This project is a partnership between the Nelson Institute and the University of Guadalajara's Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur (UdG-CUCSUR) which seeks to strengthen the capacities of local municipal governments to manage and develop the environmental component of their recently expanded mandates by focusing on a regionally integrated watershed-based management approach. It is funded by the Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The program has been developed jointly with the municipalities of Ayuquila River drainage in Jalisco which form an ecologically, economically, and politically linked system. This basin is considered by the Mexican and U.S. governments and by international organizations as one of the priority watersheds in the Pacific, as well as an important region for the conservation of biological diversity in North America. The project is lead by the UdG's Manantlan Institute of Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity and the Nelson Institute.
Components of the project include:
This program will provide graduate and undergraduate educational and research internship opportunities for U.S.-based students and professors within a complex social and cultural milieu in Western Mexico.
For more information about this program, contact Professor Paul Zedler.
See our Restoring the North American Landscape website for information about our previous work with the University of Guadalajara's Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur.