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Gulf Guardian Award Winners 2007
Bi-National Category - 2nd Place
Pronatura Noreste, a Mexican nonprofit environmental conservation organization created in 1997, is one of seven chapters of Pronatura which operates throughout Mexico. In April 2005, after many years of work on the part of Pronatura Noreste and several U.S partners including The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept., Environmental Defense, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Center for Coastal Studies, and Texas A&M University-Kingsville Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, the Laguna Madre de Tamaulipas and the surrounding area, approximately 1.5 million acres, was declared a national protected area by the Mexican federal government. The Laguna Madre de Tamaulipas is the southern part of the larger Laguna Madre system which extends northward along the Texas coast and is one of only five hyper saline estuary systems in the world. This conservation victory followed a monumental effort led by Pronatura Noreste to develop the science and public support necessary to protect this unique and valuable coastal habitat.
