Sustainable Ranching and the Cowboy Museum in El Triunfo
The new Museo de Vaqueros del las Californias in El Triunfo – The Cowboy Museum – is an intimate, yet gorgeously expansive look at the 300 years of families, traditions, skills and tools that bind the Californias of Mexico and the United States in ways that no war or border can erase. It is a celebration of the great vaquero / cowboy culture that was born in Baja California, moved north with the cattle to Alta California, and still thrives today throughout the western United States.
The museum exhibits are punctuated with the fantastically beautiful paintings of La Paz artist Carlos César Diaz Castro, who created ten paintings and two murals to help tell the vaquero’s story, as well as stunning photos of present-day vaquero life by renowned Baja California Sur photographer Miguel Angel de la Cueva. As with its sister museum in El Triunfo, Museo Ruta de la Plata / the Silver Route Museum, one of the museum’s most compelling exhibits is the oral history section, in which members of local ranching families share their stories, histories and anecdotes.
But perhaps one of the most interesting themes running throughout the museum in small plaques and chalk drawing prints is that of sustainability. Interwoven with exhibits of criollo pigs and cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula, is the explanation of Transhumance, livestock practices with minimal environmental impact that the Spanish brought with them to the New World that involved the environmentally sustainable practice of seasonal livestock migration. This practice is now a cornerstone of regenerative cattle ranching, and you don’t have to go far from the museum to see it in action. Christy Walton’s innovacionesAlumbra, an alliance of sustainable businesses in Baja California Sur, is the owner not only of the Cowboy Museum, but also of Rancho Cacachilas – about an hour’s drive from the Cowboy Museum – where modern day cowboys are fast at work restoring the land.
Florent Gomis, a Frenchman who came to Baja to study the Ecology of Desert Climates, is the Director of Sustainability at Rancho Cacachilas, and Transhumance is at the heart of his efforts. “In Baja California Sur as elsewhere in the ranching world, livestock has been blamed for the destruction of the land. In reality, the cattle aren’t the problem, it’s the management of the cattle.” Florent explains further. “Before there were vaqueros, herds of herbivores were motivated by predators to keep moving from place to place and that movement kept the land from being overgrazed. What we are working to achieve here at Rancho Cacachilas is the restoration of the impact that wild herds of herbivores once had on the land. These wild herds would continually move location, giving lands time to recover from their impact before their return. Here at Rancho Cacachilas we manage animals in groups and keep them moving, letting the land they had previously occupied rest for at least a year.”
While cattle are typically decried as destructive, Florent sees them as part of a restorative, creative process. “We really view the cattle as gardeners. When they move to a new grazing area, their hooves break the hard-packed dirt, allowing water and minerals to infiltrate the land. The cattle’s dung and urine are full soil-revitalizing carbon and nutrients, and as the cattle graze they trample these riches into the ground, resulting in the regeneration of the land. In a relatively short period of time we have seen these eroded, barren lands become covered in vegetation.”
The benefits of Transhumance don’t stop there. “One of the really cool things about this process of regenerating the soil is that it also regenerates the rain cycle” explains Florent. “Lots of vegetation on the land has a cooling effect on the atmosphere, causing clouds to precipitate on the land. So from what was once this vast cycle of death – overgrazing, monoculture, fertilizers and pesticides – you get this great cycle of life. The cows create nutritious soil so chemicals are not needed, the soil retains water and supports vegetation, the vegetation improves the soil, attracts more rain and feeds the cows, and the rain replenishes the whole, holistic system.” Florent notes that at Rancho Cacachilas, the same amount of land that could previously support only one cow, will soon support four. Moreover, with the increased vegetation for the cattle to eat, the ranch’s need for nutritional supplements for the cattle has dropped dramatically, resulting in substantial savings.
Rancho Cacachilas aims to be its own kind of Cowboy Museum. They’ve taken the lessons from the past, applied them to the present, and plan to share what they’re learning about managing cattle in the specific conditions of Baja California Sur with ranchers throughout the peninsula. The past comes alive at the beautiful new Cowboy Museum in El Triunfo. The past is alive down the road at Rancho Cacachilas.
When Christian Liñan decided to open his third restaurant in La Paz in 2017, he resolved to work only with 100% traceable, sustainably-caught local seafood. That made his seafood supply chain logistics pretty simple: he bought totoaba from Earth Ocean Farms in La Paz and oysters from Sol Azul in San Ignacio. That was it. “I have at least 15 different recipes for totoaba” he notes.
