In a world of quick wins and impatient headlines, Martin Goebel is playing the long game. Now Director for Mexico at LegacyWorks Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit, Goebel has spent five decades navigating the complicated terrain where conservation collides with community, politics, and development. Most of that time has been in Mexico, where he has witnessed—and helped shape—some of the country’s most ambitious environmental efforts. The challenges are as persistent as they are familiar: water scarcity, habitat loss, mismanaged tourism, frayed social trust. But Goebel and his collaborators are betting on a different kind of conservation—one that doesn’t begin with maps or mandates, but with conversations. The region he currently focuses on, the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, may be among the most stunning and biologically rich stretches of North America. But it is also among the fastest growing. Coastal oases like La Paz and Todos Santos are rapidly morphing into tourism and retirement enclaves. With that growth come the usual pressures: overdrawn aquifers, degraded ecosystems, rising inequality. The solution, in Goebel’s view, lies not in top-down decrees but in patient, trust-based relationships with local communities. Satellite image of the East Cape region of Baja California. Photo courtesy of Legacy Works. LegacyWorks, where Goebel has worked since 2016, is not your typical conservation outfit. Originally founded to support watershed restoration in Wyoming, the organization now operates across five geographies in the U.S. and Mexico, stitching together a mix of environmental protection, rural development, and what it calls “community readiness.” In…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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