Week 8: The Deal That Saved the Whale

This seems like a win-win-win solution for all involved…the local land owners, the whales and the planet! The unusual agreement negotiated between the environmental groups and local cooperative, Ejido Louis Echeverria, agrees to protect 120,000 acres around the Laguna San Ignacio. The agreement plans to do this by providing $25,000 annually from a trust fund (created by Wildcoast and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others) to the members of the cooperative in exchange for their promise to block development of the “last undisturbed grey whale nursery on the Pacific coastline”.

ProNatura, Mexico’s largest and oldest conservation organization will “ensure that the money is spent only on environmentally sustainable development projects”. Further, earnings from the trust will “create long term jobs and give the members a stake on preserving the habitat of the whales”.

Hopefully, such agreements will set a precedence and encourage other local ejidos (local land cooperatives) to follow suit and preserve even more of the Baja peninsula and all the life forms that thrive there in perpetuity, so it doesn't fall into the hands of developers and property speculators who are only in it for their own gain.