A combination of the pandemic and interminable neighborhood renovation forced the closure of that restaurant, but Christian’s commitment to traceable, sustainably-caught seafood has spanned decades and was not snuffed by a mere change of circumstance. His talent was recognized by COMEPESCA, the Mexican Council for the Promotion of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products, and as of January 2023 Christian is the Baja representative of COMEPESCA’s wildly successful program Pesca Con Futuro / Fishing with a Future. Explains Christian, “Pesca Con Futuro started in the Yucatan peninsula in 2017 and became a highly successful, high profile coalition of chefs, fishermen, producers, marketers and distributors, all committed to responsible, sustainable, in-season consumption. They all agreed to abide by the rules that promote biodiversity of species in Mexico and avoid overexploitation, thereby guaranteeing the future of fishing and aquaculture in Mexico. The 120 eminent Mexican chefs in the Yucatan peninsula who committed to Pesca Con Futuro have had such a huge impact as they are able to transmit the concept of responsible consumption and sustainable fishing and aquaculture directly to consumers via their menus and cuisine. It is truly impressive to see what they have achieved.”
COMEPESCA didn’t tap Christian to be the Baja representative of Pesca Con Futuro just because he’s a chef with an interest in sustainability. Nor did they choose him just because of his degree in Marine Sciences from CIBNOR in La Paz. One of the key reasons they chose him is because he has witnessed firsthand the importance of engaging the full chain of players in protecting marine species. In 2009, fresh out of CIBNOR, Christian joined Noroeste Sustentable (NOS) in the upper Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez). At that time the fisheries of the upper Gulf had thousands of pangas, each of which was catching roughly three tons of fish daily, mainly with gillnets. There was no management system or operating agreement among the fisheries or with the distributors, with the result that all those thousands of tons of fish were just being dumped on the market and collapsing prices. Fishers were taking home only 6 to 10 pesos per kilo of fish and fish stocks were being rapidly depleted. It is therefore not surprising that some fishers were tempted to traffic in the highly lucrative totoaba swim bladder trade. The totoaba is an iconic, endemic marine fish species of the upper Gulf. Its swim bladder is highly prized in some parts of Asia for both its purported medicinal properties and as a status symbol. As totoaba swim bladders can sell for as much as USD 80,000 per kilo, they became known as the “cocaine of the sea” and attracted the same cartels in Mexico and China that traffic in such illicit substances.
Violence came to the upper Gulf, and to say that it was a complex and dangerous work environment is a severe understatement. And humans were not the only mammals that suffered from the totoaba swim bladder trade. The totoaba shares its habitat with the Vaquita porpoise, the smallest dolphin in the world. The illegal gillnets used to trap the totoaba caught and killed huge numbers of Vaquita, which rapidly became critically endangered.
It was in this environment that Christian and NOS started the Fish Less and Gain More campaign. Through incredibly hard work in the communities they were able to create an agreement among the fisheries to catch and sell fewer tons of fish, with the result that prices rose from 6-10 pesos per kilo to 20 pesos per kilo. To protect the Vaquita, they also enforced the ban on gillnets, as well as the ban on fishing in the Vaquita’s habitat. It was all going extremely well, until it wasn’t. “Unfortunately there was really no way to enforce the agreement across all the fishing communities of the upper Gulf, with the result that some areas simply ignored the agreement and ultimately after two years prices collapsed again. Gillnetting in the Vaquita habitat resumed. The NGO and donors that had supported the program decided to close it. I was so sad and frustrated.”
Which is exactly why the Pesca Con Futuro program excites him so much – all the key players in the seafood supply chain are engaged, not just the fishermen. With chefs on the front line creating demand among consumers for eco-friendly caught, traceable seafood, the fishers, distributors and marketers realize that they have to get in line with market expectations. But, notes Christian, “It is almost impossible for fisheries to get sustainable certification.” That is why Pesca Con Futuro is a champion of the Fishery Improvement Project, FIP. “The FIP is a group of organizations and people who work collaboratively to achieve the sustainability of a fishery in the shortest possible time” notes Christian. “It is a clear and simple way to share good practices and teach about traceability. Organizations that participate in credible FIPs are considered reliable sources of supply and allies of sustainable products.” The list of FIP projects in Mexico can be found at: https://fisheryprogress.org/
Christian continues, “Sustainability is the responsibility of each of us who make up the consumption, production and supply chain, a task that must be permanent. At Pesca Con Futuro we link the different actors in the value chain, making various support tools available to them to achieve informed and responsible purchases of sustainable seafood.”
