GEM SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES NETWORK
Capacity-Building through Networking
The GEM Sustainable Communities Network links small- to medium-sized communities around the world. The purpose of the network is assist communities in building their capacity to initiate and maintain sustainability efforts and to identify and apply best management practices in the sustainable use and conservation of their natural resources by learning from successful examples from partners throughout the world.
The Network program currently is focused on:
- developing the network of communities to facilitate the exchange of ideas, experiences, and expertise related to planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating sustainability projects;
- testing GEM’s Capacity Building Model for Sustainable Community Development in communities with measured success at implementing sustainability initiatives;
- applying relevant elements of the GEM model in appropriate communities.
GEM staff and volunteers help villagers in Comaltepec, Mexico, build a greenhouse in January 2006. See more photos and learn more about the project.
Featured partners of the GEM Sustainable Communities Network
PERU
Ccachupata
The Quechua-speaking Eco-Village of Ccachupata is a sustainability project near Cusco in Andean Peru. The project was initiated by the people of Ccachupata in cooperation with the Center for Construction with Earth and Sustainable Development (Centro de Estudios para la Edificación con Tierra y el Desarrollo Sostenible - CEETyDeS).
Through expanding irrigation, composting, invative greenhouses, and marketing of organic produce in the Cusco market, Ccachupata has seen its agricultural production increase three-fold and its farm income double since 1990.
MEXICO
Sierra Norte
Working with GEM’s partner in Oaxaca, the NGO Estudios Rurales y Asesoría Campesina (ERA), the GEM Sustainable Communities Network is focused on
- watershed management
- biological inventories
- land use planning and mapping
- ecosystem restoration
- nature trail interpretation for ecotourism
- non-timber forest products marketing
- ecosystem services valuation
GEM was awarded a $500,000 grant to augment its efforts in Mexico.
With this grant from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), GEM is helping rural communities in Mexico manage their watersheds in healthy, sustainable ways. (Read more about the grant award here.)
The program, part of the U.S.-Mexico Training, Internship, Exchange and Scholarship (TIES) Initiative, will formally train 10 Mexican students, two of whom will receive master’s degrees in watershed management from UWSP. (Read about the 2007 UWSP seminar for Mexican graduate-level students.) With the help of GEM staff, students, and partners, an additional 100-150 local residents will be trained through a series of interactive workshops, field days, and practical learning experiences in Oaxaca, Mexico. GEM is working with partners in Mexico including Estudios Rurales y Asesoría Campesina (ERA), Oaxaca; Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey – Campus Monterrey (ITESM, or Monterrey Tech); and Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo (UACh), Texcoco, Mexico.
Read how GEM is successfully helping Sierra Norte residents improve water quality, in an effort that has potential to serve as a model elsewhere in Mexico, and how the GEM-TIES team has helped a small Zapotec community establish a community water group to develop strategies to clean up and manage its water sources.
The partnership is focusing on non-consumptive forest uses in several rural communities of the Rio Grande watershed in Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte region. Using watershed management and agroforestry techniques the project helps provide clean water, protect biodiversity and sequester carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
View a poster highlighting this collaborative project that Monterrey Tech presented to the U.S. Ambassador on a recent visit to Monterrey.
GEM TIES collaborator at the Autonomous University of Chapingo, Prof. Edgardo Hernandez-Vazquez, has authored and facilitated publication of an excellent piece in his university’s Tzapinco Magazine, February 2006 issue, titled: Se inicia proyecto cooperativo TIES de Capacitacion en Manejo Inegral de Cuencas."
