Author(s)

C.C. Chester

Abstract

The grassroots campaign to establish an International Sonoran Desert Biosphere Reserve Charles C. Chester Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA Abstract Conservationists have called the western Sonoran Desert the "largest intact arid ecosystem in the world." Yet across the US/Mexico border and within each country, the region suffers from both ecological and administrative fragmentation. In the early 1990s, a group of grassroots conservationists, Native Americans, and government personnel established the International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA), a tricultural/trinational network whose stated mission was to "promote environmentally sustainable and culturally sound economic development while protecting the natural and cultural heritage of the western Sonoran Desert US-Mexico border region." ISDA's principal focus was to establish "biosphere reserve" planning and management in the region. Although an International Sonoran Desert Biosph

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