observed a high-degree of nest failure. As a result, we added an additional component to our riparian restoration work, and began planting, watering, and establishing flowering plants for the benefit of hummingbirds. A challenge in native grassland restoration has been the extremely high cost of grass seed. We’ve addressed this cost by converting former agriculture fields into production of native grass seed. This grassland restoration not only helps watershed conditions, but is of great benefit to grassland birds, which have been in decline over the past three decades, as native grasslands have disappeared. We utilize cattle in grassland restoration, which allows us to graze in a manner that promotes longer-term grass production, while realizing a profit on the cattle. We have a strong focus on outreach & education. We’ve trained more than 70 ranchers in our restoration techniques. We provide educational programs for the local school children including hands-on work building loose rock check dams, and help with native fish surveys. We are now teaching the children of children that we hosted 15 years ago, leading to a growing environmental ethos in the local community. We have hosted a number of Native American tribes for workshops

External connections

We work closely with CONOFOR, a Mexican agency tasked with protecting forests and watersheds. We work with a network of ranchers in both Sonora and Chihuahua, as well as several local ejidos. We have provided trainings to both these groups and have helped raise money for them to do restoration work on their own lands. We work with the local schools in Agua Prieta, Mexico to provide in-the-field educational opportunities. We have worked with more than 100 researchers and more than 30 different educational institutes from both Mexico and the US. We work with many NGO’s in both countries, including but not limited to Naturalia, ProNatura, Borderlands Restoration, Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society, Northern Jaguar Project, Wildlands Network, and Sky Island Alliance.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

Climate change is the most significant ecological challenge we are targeting. Water is a key factor in every activity we conduct and our primary focus is to retain the water we have in our natural systems, and to increase the available water, while raising the water table with active riparian and watershed restoration. This makes irrigation possible without impacting the adjacent natural systems. A benefit of this approach has been the increase of surface water by 15 kilometers on our property and the downstream ejido (communal) property. We have increased the riparian vegetation by 1000 hectares, and the existing wetlands by 600 percent, with tremendous benefit to wildlife and plants.

Describe the context in which you are operating

We work in the northern borderland area of Mexico and our lands are adjacent to a national wildlife refuge in the US. We are 25 kilometers east of Agua Prieta (pop. 80,000) and the primary agricultural production in our area revolves around cattle. We work in an arid region that suffered from continuous drought from 2000-2014. We recognized early that climate change and variable local drought conditions were the biggest threat to our work, which has led to our emphasis on creating more water. Our project area (Sky Islands) has been recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot. We have increased the positive effects of the wildlife refuge by a factor of 17, and we manage for 20 different species found on our lands that are listed as either Threatened or Endangered. We have the greatest concentration of bee diversity (400 species) found anywhere on the planet, more than 400 species of birds, 100 species of mammals. 350 species of butterflies are associated with our primary wetland complex (Cienega San Bernardino), the greatest known concentration of butterfly diversity in North America.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

By increasing watershed health, the amount of water that is retained in the local system has increased. We measure this positive impact yearly and have documented a 15 kilometers increase since 2003. We have raised the water table, which allows us to irrigate the native grass fields, and the pistachio groves, without taking much needed water away from environmental services and biological diversity. Two thousand acres of newly created riparian vegetation has been added as a result of our project and the wetlands found here, have increased by 600 percent, while growing from only three percent of their historic reach, to 18 percent. Deer, which had been in decline, have been introduced into the area to augment existing populations, and to provide a stable food base for the locally reintroduced Mexican gray wolf. Native fish populations that were previously found on the national wildlife refuge in the US have increased on our lands in Mexico, as has the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog. Local school children have been exposed to nature, and to the importance of biodiversity and conservation of wildlife and landscapes.

Language(s)

Spanish, English

Water

Living and working in an arid region, water is the primary component to everything we do. It is the most important ecosystem function. It also can build bridges and bring people together, as we discovered in working with the local ejido.

Food Security/Nutrition

By focusing much of our outreach efforts to other landowners, particularly ranchers, we are increasing the productivities of their lands. By offering classes on bee-keeping and honey production, we are providing additional opportunities for both food production, pollination, and income.

Economic/Sustainable Development

Due to poor management practices, which occurred for more than a century, lands in our area are generally impoverished. While much of our focus has been to improve the productivity of our lands, we freely share information, conducting trainings, and helping to raise funds so our neighbors are also able to improve their lands. Over time, this is leading to an increase in sustainability.

Climate

We have developed a model that is successful in addressing many of the impacts of climate change. Our restoration activities have overlapped with the most significant drought in 700 years. Despite this, we have increased surface flows of water, increased wetlands, and increased biological diversity. This is a model that is simple to implement, easy to train people in the techniques, labor intensive which leads to more jobs, and is relatively cheap compared to other restoration models.

Sustainability

We rely on grant funding from private foundations and governmental funding processes. We also rely on market-based revenue and all profits generated by our agricultural programs, are put back into the larger project, which is focused on sustainability, ecosystem services, and biological diversity.

Return on investment

We currently spend between 400-500 thousand dollars per year. When looking at the results and the tremendous increase in water, wildlife, vegetation, agriculture, and education, we believe the benefits on the ground have greatly exceeded our investment.

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

This model could be replicated anywhere, on multiple scales. Through our trainings, it has been exported to other areas of Mexico, esp Sonora & Chihuahua. It has been exported to the ranching community, with many ranchers in both countries utilizing this model in their local areas. It is also being used in a number of Native American communities in the US. An important component of water security in our arid region is reservoirs. Most of these are decades old & have issues w silt deposits displacing water capacity. Our riparian restoration model is dependent on trapping silt, which then acts as a sponge & releases water slowly, retaining the silt. A geomorphologist doing research on our properties estimates we have trapped the equivalent of 18000 dump-truck loads of silt in a single drainage. This could be done at scale adding many yrs to the life of a reservoir. Funding would depend on scale & stakeholders would be cities,towns, water companies, gvt agencies, ag communities, NGOs

Overview