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A 30x30 Vision for Sonora
Sonora is the second largest state in the country and the meeting point between arid, tropical, coastal and mountain ecosystems. The state is privileged to have a wealth of biodiversity, which carries with it an enormous responsibility to protect it.
Implementing a 30x30 policy at the state level would put the state at the forefront in protecting biodiversity and combating climate change, while aligning it with Target 3 of the Global Kunming-Montreal Framework adpoted by the member countries of the Convention on Biological Biodiversity, including Mexico. It should be recalled that the federal government promoted this target in multiple international forums as part of the strategy to ensure its adoption at the global level.
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In the recent past, Sonora already played this vanguard role by establishing one of the first Natural Protected Areas (NPA) systems in the country in the early 1990s, known as the Protected Areas System of the State of Sonora (SANPES for its Spanish acronym). The impact of the SANPES implementation effort should not be underestimated, as an example for a new state policy’s commitment to biodiversity, people, and climate stability: In only three years, SANPES came close to quadrupling the state's protected area. Twenty-six years after the last decree resulting from SANPES, the threats to biodiversity have increased, and the international scientific community has made it clear that we need to be more ambitious if we want to protect the planet's natural heritage.
Leaders from around the world, including the President of Mexico (through the Undersecretary of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) support the vision of protecting 30% of the territory by 2030. Sonora should not be left behind. The state has the opportunity today to design and implement a SANPES 2030, which identifies priority areas for establishing new NPAs, and guides coordinated actions among the three levels of government and civil society, to protect Sonora's biodiversity and join the global movement to safeguard life on our planet.
A renewed Natural Protected Areas System for the State of Sonora could be supported by the development of up-to-date technologies and scientific models that provide much more information on priority sites for conservation than existed thirty years ago. Likewise, organized civil society has made important advances in managing the conservation of private and communal lands, opening channels of communication with landowners interested in protecting their lands. Finally, in June 2022, the Congress of the State of Sonora approved a set of amendments to the Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection and to the Municipal Finance Law, which will stimulate the voluntary conservation of private lands, thus opening further new opportunities for land conservation.
In addition to seeking to increase the total area protected by legal mechanisms, a SANPES for 2030 should outline a strategy to ensure the effective conservation of state NPAs and Voluntary Conservation Areas, by requesting the necessary resources from the State’s Congress to manage the former and foster the latter.