Christian believes that sustainability’s time has come for the seafood market. “In the 1990s consumers were all demanding “light” products. In the 2000s it was organic produce, and now in the 2020s the public is really turning its focus to sustainability. Pesca Con Futuro is here to both increase that awareness, and to make sure that in Mexico in general and Baja California in particular that sustainable seafood practices are widespread and sustainably-caught, 100% traceable seafood is widely available to the public.”
What about that totoaba he was cooking with at his restaurant in 2017? It represents the future he hopes to see for all of Baja. Pablo Konietzko, vice president of COMEPESCA and the founder of Earth Ocean Farms, a state-of-the-art facility in La Paz which raises the totoaba explains. “In 2012 we got special permits from SEMARNAT, the agency in charge of protecting marine species, to fish for totoaba breeding stock in the upper Gulf of California. Since we brought in those first fish we have kept meticulous records such that we can fully trace the bloodline of every fish from the hatchery to the table. It is impossible for someone to imitate our fish or pass off wild totoaba as EOF-raised.” Not only is Pablo raising totoaba for the seafood market, he is helping the totoaba to recover in the wild. Notes Pablo, “For the past 7 years we have held totoaba restocking events in Bahia Concepcion in the Gulf of California, near Mulege. We have successfully released over 175,000 juveniles into the sea, and we will continue the program each year.”
Christian could not be more thrilled to be working with Pesca Con Futuro in Baja. “It is truly an honor and a privilege to do this” he says. But the work falls to each of us. Next time you order seafood at a restaurant, ask if it was sustainably caught, and if it can be traced. Only in this way can you be sure that your favorite seafood will continue to be on the menu not only for you, but for the generations to come.
A Celebration of Todos Santos Eco Adventures’ Guides
Last month, several Todos Santos Eco Adventures (TOSEA) guides completed an epic 10-day, end-of-season paddle from Loreto to La Paz. Skills, knowledge, teamwork and FUN were the themes, but it turns out that when the season winds down, naturalist adventure guides just want to relax by adventuring in nature!
“Being out there with all you need in the hatch of a kayak makes you realize that life is actually pretty simple. This trip was a mental and physical challenge for me, but I learned so much and had so many amazing encounters on the ocean and in the unique Baja landscape. I came away with fantastic memories and a lot of learnings. These are the great moments of life.” – Cesar Caballero, TOSEA guide
The adventure started off with a night on a beach under the stars. After organizing gear, the team had dinner and relaxed before the next day’s big paddle. The trip was designed not only for fun and camaraderie – it was a chance for the guides to learn from one another and to build their both their soft skills and preparedness skills such as perfecting the ‘Eskimo roll’ (rolling and righting your kayak) – and they were able to do all of that and more over the 10 days!
Days on the trip started early, fueled by hearty breakfasts. The guides took turns leading each day – cooking meals, cleaning up, organizing navigation and more. One guide played a faux demanding guest so that the group could practice tending to the ‘client’s’ wants and needs while also tending to the rest of the group.
“I was able to discover a version of myself that I didn’t know existed. Being out there in the immensity of the Sea of Cortez, constantly being pushed out of my comfort zone, and working so tightly with my colleagues to achieve our common goals really changed the way that I approach my work. It was a life-changing experience.” – Octavio Marin, TOSEA guide
Throughout the journey the guides were serenaded by incredible landscapes of islands, mountains and perfect, deserted beaches; paddled and played with dolphins; and marveled at whales and birds. All the while, they built routines to make everything work and paddled, paddled, paddled – a kind of meditation.
“I breathe deeply trying to take in as many images, sensations, feelings as I can before they turn into memories.” – Alejandra Ibarrola, TOSEA guide
One of the magical things about discovering Baja California Sur with TOSEA is what the guides themselves were reminded of over and over again on this trip – the absolute wonder of this biodiverse peninsula. One evening the group decided to do a night paddle (after paddling all day!) to see the ocean’s bioluminescence…
“As soon as the sun hides, we start seeing the tiny sparkles in the water. The darker it gets, the more we see. It’s stunning, my colleagues are ecstatic. There are stars shining above us and underneath. We see some bright silhouettes of fish swimming past us. Every time the paddles go in the water they leave a trace of blue light amongst the darkness of a moonless night. It truly is the stuff of dreams.” – Alejandra Ibarrola, TOSEA guide.
