Story
Mexico
Mexico’s Water Solution from Integrated Landscape Management
T
he Amanalco-Valle Bravo Basin located near Mexico City is one of Mexico’s highly valued natural resources. Some describe it as a promising area for creating markets for environmental services, and
for good reason. The valley’s rich natural resource base includes over 35,000 hectares of temperate forest, nearly 18,000 hectares of agricultural land, 5,300 hectares of pastureland, and 1,770 hectares of surface bodies of water. Today, the Amanalco-Valle Bravo Basin feeds the Valle de Bravo dam that supplies water to 8 million people, including 40 percent of the drinking water of the Cutzamala System, which accounts for 20 percent of the water that is consumed in Mexico City and other cities and towns in the State of Mexico. The basin’s natural resources support the livelihoods of 53 highly marginalized rural communities. But it was not always this way. Population pressure and unplanned development led to the basin’s environmental degradation over at least 15 years. Then, in 2007, the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS)—a nongovernmental not-for-profit organization that was created in 1996 to address community forest use, forest conservation, forest industrialization, and forest commercialization—started working in the basin under the Integrated Landscape Management Project. Guided by a few core principles, CCMSS’s strategy became strengthening governance capacities and sustainable land use management to improve the living conditions of the local population. CCMSS focuses on three major activities: strengthening local governance and building social capital; applying sustainable land management
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UNCCD . World Bank
