Letter from our General Director and our Chairman

Human beings need other living beings to survive. Our future depends on our ensuring the ongoing regeneration of other species. Throughout millennia, persistently observing and experimenting with the species we share our planet with has led to numerous cultural practices that help maintain resources for future generations. This explains, for instance, why the natural deep-water sinkholes cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula abound in species useful to human beings or that the Lacandon indigenous people devotedly continue to steward more than fifty species in their rainforests. The survival of certain species, such as corn, thus depends on human beings. In turn, humans know that the synergy of combining corn, squash, and beans leads to increased production and nutrition. The connection with other species emerges from the understanding humans achieve regarding these other realms. This link is currently at stake.

In 2021, the imperative of reestablishing the union with nature became ever more evident. While different measures were being taken in response to the difficult scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recognition that ultimately, we are also nature began to dawn on the world’s population. Nevertheless, since most people live in cities and eat processed food, little is known about other living beings. An increasing distance separates us from the places inhabited by the species that nourish us. Like tentacles that spread out in every direction, supply chains pursue resources. When resources are depleted, extraction activities migrate elsewhere. We are exterminating the foundations of life. It is imperative to reestablish this connection.

Confirming many ancient forms of knowledge, ecology has demonstrated that both inter-and intra-species links characterize nature. Each species occupies a niche and performs complementary tasks. For example, in the forest, trees interact with each other through fungi. There are trees in Mexico that feed ants that, in turn, defend trees against curious herbivores. As human beings, we are a social species. When we link different disciplines, sectors, and forms of knowledge together, we become more complete. When this union occurs, the magic of life can be achieved.

The Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (FMCN, Spanish acronym), a non-profit organization, emerged from the union of many different beings. We are grateful to the 275 specialists who daily guide our decisions in the Assembly, the Board of Directors, and the numerous committees inside and outside Mexico. Together with 143 donors, 318 organizations, and over 88,000 people in the field, we have been working for 27 years to reestablish the connection with nature in a country that only occupies 1.5% of the Earth’s surface, but houses over 12% of the Earth’s biodiversity and over 118 different crops.

Last year, our partners enabled us to move forward with 18 projects and add an additional five that seek to renew the bond with the land and with the sea. These new initiatives underscore long-term support for three marine ecosystems. Another recent achievement occurred in the north of Mexico, where the efforts of a transnational team became reality. This team built upon the work carried out by an admirable woman who for 40 years has been restoring grasslands and forests alongside rivers where today more water flows. A third milestone in 2021 was a large-scale project we started that will restore two rivers and lay out a national strategy so that together, government and society can enable this life-giving liquid to continue to flow through the veins of Mexico’s forests. A fourth project that also emerged in 2021 joined efforts carried out over several years by the public sector, academia, and society aimed at promoting regenerative cattle-raising and agroforestry systems, paying attention to the sustainability in farming activities, which are present in over half of the national territory. Finally, strengthening civil society organizations in the Yucatan Peninsula will accelerate the capacities that are essential to safeguard this region that is so deeply affected by climate change.

Thanks to our partners in both rural and urban areas, 2021 bestowed us with the possibility of continuing with our mandate to restore nature’s wounds, conserve our immense reservoir of resources, and make sound use of the rich and diverse expressions of nature. We need to increase our efforts, linking sectors, work in different niches, but always as part of an efficient, interconnected network. Considering that 15% of the human diet worldwide comes from species grown in our territory, shouldn’t Mexico be a model in how to reestablish the bond with nature? This connection still resonates within our families, food, and cultures. It is high time we revived it.

While this report is being completed, we are witnessing the tragic war in Ukraine, initiated by an aggressor whose breach of the rule of international law, is a reminder of dreadful mindsets and circumstances that were thought to have been surmounted. In these dark times, we remain hopeful that nations will react in a way becoming of civilized societies. The destructive consequences of a potential worldwide war would devastate the planet’s biological future, let alone our survival as Homo sapiens. Let us hope that peace and the rule of law are soon restored. Within our possibilities and circumstances, let our thoughts and actions unite to this end.

However challenging the situation may be, let us hope that our mission may continue to be sound and effective. Our participation within a system in which we act in conjunction with so many allies will lead to protecting biological heritage and raising greater awareness of our role in nature’s planetary life cycle.

I would like to express my gratitude to all our allies, starting with our Fund’s collaborators, all of those who donate time, efforts, and advice, and those of you who work in the field out of love for our values. Let our love for the Earth lead us to protect her. After all, we are part of the Earth and participate in her gift of life.