This unforgettable experience demonstrates TOSEA’s deep commitment to investing in their guiding team. Creating opportunities such as these, along with their innovative guide exchange program, help their guides to grow as individuals and as a team. This all translates into a better adventure for your guests in both tangible and intangible ways. Way to go TOSEA!
“Being out on a trip like this with my fellow guides and colleagues was truly something special. It reinforced how much we all have in common through our shared passion for nature, and it definitely united us more as a team. We had so many beautiful experiences, including dolphins swimming all around us one day, being in the water with the bioluminescence at night, and so many more. I think we all grew a lot, and we were all reminded that we truly live in paradise. It was an amazing experience.” – Sergio Mariscal, TOSEA guide
Todos Santos Eco Adventures Climate Action Partnership with Tomorrow’s Air
We’re thrilled to share our passion for eco-friendly tourism practices, and lately, we’ve taken our promise to protect the environment to new heights by renewing our commitment to Tomorrow’s Air as an Education Partner. Tomorrow’s Air is educating and inspiring a global travel collective to clean carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it permanently. We are proud to be supporting and advocating for climate action education and accelerating the development of carbon removal with permanent storage.
We understand that alongside conventional carbon offsetting and natural climate solutions, new carbon removal and storage approaches are also needed to help us clean up the trillion tons of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The reality is that even if all carbon dioxide emissions were to halt completely right now, Earth’s warming would continue due to the high levels of carbon dioxide already stored in the atmosphere. The only way to permanently reverse warming is through carbon removal.
Therefore, in May 2023, Todos Santos Eco Adventures made an investment in Tomorrow’s Air. The Todos Santos contribution supports:
Inspiring traveler education about meaningful climate action
An order for 3 tons carbon to be removed and permanently stored
Through this partnership, we’re actively educating visitors about carbon capture technology and the role it plays in preserving our planet. Our knowledgeable staff share examples of carbon capture technology, promoting the importance of this initiative.
Curious about how it works?
The Tomorrow’s Air portfolio of carbon removal innovators includes pioneering companies selected for their technical and hybrid nature-tech solutions that can help restore our climate: direct air capture company Climeworks, Pacific Biochar, and Eion enhanced weathering.
Payments received from individual travelers and travel companies like Todos Santos Eco Adventures support climate conscious travel education and directly fund carbon removal provided by these companies.
With direct air capture, carbon collectors capture carbon dioxide from ambient air. Air is drawn into the collector with a fan, and adheres to a filter within the collector. Once the filter is saturated, the collector is closed, and the temperature is increased, releasing pure carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is dissolved in water, just as a soda machine makes sparkling water.
This water mixed with carbon dioxide is then injected deep underground into basaltic rock in Iceland. The basaltic rocks release metals that mix with the carbon dioxide in the water and turn this carbon dioxide into stone. The process safely and permanently removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since rocks cannot leak out of the ground. The entire process is powered by geothermal energy.
Todos Santos Eco Adventures travelers are encouraged to share their personal travel stories and perspectives with the Tomorrow’s Air community and are invited to
Our commitment to sustainability extends beyond our support of Tomorrow’s Air, as we firmly believe in minimizing the environmental impact of our tours. We use reusable water bottles, purchase local foods and products, and minimize single-use plastic wherever possible. Our responsible waste management practices ensure that we leave behind as little waste as possible, allowing future generations to enjoy the beauty of Baja. Our tours offer unique experiences, including hiking, whale watching, and farm-to-table cooking classes, all of which are designed to promote sustainable tourism. We believe that tourism goes hand in hand with sustainability and hope to inspire others by setting an example through our eco-friendly initiatives.
Reclaiming the Soil: Regenerative Farming in Baja California Sur
50-year old Felipe Fisher is a successful Baja California Sur farmer who still works the 1.5 hectare-ranch in San Jose Viejo that his great grandparents established in 1901. He started working with his father on the ranch when he was 15 and they, together with the 132 farmers that comprise Productores Organicos del Cabo cooperative, have built a successful business exporting organic basil and cherry tomatoes to places as far-flung as Singapore, Japan, the United States and United Arab Emirates. “But it’s not just the organic farmers who are exporting,” explains Felipe about a startling Baja reality, “Most of the fruit and vegetables that you buy in Costco, WalMart and the large grocery chains in Baja Sur actually come from Sinaloa or other parts of Mexico.”
