San Pedro Martir. Ecosystem services, beneficiaries and regionalization

Abstract

The Sierra de San Pedro Martir is a mountain range above the center of the peninsula of Baja California, it is the area with the highest rainfall in the state in addition to the snow that falls during the winter. The water generated by the sierra is the critical ecosystem service for the development of an extensive region that exceeds its own space, its runoffs are the connectors with low valleys, mainly towards the western part where extensive areas of intensive agricultural production irrigated by water are located. Overextraction of its aquifers causing salinization of soils and serious effects on its ecosystems. Water also supports numerous growing human settlements. There is no social understanding of the vital dependence that the region has on the mountains, much less commitment to action to address the sustainability of its ecosystems. Under these conditions, this work proposes a Region of Ecosystem Services of the Sierra de San Pedro Martir that combines the ecosystem vision that addresses ecological factors and the socio-economic vision that understands the socially created space to manage and use natural resources, for this purpose to the empathy that means the territorial definition of ten aquifers that make up the proposed region. Setting up a Region of Ecosystem Services means the understanding of belonging to a large territory articulated by the services that its ecosystems provide, it is proposed as a basis for, in this case, the Sierra de San Pedro Martir to recover attention from those who use and are benefited for its resources, understood as ecosystem services, beyond the simple occupation of space, it is also about committing members of academic communities to develop a strategy of local social awareness and generate mechanisms of direct and indirect remuneration for continuous study tasks, surveillance, preservation and eventual restoration of its ecosystems.