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research: (1) analysis of the quantity and quality of water for human and animal use,
which is the principal limiting resource in a dryland region, and (2) the condition of
the rangelands inside the reserve, due to the interest of the settlers to learn about the
quantity and quality of available forage for their cattle. It is worth mentioning that
these two topics were stated as a priority by local inhabitants during the Reserve
formation, in addition to having explicitly mentioned an interest in the possibilities
of seeding the floodplains or the degraded pasture areas with native forage plants
(Kaus 1992, p. 152).
As a final stage of the project, several possible research studies were identified
that included various themes ranging from socio-economic and socio- environmental
appraisals for the development of ecotourist activities; mapping and compilation of
historic information also for ecotourism and outreach activities; socio-ecological
research on organic meat production projects; monitoring of different SES attributes; social conflict resolution in one ejido to solve land tenure and organization issues; market study to explore different options for the salt production
development, and socio-ecological evaluation of the ecotourism facility. However,
the interdisciplinary participatory research team had to demarcate the scope of the
research regarding (1) funding, (2) time, (3) expertise and access to students, and (4)
local inhabitants interested in collaborating in the research project. Therefore, the
ejido “La Soledad” was chosen and it was visited again in October 2017 to form
transdisciplinary work teams to establish the research objectives and methodology
to study (1) the evaluation of the effect of grazing intensity on the ecohydrological
functionality of the rangelands (Mata-Páez 2019) and (2) the evaluation of the success of restoration projects implemented in the area (López-Pardo 2019), both
investigations were done between January–June of 2018.
The overall goal of the first project was to understand the ecosystem functioning
in relation to cattle ranching to provide data for better decision-making in the
RBM. An ecological monitoring approach was combined with ranchers’ local
knowledge and perspective to determine rangeland health. Much was learned on the
local vegetation and soil surface conditions, cattle preferences for forage plants and
on the system’s potential to recover after what was locally referred to as a good
rainy season (Mata-Páez 2019) (see Kaus 1992 for a similar discussion on the
recovery capacity after the rain season). Furthermore, for the second project the
goal was to propose an integrated methodology that weaves together different
knowledge systems to ultimately define from a transdisciplinary and participatory
perspective a success index to evaluate the restauration projects, whose objectives
were to retain run-off and sediments and stimulate forage production of the desert
turtle. While local inhabitants have participated with CONANP and PRONATURA
in the creation of these works, they were only occasionally asked about their preferences to select a location for their establishment. In this project, they participated
during all research stages. The monitoring and evaluation of restauration projects is
crucial, since ample resources have been invested given to this enterprise. Finally,
collaboration also revealed that the toposequence and their associated vegetation
types in the BRM (see Fig. 10.3) should be considered as different socio-ecological
contexts when designing, implementing and monitoring the local, regional, national
and internationally defined management and restauration plans.
N. Martínez-Tagüeña et al.
research: (1) analysis of the quantity and quality of water for human and animal use,
which is the principal limiting resource in a dryland region, and (2) the condition of
the rangelands inside the reserve, due to the interest of the settlers to learn about the
quantity and quality of available forage for their cattle. It is worth mentioning that
these two topics were stated as a priority by local inhabitants during the Reserve
formation, in addition to having explicitly mentioned an interest in the possibilities
of seeding the floodplains or the degraded pasture areas with native forage plants
(Kaus 1992, p. 152).
As a final stage of the project, several possible research studies were identified
that included various themes ranging from socio-economic and socio- environmental
appraisals for the development of ecotourist activities; mapping and compilation of
historic information also for ecotourism and outreach activities; socio-ecological
research on organic meat production projects; monitoring of different SES attributes; social conflict resolution in one ejido to solve land tenure and organization issues; market study to explore different options for the salt production
development, and socio-ecological evaluation of the ecotourism facility. However,
the interdisciplinary participatory research team had to demarcate the scope of the
research regarding (1) funding, (2) time, (3) expertise and access to students, and (4)
local inhabitants interested in collaborating in the research project. Therefore, the
ejido “La Soledad” was chosen and it was visited again in October 2017 to form
transdisciplinary work teams to establish the research objectives and methodology
to study (1) the evaluation of the effect of grazing intensity on the ecohydrological
functionality of the rangelands (Mata-Páez 2019) and (2) the evaluation of the success of restoration projects implemented in the area (López-Pardo 2019), both
investigations were done between January–June of 2018.
The overall goal of the first project was to understand the ecosystem functioning
in relation to cattle ranching to provide data for better decision-making in the
RBM. An ecological monitoring approach was combined with ranchers’ local
knowledge and perspective to determine rangeland health. Much was learned on the
local vegetation and soil surface conditions, cattle preferences for forage plants and
on the system’s potential to recover after what was locally referred to as a good
rainy season (Mata-Páez 2019) (see Kaus 1992 for a similar discussion on the
recovery capacity after the rain season). Furthermore, for the second project the
goal was to propose an integrated methodology that weaves together different
knowledge systems to ultimately define from a transdisciplinary and participatory
perspective a success index to evaluate the restauration projects, whose objectives
were to retain run-off and sediments and stimulate forage production of the desert
turtle. While local inhabitants have participated with CONANP and PRONATURA
in the creation of these works, they were only occasionally asked about their preferences to select a location for their establishment. In this project, they participated
during all research stages. The monitoring and evaluation of restauration projects is
crucial, since ample resources have been invested given to this enterprise. Finally,
collaboration also revealed that the toposequence and their associated vegetation
types in the BRM (see Fig. 10.3) should be considered as different socio-ecological
contexts when designing, implementing and monitoring the local, regional, national
and internationally defined management and restauration plans.
N. Martínez-Tagüeña et al.