This head-spinning fact caught the attention of Alianza Para la Seguridad Alimentaria (ASA) when it conducted an assessment of agriculture and the local food system during the pandemic. Conducted in collaboration with the International Community Foundation, the survey confirmed what Felipe and the rest of the Baja Sur farming community long knew to be true: almost all of the fruit and vegetables grown in Baja California Sur are exported, and almost all the produce we buy locally in Baja Sur is imported from Guadalajara, Tijuana and Sinaloa.
“Why is the global food system the way it is?” queries Kelsey Bearden, ASA’s Coordinator for Agroecology and Local Economy. “At one point it made economic sense to grow things here and ship them elsewhere, but the pandemic demonstrated in harsh terms that these distribution and supply chains are not as stable as was once thought. In fact, our assessment showed that Baja is extremely vulnerable from a food security perspective. We find ourselves with a rapidly growing population right when our food supply system is being vastly disrupted.”
Kelsey and her team are making haste slowly to diffuse this ticking timebomb. Their goal is to facilitate changes in the way farming has been done in Baja Sur since the 1950s, to realign a system that is reliant not only on exports, but also on imported chemicals for soil productivity. To foster change, they are building a network of support for farmers who are interested both in selling locally and improving the health of their soil to obviate the need for agrochemicals. A pilot project was conducted in La Paz municipality in 2021-2022 which revealed that not only is there a lot of interest from the farmers, but also from those whom they serve including food distributors and chefs. They are encouraged, but there are challenges.
“Baja land is as bad as it gets anywhere” observes Jan Federico William Loeffler Bird, a Mexican-American regenerative farming expert who was born and raised on the Baja peninsula, and is part of ASA’s support network for local farmers seeking change. “So much of the land here has been stripped of all nutrients by full-on chemical, industrial, monoculture farming. Our local soil needs to be rebuilt, regenerated to regain fertility. Soil fertility is the critical foundation of everything: water, biodiversity, community health and well-being.”
Jan recently completed a two-year regenerative farming pilot project on 4,000 square meters of land in Pescadero. One measure of soil fertility is the percentage of organic matter that it contains, and most of the world’s productive agricultural soils have between 3% and 6% organic matter. When the level is below 3% it is much more difficult to have good yields without using fertilizers and pesticides. Farming regeneratively for just two years between February 2020 and July 2022, Jan and his team were able to double the organic matter in the soil from 0.74% to 1.48%, a dramatic improvement. And since 50% of soil organic matter is organic carbon, it turns out that by improving the soil quality Jan’s project also sequestered 18.33 metric tons of CO2, “which is the emissions equivalent of burning 2,062 gallons of gasoline” he notes.
Community health is a key goal in regenerative farming. Dr. Andrei Aguilar is a pathologist who sees a lot of cancer among community members in Baja Sur, much of which he believes is closely tied to the widespread use of agrochemicals throughout Mexico. He wants to stop that cycle in Baja. “Here in Baja we really need to be a part of producing what we are eating” says Andrei. Andrei always loved the ranch owned and operated by his grandfather, then father, and now owns 10 hectares of it near the airport of La Paz. He and his wife Gabriela Huerta have fully embraced the regenerative farming techniques taught by Jan and other members of the ASA network. Says Gabriela, “It is amazing that we cannot find good quality, chemical-free produce in a place like La Paz. Our vision for our family and friends is a wholly self-sufficient ranch where we can grow our own food.”
Revitalizing soil comes down to mimicking nature’s processes. “When left to its own devices, nature always covers soil with living plants to generate soil health” says Jan. Andrei and Gabriela, like Jan, therefore started their project with “cover crops” like sunflowers, mesquite trees and fruit-bearing trees like guayabas, bananas, and figs. (Jan also includes corn, sorghum, oats, mustard, mung beans and more). Cover crops, which are dispersed among cash crops, “contribute to soil fertility by improving soil structure with their root systems, recycling nutrients, and accumulating organic matter” says Jan. Just a few months after their cover crops were in place Andrei and Gabriela introduced other crops including lettuce, cucumbers, pumpkins and many others. A large variety of plant species helps defend against pests and diseases while improving the soil structure, which in turn improves the soil’s ability to retain water.
“The magic appears at the end when you have a pumpkin with no chemicals,” says Gabriela. “It appears when your cucumbers this year are so much better than the year before. But you have to have a vision and you have to be patient. You have to know that your goal is to be producing healthy, chemical-free food for your family and community and that it may take 2-3 years to get there. What we’re doing with Jan and the ASA is revolutionary for Baja.”
