The Real Right of Conservation: How Sonora’s Law Reforms Could Shape Voluntary Nature Protection in Mexico
Sonoran landscape from Rancho El Aribabi. Photo: Cecilia Aguilar / Wildlands Network
In 2022, the State Congress of Sonora, Mexico, approved a suite of environmental and tax law reforms designed to strengthen private and voluntary conservation initiatives. These reforms introduce innovative economic incentives, including fiscal reductions and market-based seals, and establish the pioneering concept of the Real Right of Conservation. After stalling for two years for reasons unknown, these changes were finally published in the state’s official journal on July 1, 2024, marking a crucial step toward making the reforms effective.
By setting this precedent, Sonora is leading the way for other regions to adopt similar measures, empowering landowners to contribute significantly to national and global biodiversity targets like the 30x30 initiative.
Wildlands Network’s staffers Carlos Castillo and Juan Carlos Bravo, and board director Roberto de la Maza played critical roles advocating for these reforms, highlighting the benefits of private land conservation and providing expertise that shaped the legislation. We sat down with the three of them and created a summary of our conversation below to understand the current state of Sonora’s conservation law reform and what the future looks like with these reforms in place.
Can you start by giving some context on Mexican environmental law – what trends have you noticed over the last 10 years?
The most relevant context to understand conservation in Mexico is land tenure. A staggering 95% of land in our country is either privately or communally owned, with no large tracts of public lands that can be effectively protected by unilateral government designation. In practice, federal protected areas are a layer of regulation over a mosaic of land tenures. Despite this fact, throughout the 20th century, top-down designations by the president or expert government bodies without community involvement were the favored mechanism for protection, resulting in conflicts over management decisions.
In the last decades, the trend shifted to engage communities more closely in all aspects of land protection, including certifying private or communal lands as voluntary conservation areas.
What is the relation between Mexico’s commitment to 30x30 and the protection of private and communal lands?
With so much of Mexico under private and communal tenure, it is evident that the country can only achieve its 30x30 commitments by engaging landowners. That will involve educating communities on the benefits of protecting their land, working with them on the co-management of existing areas, and supporting landowners who wish to voluntarily protect their land outside of government-designated protected areas. To do so, landowners need monetary, market, or tax incentives that don’t currently exist in Mexico.
What were the recent reforms to the Environmental Protection and Municipal Finance laws of Sonora, and why are they so important?
The purpose of these reforms is to 1) provide tangible monetary incentives for landowners and 2) introduce the Real Right of Conservation, a new land conservation mechanism (akin to conservation easements and adapted from the Chilean experience) that can enhance the conservation commitment’s legal certainty for owners of certified properties.
They do so by encouraging landowners to certify properties as voluntary conservation areas by either the state or the federation, through the creation or strengthening of three different types of economic instruments at the state and municipal levels:
Fiscal: empowering municipalities to apply reductions of between 20% and 80% on the property tax of areas under voluntary conservation, thereby recognizing they fulfill a function of public interest;
Financial: strengthening the State’s Environmental Fund, so that its resources can be used to finance the establishment, administration and management of these lands; and
Market: allowing the state of Sonora environmental agency CEDES to authorize the use of labels that may be displayed on products or services generated within the certified properties.
We envision other states and the federation following Sonora’s example and opening similar avenues in their legislation. In turn, this would create the kind of aggregate effect necessary for achieving ambitious targets, such as those of the Global Biodiversity Framework which include the 30x30 initiatives taking root across North America and the rest of the world.
The black tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) a resident of Sonora's plains, is one of the hundreds of species that would benefit from these law reforms. Photo by: Veszprémi Állatkert, CC BY-SA 3.0.
How was Wildlands Network involved in providing information on the reforms?
As experts in conservation, we were asked to present the state congress with information on the need and merits of different land-conservation mechanisms, specifically private land conservation and its challenges. This prompted legislators to draft a bill which we were also asked to provide expert comments on. Once the bill was passed, we assisted CEDES in preparing specific regulations that clarify how the reforms will be implemented, and in developing a template contract for the Real Right of Conservation. In doing so, we kept the issue alive and present at the executive level, which we believe was instrumental in ensuring its eventual publication.
What can the future look like now that these regulations are in place? What happens next?
To start, it’s important to note that we are still waiting for the authorities to publish the regulatory framework and guidelines needed to implement these reforms. That could take up to another year.
In the meantime, we’re continuing to take action. With the support of the Bioconnect Project of the French Development Agency, for the past two years, we’ve been working with two conservation groups that already devote their land to conservation, Parque la Colorada and Asociación Conservación del Norte. These partners know that stacking multiple layers of legal protection on their lands is a good bet for securing their protection in perpetuity and have expressed their interest in being the first to sign Real Rights of Conservation contracts that would enshrine the conservation vocation of their lands in their property titles.
In addition to that, we started a conversation with the government of Hermosillo, the largest municipality in Sonora, to assist them in promoting tax incentives for landowners who may want to establish voluntary restrictions on development alongside with the municipality’s plans, benefiting close to one million people living in the state’s capital.
What additional policy changes are needed to make Mexico’s 30x30 commitments possible?
Public budgets need to reflect the urgency of the joint biodiversity and climate crises to effectively protect ecosystems with enough connected habitat and adherence to communities’ rights.
As long as governments continue to underfund parks agencies at the federal and state levels, we will not reach Mexico’s Global Biodiversity Framework target which explicitly calls for “effectively conserved and managed...well-connected” protected areas. The target also emphasizes “recognizing and respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities,” an issue that has fortunately gained more relevance thanks to Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities who have strongly advocated against colonial models of conservation.
How is Wildlands Network making them happen?
For the last five years, as part of the NOSSA coalition, Wildlands Network has shed light on the shortcomings and trends in Mexico’s conservation policy by coordinating research and reporting on the federal park’s budget and management nationwide. Upon request, we provide an expert opinion to legislators and meet with high-level officials to find creative funding solutions for parks and foster more equitable engagement in their management.
Additionally, we conduct data analysis and produce a unique annual report titled Sonora 30x30 along with an interactive map on the conservation status in Sonora and the 30x30 goal. This useful tool for decision-makers and various audiences highlights achievements to date and what remains to achieve the goal.
We make progress not just by delving deep into one approach, but by solving issues through a holistic strategy that incorporates on-the-ground engagement with landowners and park managers as well as expertise at the policy level. By combining forces across our staff experts and incredible partners, our team, led by Carlos Castillo, is proud to have helped pass these reforms. We look forward to continuing working toward adequate funding and protection of Mexico’s wild lands to help it achieve its 30x30 goals.