American Bison Reintroduced to Mexico Helping to Fight Climate Change Rodrigo Soriano - El País
go to original June 27, 2023

An American bison in the El Carmen Nature Reserve (CONAP)

Dozens of American bison graze in the wide-open fields of El Carmen (Coahuila), a reserve of 140,000 hectares, roughly the same size as Mexico City. The country’s northern plains had not played host to the bison in 100 years, after decades of indiscriminate hunting and habitat destruction eradicated the animals.

In 2021, following an initiative led by the Mexican multinational cement company Cemex, bison returned to the grasslands, where the soil stores huge amounts of carbon, making the region key to the fight against climate change.

Initially, 19 bison were introduced at the reserve; today there are almost 100. The mammal’s daily routine makes it a perfect vehicle for regenerating grassland vegetation and sustaining hundreds of species that coexist with it.

“The even pruning of the grasses [produced by the bison as they eat] helps to increase the diversity of plants on the ground. They also take care of the regeneration of ecosystems by carrying seeds from one place to another in their digestive tract and defecating them,” explains Rurik List, a researcher in environmental sciences at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in Mexico City.

The bison is a temperate animal, which unwittingly encourages other species to survive in the spaces it inhabits. Its considerable weight flattens the grassland in its path, an alteration that helps rodents such as the Mexican prairie dog, which requires short grass to be able to keep watch for predators.

Cemex carries out various different conservation initiatives to try to offset the impact of its operations. The company has more than 250 active quarries around the world, and tries to minimize its footprint from several perspectives: rehabilitating the sites they have exploited, preparing them before starting work to protect their biodiversity, and promoting spaces such as the El Carmen reserve, which Cemex became involved with 22 years ago.

“From the beginning, a series of studies were carried out to determine what was most appropriate at the reserve. An inventory of flora and fauna was taken to determine which conservation targets should be retained. And an analysis was done to determine the status of the habitat,” says Alejandro Espinosa, director of the El Carmen reserve.

Read the rest at El País

Related: Environment Ministry to Expand Protection Zone for Vaquita (Mexico News Daily)

Related: Deceased Marine Mammals on Central California Beaches Raises Concerns About Ocean Water Quality (KEYT.com)

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