Revolutionary? Definitely. But is it profitable? “Yes, on many levels” states Jan. “The economics of regenerative farming are clear and compelling. You have greater output based on fewer inputs. Regenerative agriculture is roughly 2 to 4 times more productive than traditional agriculture, meaning that much more food can be grown per acre, and at a lower cost.” Forbes magazine agrees. In a January 2020 article, Forbes cited the results of a Ecdysis Foundation study on how regenerative systems affect yields, pests and profitability. “…farms with regenerative practices were 78% more profitable than conventional plots. This increase in profitability was the result of two main factors: input costs and end markets [as] regenerative farmers received higher premiums for their crops….But the benefits go beyond fertilizer costs. Increasing soil organic matter also increased the diversity of insects found in the soil. Insect diversity has been shown to decrease harmful pest abundance… leading to stronger crops.” Kelsey of ASA also points out that foregoing agrochemicals takes out the huge fossil fuel expenditures associated with mining, manufacturing and transporting the chemicals.
Kelsey outlines some of the challenges ahead, “It’s not just about the farmers and growing the food, it’s about where the food is going, how it gets there and how it’s prepared once it gets there. We are working hard to understand the local food system, who moves the food around, what consumer requirements are and what is the capacity of the local farmers to meet local demand.”
One of ASA’s goals is to generate and facilitate shorter and more equitable supply chains to connect local food to local buyers. ASA is exploring different models for the region, including more direct sales between farmers and buyers interested in local and regeneratively produced food, as well as models that strengthen the logistics of regional sales and distribution.
Ross Vail and his sons Logan and Diego are the owners and operators of Sueño Tropical, the first and largest organic producer in Baja Sur. Their deep experience and knowledge base is another strong link in the ASA farmer support network. “We’ve been working on a food hub concept with ASA over the last two years” notes Logan. “Here at Sueño Tropical we have the set up to pack, process, store and distribute under OSHA standards the products of local farmers using regenerative techniques.” Ross adds, “Our goal is to have enough local, regeneratively-farmed products to meet the demand of all the hotels, restaurants and grocery stores of Baja Sur so that we are truly a local farm to table economy. This will take quite an effort to achieve, but it’s a challenge we embrace.”
Felipe Fisher is totally onboard with the goals of the ASA. “While we built our business on exports, we would rather be producing and selling locally, and providing healthier produce for the people of Baja Sur. There are already several local high-end stores and restaurants interested in our products.”
“I am so proud and happy about what we achieved in Pescadero” adds Jan. “Of course, there is still so much to do, but I’m super excited about this next phase. I’m building out bigger farms and expanding my regenerative farming operation to feed more of the local community.”
The change in outlook and attitude is already taking root with the next generation. Andrei and Gabriela’s daughters, now 3 and 6 years old, both fervently want to be agronomists when they grow up. Andrei and Gabriela will just be happy if their children can live in a Baja Sur community where locally grown, chemical-free produce is the norm, not the exception.
If you would like more information on how to get involved with the ASA as a farmer, buyer, or other interested party, please email the organization at or contact them via WhatsApp a +52-624-125-3283. Be a part of the change!
Todos Santos Eco Adventures and the Festivals of Todos Santos
No less an authority on the human condition than the Dalai Lama has proclaimed, “I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy.” Helping to ensure that everyone in our community can fulfill that purpose, our three local masterminds of happiness – Rouss Ramirez, Sylvia Perel and Perla Garnica – are working to unleash a veritable avalanche of joy upon our pueblomagico. Check out this stellar calendar of bliss-inducing festivals that will start our season:
1. Day of the Dead Festival. Oct 30-Nov 2. 6th Anniversary. Rouss Ramirez 2. Todos Santos Film Festival. Nov 3-8. 18th Anniversary. Sylvia Perel 3. GastroVino Food & Wine Festival. Nov 11-13. 10th Anniversary. Perla Garnica
Todos Santos Eco Adventures, in conjunction with Alianza Cero Basura, is extremely proud to be partnering with these festivals, which bring their unique creative forces to bear in bringing about not just an isolated event, but fundamental, long-term community happiness. The festivals have long been committed to funding programs in education and healthcare to assist those in our community for whom such opportunities are not readily available. Now they are working to improve the way our community thinks about and deals with trash.
