The Guadalajara Reporter

Proposal submitted to UDG to create first UNESCO Geopark in Mexico

A proposal to create a Geopark in the Bosque de la Primavera has been submitted to the University of Guadalajara with the recommendation that the project be presented to Jalisco State authorities. An ad-hoc committee consisting of ecologists, geologists, Primavera Forest Staff and other interested parties worked for two years to create a plan of action which could result in the creation of a Primavera Caldera Geopark and its eventual recognition by UNESCO. The Guadalajara-based committee worked hand-in-hand with Geopark experts living as far away as Iran and China.

I have been involved in this project since its beginning and even before that. Here is an overview of what is involved and an update on progress toward establishing the park in Jalisco.

The project really began in the Sultanate of Oman where—thanks to a strange concatenation of events—I found myself attending the Third Global Geotourism Conference in the fall of 2011. While preparing for this event, I discovered the existence of the Global Geoparks Network, UNESCO’s organization of 90 Geoparks in 27 countries of the world, where tourists can see and, better yet, understand the world’s most outstanding geological phenomena.

I had planned to give a presentation at the conference on the extraordinary biodiversity and geodiversity all around the city of Guadalajara, an area I began calling “The Magic Circle” in 2010 after discovering that all five of Mexico’s eco-systems converge in close proximity to this city, the second-biggest metropolis in the county.

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