Donate now to Viva Sierra Gorda to buy equipment and document larger wildlife and identify the Jaguars that roam our mountain cloud forests, dry tropical forests and jungles.

Donate USD$350.00 today to sponsor a camera trap

In the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, the conservation of biodiversity has been the driving force behind a civil movement that began in 1987 when local citizens sought an alternative way of life for a region headed towards self-destruction.  Household citizens, landholders, teachers, and predominantly schoolchildren form the most active part of the conservation movement for the last 20 years in environmental education, recycling, household self-sufficiency, skill-building and micro-enterprises, reforestations and watershed restoration, solar ovens and environmental services.  Livelihoods and the health of the natural environment have greatly improved.

In 2001 international funds required clearer indicators of these improvements,  leading to on-going programs in monitoring and evaluation including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), public surveys, interactive community workshops, and a holistic system of social and environmental return on investment analysis updated on an annual basis.

Believe it or not, in the second-most populated natural protected area in Mexico the biodiversity of the Reserve has undergone relatively little research, though the basic data is impressive: 131 mammal species, 650 diurnal butterfly species, 328 bird species and 2308 vascular plant species.   Large mammals as indicator species now motivate a challenging monitoring program in the more remote areas of the Biosphere Reserve and the results have been astounding, demonstrating strong populations of important predators and prey, and perhaps most importantly a surprising number of jaguar.

Equipment for this program is expensive and requires a dedicated team to install, retrieve and maintain camera traps throughout the year on a determined circuit that covers the most significant areas within the Reserve.  In collaboration with a growing interest in the northern jaguar populations, our research team participates in a working group across 5 states in northeastern Mexico and the data is being gathered in collegiate fashion.

Donate USD$350.00 today to help us complete a fully operational monitoring program that today only has available 8 cameras, some in less than adecuate conditions.  Our methodology has proven effective, retrieving a high average of photos that to date include ocelot, white tail deer, puma, collared peccary, great currasow, roadrunner, and jaguar.  With a total of 16 fully operational cameras in the research circuit within the Reserve, the results would be more immediate and ready for interpretation. 

"Specify the donation is for a camera trap on the donation form in the last section for comments, please."