The green locations of Mexico – Newspaper AM

In Mexico, a guide for finding these corners may be the listing of 66 National Parks, enacted by the beauty of its landscapes, the richness of their ecosystems, their value for scientific, historical, educational, and recreational; the existence of flora and fauna and its suitability for the development of tourism, according to the General Law of Ecological Equilibrium and the Protection of the Environment in its article 50.

The Desert of the Lions, enacted in 1917, is the oldest National Park in the country. It is located an hour’s drive from the City of Mexico, and, in their thousand and 866 hectares of forest, inhabit possums, gray foxes, and hawks. And there is a former convent from the 17th century.

Other destinations within Mexico City are the National Park El Tepeyac National Park, The Historic Coyoacan (better known as the Viveros of Coyoacan) and the National Park Fuentes Brotantes de Tlalpan, enacted at the end of the years 30.

In more recent decades have added to the list other places, several of them sailors, as the National Park Reef Scorpions (1994), structure-largest single coral in the Gulf of Mexico; the Bay National Park of Loreto (in 1996), or the National Park Archipelago of the Holy Spirit (2007), both part of the Area de protección de Flora y Fauna Islas del Golfo de California, which, in turn, holds the appointment of Natural Heritage of Humanity.

The number of visitors to National Parks has grown with the expansion of the means of communication, combined with the growing interest in outdoor activities, believes Erika Ortigoza, director general of special projects of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp).

For this reason, the commission is working to highlight these protected sites and ensure visits responsible and tidy, also to benefit the surrounding community. "Before we thought that the protected natural areas are not touched and are not visited, but now we have opened the eyes of the nature-based tourism, which is a trend and a tool for unambiguous conservation," he says.

Of the 66 National Parks that make up the current list, the Conanp considers that only 20 are the most suitable to receive visitors due to its infrastructure, tourist services (including certified guides) and good connectivity. Some of these sites are the Islas Marietas, Riviera Nayarit; Huatulco, in Oaxaca; the Canyon del Sumidero, in Chiapas and Cumbres de Monterrey, in Nuevo León, the park’s largest with 177 thousand 395.95 hectares.

in view of the controversy from the entry into force of the new Management Program of the Nevado de Toluca, it should be clear that, yes, it is part of the territory protected by Conanp. It was declared a National Park in 1936, but in 2013 changed the category to Area of Protection of Flora and Fauna.

This program will not allow that 17 thousand hectares of forest disappear, said the secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, Rafael Pacchiano Alamán.