A bacanora field in Sonora. Credit: Colectivo Sonora Silvestre
Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN) has been named the winner of the first-ever Connectivity Challenge offered by the Salazar Center at Colorado State University. As the winner, BRN has received $100,000 to implement its Bacanora for Bats: Binational Conservation and Sustainable Agave Spirits initiative. BRN was one of five finalists from across the nation competing for the sole prize. In creating the Connectivity Challenge, the Salazar Center’s said, “our planet faces existential threats driven by human-induced climate change, species extinction, and rapid population growth, all contributing to increasing pressure on and fragmentation of rural and urban landscapes. This challenge aims to generate innovative ideas that catalyze change, ultimately leading to landscapes that connect habitats, build resilience, and improve the health of our natural systems.”
Nectar-feeding bats rely on wild agave plants for sustenance as they migrate through the binational Arizona/Sonora borderlands, and in turn the bats serve as the agaves’ primary pollinator. Communities in Sonora have always relied on agave plants for spirits, food, and fiber. Agaves only flower once in their lifetime. In order to capture the sugars that agaves store in their bases for their single flowering event, producers must harvest the agaves before they flower and produce seeds.
Agaves in the region are disappearing due to development and increased production of the regional agave distillate, bacanora. As land is cleared for cultivation of bacanora and wild agaves are harvested to supplement the cultivated crops for distillation, a gap is formed, breaking connectivity in the nectar landscape for important pollinators, including threatened migratory, nectar-feeding bat species the Lesser long-nosed (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae)and Mexican long-tongued (Choeronycteris mexicana).
Biologists from Colectivo Sonora Silvestre work in the field. Credit: Colectivo Sonora Silvestre
Alongside BRN’s existing efforts made during 2020 and 2021 with Bat Conservation International to grow out and plant Agave palmeri from seeds, the Bacanora for Bats project will address threats to agaves due to bacanora production through creation and implementation of a sustainability certification. It’s a win, win, win for agaves, bats, and bacanora producers.
Together with the nonprofit Sonoran partner Colectivo Sonora Silvestre, located in Hermosillo, the team was asked by the Sonoran Bacanora Regulatory Agency to develop and implement the certification program. This project will collaborate with bacanora-producing ranchers, consumers, regulators, and scientists to implement a sustainability certification. This certification will change how bacanora is produced and address impacts on bats and local communities, all while providing a model for sustainability regulation which can be adjusted and implemented in other regions of agave spirit production.
The $100,000 will be spent over two years, finishing in fall 2022. Roughly half will be spent in Mexico and half in the US on staffing for facilitating stakeholder meetings through existing partnerships with regional agave festivals in Arizona and Sonora. These partnerships will impact connectivity of wild agave populations and pollinators on both sides of the border, supporting the creation of a cooperative, science-based, sustainability certification for bacanora and ushering in the next generation of leaders in conservation.
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