Protecting Laguna San Ignacio is a once-ina- lifetime opportunity to save a global treasure and one of the world’s most biologically significant coastal sites. This project is our last chance to protect the world’s last undeveloped gray whale lagoon. By preserving the Laguna San Ignacio Wetland Complex, we will provide a model of wildlands and wetlands conservation that demonstrates that local people can be effective stewards of wildlife habitats and that conservation and local economic development are compatible.

In March 2000, a coalition of environmental organizations pressured former President Ernesto Zedillo to cancel the Mitsubishi Salt Project. Despite the victory, the Laguna San Ignacio Wetland Complex is once again threatened by major development. Salt mining, resort development, and land speculation could dramatically alter the pristine gray whale lagoon, wetlands, and mangrove lagoons that cover hundreds of square miles of coastline.

Local people, including members of the six surrounding ejidos (communal land cooperatives) are now legally able to sell their land. There is a great danger that many could sell their lands to industrial-scale developers or land speculators. In order to permanently protect one of the world’s most precious treasures, Pronatura- Noroeste, WiLDCOAST, International Community Foundation (ICF), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Ejido Luis Echeverría Alvarez, and the Laguna Baja Asociación Rural de Interés Colectivo (ARIC) have formed the Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance.

The Alliance mission is to work with community- based organizations and private land owners within the Laguna San Ignacio Wetland Complex to protect one-million acres of pristine coastal ecosystems. Over the next two years the Alliance will preserve the seven project sites that include communal lands, private property and federal lands for a total cost of 9.9 million dollars. The Global Green Grant Fund, Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, International Community Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Diego Foundation Orca Fund and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) Grants Program provided seed funding and organizational support to develop this project.

The Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance will permanently protect the lagoon by developing conservation easements for biologically significant communal and privately owned lands in the six individual ejidos and the federal
lands that surround the Laguna San Ignacio Wetland Complex.

During the first project phase in 2005, the Alliance established a 120,000-acre conservation easement comprising all the communal lands within the ejido Luis Echeverría Alvarez (ELA) on the southern shore of Laguna San Ignacio. This legally binding deal is being touted as a model for conserving both the environment and the area’s cultural identity. In 2006, the Alliance will complete the protection of 20,000 acres of private lands within ELA to complete Phase 1 of the San Ignacio Conservation Alliance Conservation Plan. The Alliance will also launch Phase 2 in order to protect 100,000 acres of wetlands along the northern shore of San Ignacio Lagoon.

The International Community Foundation manages individual donor-advised funds for each conservation easement as it is negotiated. The International Community Foundation is a signatory to the easement agreements, with Pronatura and each ejido. The International Community Foundation will make an annual payment from the donor-advised fund based on the agreed-upon terms of each conservation easement.

At each conservation site, the Alliance will establish conservation reserves by structuring conservation easements over communally, parceled and privately held lands. The Alliance will also work on the investigation of the National Lands legal status and the legal conservation strategies to secure the protection of over 66,000 acres of Federal Zone lands within the Laguna San Ignacio Wetland Complex. As a part of the methodology, the Alliance will develop legal and environmental baselines, create conservation zoning maps, prepare management plans, and structure conservation asements.