Regional Committee of Natural Resources of the Chinantla Alta

Regional Committee of Natural Resources of the Chinantla Alta (CORENCHI) "has received significant support over the years from several non-governmental organizations, the Oaxaca-based NGO, Geoconservación, currently being the most important. Among other alliances, Geoconservación has recently joined with the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Integral Regional Development (CIIDIR-Oaxaca), Florida International University (FIU), and the Global Diversity Foundation, to conduct research, build capacity, and carry out training projects in support of CORENCHI's efforts to sustainably and profitably manage the lands they have protected.

"With funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted to Geoconservación, the CIIDIRFIU program is currently working with students documenting the history of how Santa Cruz came to adopt remarkably conservation-oriented land use policies, analyzing community attitudes towards wildlife, carrying out camera-trapping surveys of wildlife, particularly jaguars and their prey, and studying potential habitat for jaguars. It is also beginning studies of interactions between emigration, land use, land-use and land-cover change, vegetation mosaics and landscape ecology.

"The Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), a UK-based charitable organization, has received funding through the British Embassy in Mexico to build local capacity to manage the CORENCHI community conserved areas. Under the program, which is part of the UK government's Sustainable Development Dialogues, British and Mexican specialists will offer training for community members on the sustainability of non-timber forest product extraction, scientific tourism, participatory video, and legal frameworks for community conservation."