The Dalai Lama finished his thought on happiness by adding, “In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.” So come out and enjoy these festivals, support your community, and know that your happiness will be spread throughout, helping to create a better future for us all.
Rouss Ramirez and the Day of the Dead Festival.
Rouss and her store Besame Mucho Bazaar have been strong financial supporters of Alianza Cero Basura since the beginning, and this year Rouss is taking her commitment to zero waste principles one step further: all contestants in the main Catrin/Catrina contest of her Day of the Dead Festival must use repurposed materials to create their costumes! So take a fresh look at those yogurt containers, soup cans, wine bottles, potato chip bags and chewing gum wrappers and let your imagination run wild! All costume components will head to the recycling center afterwards. Rouss started the Day of the Dead Festival in 2017 with the founding of her nonprofit Amamos Nuestro Pueblo, AC (We Love Our Town AC). through which she supports children, the elderly and vulnerable people with serious illnesses in our community. Rouss has invested over 3 million pesos in her program.
Sylvia Perel and the Todos Santos Film Festival.
Since starting the Todos Santos Film Festival in 2004 Sylvia has become known for escorting famous movie stars and directors through Todos Santos. But her real passion has always been engaging local children in film making through her nonprofit, the AC Escuela de Cine Leonardo Perel (Leonardo Perel Film School), and teaching the power of film to address environmental issues. In 2019 she made Desplastificate the topic of her Cineminuto film competition, and students from across Baja California Sur submitted movies illustrating the importance of eliminating single-use plastics in our state. Next, she almost single-handedly produced Alice in the Land of the Whales, an environmental love letter to Baja California Sur, with local children both behind and in front of the camera. Other environmentally-themed films created by Sylvia’s local students include Open Sky, The Little Prince in Todos Santos and Trapiches de Todos Santos. This year the topic of her Cineminuto film competition is “Our Ocean, Our Treasure”, and again students from across the state are being invited to submit films on the importance of caring for the health of our oceans. The grand prize is a Go Pro 10. The Hollywood Foreign Press gave Sylvia a special award in 2018 for her festival’s focus on community and education.
Perla Garnica and the GastroVino Baja Food and Wine Festival.
Perla created the GastroVino Festival in 2012 to celebrate Mexican wines and great local restaurants, and it has been a joyous affair every year since. To spread that happiness, the festival has always acted as a fundraiser for local nonprofits. Since 2012 it has donated USD $64,000 to key programs for the community including the Palapa Society and the Padrino Children’s Foundation. In 2019 Perla made the festival a single-use plastic free event, and this year Alianza Cero Basura, in conjunction with Water Ways Baja, will be providing water stations at the festival to ensure that no one feels compelled to bring in single-use plastic water bottles. Perla and the organizations she works with – Ricardo Amigo Real Estate and Plaza Amigos – have been key financial supporters of Alianza Cero Basura since the beginning, and installed the first public water bottle refill station for our community at Plaza Amigos.
The new Museo de Vaqueros del las Californias in El Triunfo – The Cowboy Museum – is an intimate, yet gorgeously expansive look at the 300 years of families, traditions, skills and tools that bind the Californias of Mexico and the United States in ways that no war or border can erase. It is a celebration of the great vaquero / cowboy culture that was born in Baja California, moved north with the cattle to Alta California, and still thrives today throughout the western United States.
But perhaps one of the most interesting themes running throughout the museum in small plaques and chalk drawing prints is that of sustainability. Interwoven with exhibits of criollo pigs and cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula, is the explanation of Transhumance, livestock practices with minimal environmental impact that the Spanish brought with them to the New World that involved the environmentally sustainable practice of seasonal livestock migration. This practice is now a cornerstone of regenerative cattle ranching, and you don’t have to go far from the museum to see it in action. Christy Walton’s innovacionesAlumbra, an alliance of sustainable businesses in Baja California Sur, is the owner not only of the Cowboy Museum, but also of Rancho Cacachilas – about an hour’s drive from the Cowboy Museum – where modern day cowboys are fast at work restoring the land.
While cattle are typically decried as destructive, Florent sees them as part of a restorative, creative process. “We really view the cattle as gardeners. When they move to a new grazing area, their hooves break the hard-packed dirt, allowing water and minerals to infiltrate the land. The cattle’s dung and urine are full soil-revitalizing carbon and nutrients, and as the cattle graze they trample these riches into the ground, resulting in the regeneration of the land. In a relatively short period of time we have seen these eroded, barren lands become covered in vegetation.”
