Mexico’s Sierra Gorda Reminds Us Our Climate Stories Are Missing a Reconnection to Nature

Travel journalist Kathleen Rellihan joins GLP on a visit to Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve where a pioneering carbon model pays local landowners to leave the forest alone to regenerate.

Photo credit: Roberto Pedraza Ruiz

"Our climate stories should be stories of reconnection, stories of when we fell in love with nature again. When we decided we were going to be protectors and defenders,” twenty-two-year-old Mexican climate activist Xiye Bastida suggested at this summer’s Bloomberg Green Festival. The Indigenous climate justice advocate’s words explain exactly how I went from being a journalist who covers travel to being one who also covers climate. I fell in love with nature again, and in Mexico, no less. 

My work as a travel journalist became even more focused on reconnecting to nature after I spent a few recent years living in Baja California Sur, one of Mexico's least populated states. Forty-two percent of this state is a protected natural area, one of the largest in the world. From seeing migrating gray whales breach fifteen feet from the beach to hearing humpbacks singing underwater while I was learning to free dive, the time I spent in Baja Sur brought my connection to nature to a whole new level. 

Also in recent years, assignments took me to places such as Antarctica, Patagonia, and the Swiss Alps where I witnessed firsthand the dramatic and devastating effects of climate change with disappearing glaciers. These pivotal experiences in nature impacted me profoundly, far more than any dire statistics could. I realized with this great privilege of traveling the world I also had this great responsibility to reciprocate. So I committed (even a formal one with Tourism Cares) to use my voice as a journalist to shed light on climate solutions and to share more climate stories of hope. There’s enough doom and gloom in the climate crisis, how could I use my storytelling to inspire action within the travel community and beyond? 

So when I received an invitation to join GLP to film an innovative local climate solution in Sierra Gorda, Mexico, I jumped at the chance. I had been following GLP’s impactful work for years; they won storytelling awards in both Newsweek’s Future of Travel Awards which I spearheaded, and the Regenerative Travel Impact Awards, which I was a judge for last year. 

The Sierra Gorda Ecological Group, located in Querétaro won the grand prize in GLP’s Sustainability Storytelling Competition which included a pro bono mini-documentary GLP would produce to share their story with the world. After seeing the power of community-led conservation in Baja California Sur, Mexico, I was looking forward to heading to the heart of Mexico where conservation initiatives were also fueled by grassroots efforts. And when I found out the visionary behind this groundbreaking local carbon economy is a 70-something-year-old woman? I couldn’t wait to learn more. 

Nothing could prepare me for the force that is Martha Isabel "Pati" Ruiz Corzo, one of Mexico’s foremost environmentalists and climate heroes. She’s the founder of Sierra Gorda Ecological Group which successfully led a grassroots campaign to make Sierra Gorda a protected area in 1997 and a UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve in 2001. 

In the 1980s, Pati left her urban life behind in Querétaro City and moved with her family to Sierra Gorda hoping to find a peaceful place in nature to raise her family. Instead, she found one of Mexico's most ecologically diverse areas, a mix of mountains, cloud forests, and jungles, threatened by deforestation and unregulated development. 

First she saved the Sierra Gorda, now she's pioneering a new local carbon economy 

“Being a female environmental leader in a country like Mexico is very difficult,” Pati says during a GLP interview. “I came at them like a hurricane…like a volcano,” she recalls how she had to win over the Mexican government.

Music was her sword; a violinist and former music teacher, Pati sang her way into the hearts of government officials and corporations to inspire them to stop the exploitation of the biodiversity hotspot that is Mexico's Sierra Gorda. (She also belted out in song during the interview with GLP.) 

Before we met Pati, we met her two sons who walked us through Sierra Gorda’s forests and its unique conversation success story which their whole family is part of. Roberto, Pati’s oldest son is a naturalist and nature photographer who has battled illegal logging and secured land for nature preserves; Mario is a regenerative farmer and provides environmental education to local farmers. 

Meeting the jefa, the boss of the family and the woman who saved Sierra Gorda was an honor. Pati was named a Champion of the Earth, the UN’s highest environmental honor, in 2013, and she’s a pioneer in every sense of the world. She’s been advocating for grassroots climate solutions since the 1990s, well before the rest of the world. 

"How can we generate economic incentives for the forest owners to make it profitable for them to leave the forest alone for conservation?" Pati recalls how she created their unique conservation economy in Sierra Gorda. Pati’s innovative local carbon economy model pays local forest owners who previously were cattle farmers to simply leave their land alone.

In the case of Sierra Gorda, and many other rural areas in Mexico, the local people are the owners of the forests. Ninety-seven percent of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve is privately owned/communal property, but unfortunately, the local landowners have resorted to burning down the forests to make space for livestock to survive and for themselves to survive economically. 

With this new local carbon protocol which is validated by the World Land Trust, local landowners in Sierra Gorda are essentially getting paid to stop working as cattle ranchers—a difficult job made even more challenging with climate change-caused droughts—and to leave their land alone to allow the forest to regenerate. It’s the first initiative of its kind in Mexico that allows for this type of compensation to local landowners.

The winners in this climate story? The forest, the endangered animals living in the forest (landowners are seeing pumas tracks once again, jaguars, and the first video-recorded sighting of a black bear in central Mexico), and the local people who are now getting paid to be guardians of the forest. 

For this program to work, Pati had to convince government officials in Querétaro, a Mexican state with significant greenhouse emissions. Querétaro had already created a carbon tax for vehicle owners and companies in the region that release more than 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Now, in conjunction with Pati’s new local carbon protocol, these polluting companies and individuals have the option of paying forest owners in Querétaro’s Sierra Gorda mountain range for conservation and carbon capture to offset their emissions.

Mexico starts the world's first biodiverse carbon economy 

Right now there’s a lot of skepticism around carbon offsets—especially with its middlemen and greenwashing—but this local protocol Pati created makes offsetting simple, direct, and accountable. 

“It’s a noble project,” says Roberto, Pati’s son and naturalist. “The one who pollutes pays. You are fighting against climate change, protecting endangered species habitats, and bettering the local economy. That’s how you create a conservation economy.”

When we think of climate innovation, countries in the Global North such as Norway and Sweden, and climate tech might come to mind. But we can’t discount local solutions, the impact of community-led initiatives, and big ideas that might come from an unlikely source, in this case, a former music teacher. 

The Global South has to absorb the injustice of the Global North’s high polluters. For me, that’s what makes this initiative even more powerful. A small community-led conservation group in Mexico found an effective solution to drive climate justice within their state —in the form of a paycheck coming out of the polluters wallets and delivered directly to the local people, who now can be the proud, and compensated, guardians of the forest. It’s a model and example that could galvanize other places around the world. All Pati had was a passionate resolve (and a good singing voice) to convince the government to implement her climate solution. 

Mexico’s new president elected this year Claudia Sheinbaum is not only the country’s first female president but a climate scientist. It’s too soon to say what changes she’ll make, but Sierra Gorda’s local carbon protocol could be a model for other states in the country, and worldwide. 

While we were in Sierra Gorda, I was thrilled to meet one of the few female local landowners, Iris. She’s one of the youngest, at 33 years old. 

Iris is another Mexican climate hero, and along with Pati and Xiye Bastida, inspiring all of us around the world to let Mother Nature take over.

Kathleen Rellihan is a travel journalist and editor covering adventure, culture, climate, and sustainability. Formerly Newsweek‘s travel editor, she contributes to outlets such as Afar, National Geographic, Outside, BBC, Time, Travel + Leisure and more. Follow her on Instagram @k_rellihan.

(All other photos by Kathleen Rellihan)