Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California Sur, Mexico is a well-known destination for many adventurous travelers. Dirt roads lead to a remote coastal area, which is the last and most pristine whale birthing lagoon on the planet. Here, visitors can spot hundreds of whale spouts during the January-March migration season, and sometimes, can even touch a curious whale. Thousands of tourists have experienced the overwhelming sensation of looking a gray whale in the eye, but few realize how fragile the lagoon’s surroundings really are.

248 miles of coastline, including 198 miles of wetlands and mangroves, comprise the one-million-acre Laguna San Ignacio Wetlands Complex. Green sea turtles, peregrine falcons, and hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds use the mangroves, wetlands, and beaches. Laguna San Ignacio is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ramsar site (wetland of international importance), and is part of the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, one of Mexico’s largest protected areas.

Despite these international and national protection designations, Laguna San Ignacio was the proposed site for the Mitsubishi
industrial salt facility that was scheduled to be built on the lagoon shores a few years ago. Rumors of new industrial projects are common, especially as new port facilities, liquid natural gas terminals, and coastal development projects are announced further north. A new road, marina, and resort are proposed for the north shore of Laguna San Ignacio right now, which invites a frenzy of land speculation. Recent changes to Mexico’s mangrove regulations leave Laguna San Ignacio’s protected status weak if development projects are approved for the area.

There is a way to protect Laguna San Ignacio forever. Ninetynine percent of the land is owned by ejidos (an ejido represents communally-owned lands by a large group of rural residents). To protect their way of life and their income from tourism, local ejido leaders have decided to take matters into their own hands, with the help of Pronatura, a national-level conservation organization in Mexico, and Wildcoast, a conservation group based in San Diego that focuses on protecting wild lands in the Baja California peninsula.

Ejido Luis Echeverria Alvarez has just negotiated a large-scale conservation easement of 140,847 acres. This easement will restrict development activities on lands that the ejido controls, and will establish zoning for economic uses, buffer areas, and protected sites. This transaction is being closely monitored by the other five adjoining ejidos, who will soon decide if they would like to participate in a conservation easement in the future.

Between 2005-2007, Pronatura and Wildcoast will work to protect over one million acres of pristine coastal lands in the Laguna San Ignacio region through conservation easements with ejidos and private property owners. The fundraising goal is $8.6 million, of which the majority will go to paying the easements in annual installments (or one-time cash payments); Phase One’s fundraising goal is $1.7 million.