Rancho Cacachilas aims to be its own kind of Cowboy Museum. They’ve taken the lessons from the past, applied them to the present, and plan to share what they’re learning about managing cattle in the specific conditions of Baja California Sur with ranchers throughout the peninsula. The past comes alive at the beautiful new Cowboy Museum in El Triunfo. The past is alive down the road at Rancho Cacachilas.
When Christian Liñan decided to open his third restaurant in La Paz in 2017, he resolved to work only with 100% traceable, sustainably-caught local seafood. That made his seafood supply chain logistics pretty simple: he bought totoaba from Earth Ocean Farms in La Paz and oysters from Sol Azul in San Ignacio. That was it. “I have at least 15 different recipes for totoaba” he notes.
The Tomorrow’s Air portfolio of carbon removal innovators includes pioneering companies selected for their technical and hybrid nature-tech solutions that can help restore our climate: direct air capture company Climeworks, Pacific Biochar, and Eion enhanced weathering.
50-year old Felipe Fisher is a successful Baja California Sur farmer who still works the 1.5 hectare-ranch in San Jose Viejo that his great grandparents established in 1901. He started working with his father on the ranch when he was 15 and they, together with the 132 farmers that comprise Productores Organicos del Cabo cooperative, have built a successful business exporting organic basil and cherry tomatoes to places as far-flung as Singapore, Japan, the United States and United Arab Emirates. “But it’s not just the organic farmers who are exporting,” explains Felipe about a startling Baja reality, “Most of the fruit and vegetables that you buy in Costco, WalMart and the large grocery chains in Baja Sur actually come from Sinaloa or other parts of Mexico.”
Kelsey and her team are making haste slowly to diffuse this ticking timebomb. Their goal is to facilitate changes in the way farming has been done in Baja Sur since the 1950s, to realign a system that is reliant not only on exports, but also on imported chemicals for soil productivity. To foster change, they are building a network of support for farmers who are interested both in selling locally and improving the health of their soil to obviate the need for agrochemicals. A pilot project was conducted in La Paz municipality in 2021-2022 which revealed that not only is there a lot of interest from the farmers, but also from those whom they serve including food distributors and chefs. They are encouraged, but there are challenges.
Jan recently completed a two-year regenerative farming pilot project on 4,000 square meters of land in Pescadero. One measure of soil fertility is the percentage of organic matter that it contains, and most of the world’s productive agricultural soils have between 3% and 6% organic matter. When the level is below 3% it is much more difficult to have good yields without using fertilizers and pesticides. Farming regeneratively for just two years between February 2020 and July 2022, Jan and his team were able to double the organic matter in the soil from 0.74% to 1.48%, a dramatic improvement. And since 50% of soil organic matter is organic carbon, it turns out that by improving the soil quality Jan’s project also sequestered 18.33 metric tons of CO2, “which is the emissions equivalent of burning 2,062 gallons of gasoline” he notes.
Revitalizing soil comes down to mimicking nature’s processes. “When left to its own devices, nature always covers soil with living plants to generate soil health” says Jan. Andrei and Gabriela, like Jan, therefore started their project with “cover crops” like sunflowers, mesquite trees and fruit-bearing trees like guayabas, bananas, and figs. (Jan also includes corn, sorghum, oats, mustard, mung beans and more). Cover crops, which are dispersed among cash crops, “contribute to soil fertility by improving soil structure with their root systems, recycling nutrients, and accumulating organic matter” says Jan. Just a few months after their cover crops were in place Andrei and Gabriela introduced other crops including lettuce, cucumbers, pumpkins and many others. A large variety of plant species helps defend against pests and diseases while improving the soil structure, which in turn improves the soil’s ability to retain water.
Kelsey outlines some of the challenges ahead, “It’s not just about the farmers and growing the food, it’s about where the food is going, how it gets there and how it’s prepared once it gets there. We are working hard to understand the local food system, who moves the food around, what consumer requirements are and what is the capacity of the local farmers to meet local demand.”
“I am so proud and happy about what we achieved in Pescadero” adds Jan. “Of course, there is still so much to do, but I’m super excited about this next phase. I’m building out bigger farms and expanding my regenerative farming operation to feed more of the local community.”
Sylvia Perel and the Todos Santos Film Festival.
Perla Garnica and the GastroVino Baja Food and Wine Festival.