The mystery of Mexico’s vanishing stream oaks

“We plan to plant about 1,200 new oaks in the region. We will plant within the fences of the ranches to ensure that each oak is growing protected and well cared for,” says Pérez Morales.

“We will also plant outside the ranches in areas where there is less pressure from predators. And with the help of the municipal authorities, we will plant in public spaces, where each planted tree has protection, care and its growth can be monitored.”

The Morton Arboretum and the GCCO are also working with botanic gardens in Mexico to establish the oak elsewhere beyond its current range, to improve the chances for conservation of the species. Currently 15 trees are growing in the botanic garden of the University of Puebla in central Mexico.

An exchange of knowledge

Scientists, local authorities, ranchers and other members of the community in the town of San Dionisio in Baja California Sur came together to discuss the oak’s future at a workshop on the initiative in late 2021. “It was a workshop where we co-constructed knowledge,” says Breceda. “Because it’s not like ‘wise’ scientists are going to tell local people what to do with something that has been theirs for hundreds of years. They grew up with these trees.”

Local people know better than anyone the best places to plant, says Pérez Morales. And they know that without their help, in an increasingly dry and unpredictable climate, it will be very difficult for the oak to survive.

“It is important that we ranchers give ourselves the task of taking care of these spaces, of watering the trees until they are at least two years old,” says Rogelio Rosas López.

More workshops are planned in 2022, as well as the first “Festival of the Arroyo Oak” in San Dionisio. The idea is also to promote other activities that are a source of income, including ecotourism and artisan products such as mango jelly or a drink from damiana, a local plant.

Clinging to life

The stream oak project shows how complex, and case-by-case, the task of saving endangered species is.

“The work has not been easy since the results of these efforts are not immediate and it must be understood that they will be seen over longer periods. However, we are on the right track,” says Pérez Morales.

Noelia Álvarez de Román, director of conservation for Latin America and the Caribbean of the BGCI, has praised the outcomes so far. “The Quercus brandegeei conservation project has resulted in important advances in knowledge of the species and its threats, in the dissemination of the importance of its conservation and in the increase of capacities of local collaborators,” she says.

“If this species disappears, it disappears from the face of the known universe,” says Cibnor’s Aurora Breceda. “And on the other hand we lose the possibility of sustainable resources for the rural populations of Baja California Sur, for which I have enormous respect and admiration.”

The Morton Arboretum’s Álvarez Clare never ceases to be amazed that “currents, storms, hurricanes, droughts happen to these oaks and they are still clinging there, producing their acorns, providing shade, cleaning the air, giving life”.

“Actually, when I’m next to one of those trees, I just touch the trunk and say, ‘thank you!’.

“The arroyo oaks have been there much longer than we have,” says Álvarez Clare. “And we want to ensure that they are there for our children and our grandchildren, that they can have the shade of that wonderful tree that our grandparents had.”

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Alejandra Martins is a broadcast journalist at BBC Mundo. This article was originally published in Spanish on BBC Mundo – you can read it here. This is also why this story does not have an estimate for its carbon emissions, as Future Planet stories usually do.

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