Joint ecological, geographical and cultural approach to identify territories of opportunity for large vertebrates conservation in Mexico

The objective of the present paper is to provide a holistic framework to delineate territories of opportunity where agrarian communities can manage areas to enhance the conservation of large vertebrates. The study was conducted Mexico, which is sociologically, culturally and ecologically complex, similar to other megadiverse countries. We conducted ensemble niche modeling of endangered top predators to define a set of large vertebrate species. Environmental attributes were used to perform three distance-based and two artificial intelligence-based algorithms. Socio-cultural attributes were included to depict agricultural communities with strong social government schemes and clear evidence of well-managed natural resources. Other socio-economic attributes such as land acquisition cost, human agglomeration and anthropogenic land use were included in the analysis. Scenarios were computed and displayed cartographically with the aid of a geographic information system. Results showed that the largest concentration of biodiversity converges on regions with large land cover persistence and high local governance, defined as potential willingness to engage in conservation actions. The cartographic areas identified overlapped with current Mexican protected areas in only 2.7% of the country. Thus, conservation law enforcement in most of the country seems to be ineffective. Here we show that, in a number of territories, agrarian communities that have coexisted for millennia with umbrella species can be regarded as allies in biodiversity conservation. Results are discussed in the light of their relevance for future niche modeling, environmental policy design and implications for climate change.