Projects
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El Cielo Botanical Garden and Arboretum 
The development of a Botanical Garden and Arboretum in El Cielo serves the purposes of providing alternative sources of income for local residents, conserving biodiversity, and providing educational information for visitors and residents alike. Income generated through ecotourism and employment at the botanical garden and arboretum reduces pressure on native flora, as currently 90 % of the families' income is from harvesting palm leaves from the wild. This year (2006), the community of Alta Cima received a grant from Botanical Gardens Conservation International (www.bgci.org), to begin the first phase of the Garden. There are three components of the Garden: a botanical garden, arboretum, and herbarium. The Botanical Garden is located around the La Fe restaurant, run by the local women's cooperative. It features butterfly, hummingbird and fern gardens, as well as rare and threatened orchids, cacti and cycads. Local women are learning to cultivate rare plants through in situ conservation. The women's cooperative is also cultivating plants to be sold for tourism. The arboretum is based on the local flora and is designed to represent the four major plant communities in El Cielo (bosque tropical subcaudcifolia, mesófilo de montaña, pino-encino, y encino-pino). We also have plans to begin a herbarium starting with collections of woody plant species. Additional collaborators include the Instituto de Ecología y Alimentos , Pronatura Noreste, and the University of Oklahoma.
Local residents of El Cielo attend a workshop on herbarium specimens
Learning how to collect and press plant specimens for the community-run herbarium |
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