Maderas del Carmen is a

biosphere reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...

in the northern

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Coahuila Coahuila (), formally Coahuila de Zaragoza (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza), is one of the 32 states of Mexico. Coahuila borders the Mexican states of N ...

. Maderas del Carmen encompasses part of the

Sierra del Carmen The Sierra del Carmen, also called the Sierra Maderas del Carmen, is a northern finger of the Sierra Madre Oriental in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The Sierra begins at the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park and extends southeast for about , r ...

, a northern finger of the

Sierra Madre Oriental The Sierra Madre Oriental () is a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that f ...

range. The reserve includes both dry

Chihuahuan Desert The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lo ...

shrublands and forested

sky island Sky islands are topographic isolation, isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau, and has extended to similarly isolated montane ecosystems, hi ...

, high-elevation enclaves of Sierra Madre Oriental pine-oak forest. The reserve is home to 400 bird species and 70 mammal species, including the

American black bear The American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), also called simply a black bear or sometimes a baribal, is a medium-sized bear endemic to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most widely distributed bear species. American black bear ...

(''Ursus americanus''),

collared peccary The collared peccary (''Dicotyles tajacu'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed) mammal in the family Tayassuidae found in North, Central, and South America. It is the only member of the genus ''Dicotyles''. They are commonly referred to as ...

(''Pecari tajacu''), and

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

(''Puma concolor''). The region was designated a biosphere reserve in 2006. It is located in the municipalities of Ocampo,

Ciudad Acuña Ciudad Acuña, also known simply as Acuña, (originally Garza Galán, later Villa Acuña) is a city located in the Mexican state of Coahuila, at and a mean height above sea level of . It stands on the Rio Grande (locally known as the Río Br ...

, and Múzquiz.

Conservation efforts

The isolation of the Sierra del Carmen and its relatively undisturbed environment has led to conservation efforts in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and jointly with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Much of the Sierra del Carmen has been declared by the government of Mexico the Maderas del Carmen Flora and Fauna Protected Area, a designation which allows many economic activities and private land holdings to continue to exist within the boundaries. The protected area comprises . The Maderas del Carmen is part of a bi-lateral conservation project called the El Carmen—Big Bend Conservation Corridor Initiative which includes contiguous land designated for conservation on both sides of the border totaling more than s , an area almost as large as the U.S. state of

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. In 2005, Maderas del Carmen became the first designated

Wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. The Maderas del Carmen Protected Area was created in 1994, although conservation efforts were initially slowed because the land was privately owned, either in large ranches or in the collective farms called

ejido An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights rather than ownership rights to land, which in Mexico is held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in ...

s. In 2000 a Mexican corporation, Cementos de Mexico (CEMEX) began to purchase lands for conservation in the region. On CEMEX lands livestock and fences were removed and native vegetation encouraged. By 2006, CEMEX owned in or near the Maderas del Carmen and managed another . In 2009 the Mexican government established the

Ocampo Flora and Fauna Protection Area Ocampo Flora and Fauna Protection Area is a protected area in northern Mexico. It covers an area of 3442.38 km2 in the state of Coahuila. It is bounded on the north by the Rio Grande, which forms the border with the United States. It adjoins ...

, which adjoins Maderas del Carmen on the east. One of the important characteristics of the Sierra del Carmen is that it functions as a "corridor" enabling wildlife to migrate north and south. In the late 1980s the corridor between the Sierra and the mountains of west Texas enabled the black bear to disperse northward and reestablish itself in

Big Bend National Park Big Bend National Park is an American national park located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, and was named after ...

. The black bear had been extirpated from west Texas in the 1950s."Sky island: El Sierra del Carmen" http://mexicolesstraveled.com/sierradelcarmen.htm, accessed 13 Mar 2013 In other initiatives, in 2000, CEMEX in cooperation with conservation organizations in Mexico and Texas began breeding and releasing to the wild

bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...

which had been absent from the Sierra del Carmen for more than 50 years. On October 24, 2011, Mexico and the United States signed an agreement for "Cooperative Action for Conservation in the Big Bend-Rio Bravo Natural Area of Binational Interest." In 2020, 19

plains bison The Plains bison (''Bison bison bison'') is one of two subspecies/ecotypes of the American bison, the other being the wood bison (''B. b. athabascae''). A natural population of Plains bison survives in Yellowstone National Park (the Yellowstone ...

were transported from Janos Biosphere Reserve, and formed the second herd in Mexico to reestablish wild populations of bison. The El Carmen nature reserve was established on the plains of

References

* * {{Coord, 29.06, N, 102.61, W, source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Biosphere reserves of Mexico Flora and fauna protection areas of Mexico Protected areas of Coahuila Protected areas of the Chihuahuan Desert Protected areas of the Sierra Madre Oriental Important Bird Areas of Mexico

Conservation efforts

See also

References