The CEMEX El Carmen Nature Reserve covers 130,000 hectares of land on the Mexico-USA border. Most of the land, which is part of a larger conservation area across the border, is south of the Rio Grande next to Big Bend National Park in Texas. CEMEX has been rewilding El Carmen by bringing back native wildlife that had gone extinct from the area, such as desert big horn sheep, and more recently American bison. CEMEX has worked with different partners on both sides of the border for over 25 years. The return of these species has shown a significant recovery of the region’s biodiversity.
Dr. Alejandro Espinosa Treviño is a biologist with a PhD in wildlife management from Nuevo León State University, Mexico. He was trained in Management of Natural Protected Areas by the Warner College of Natural Resources of Colorado State University, USA. He has been involved in biodiversity conservation projects for 26 years, especially in restoring key species in Mexico, and in managing private natural protected areas. He has worked at Vitro/ Ovis A.C as the leader of El Carmen Island Reserve, which is in the Bahía de Loreto National Park, B.C.S Mexico, and at Pronatura Noreste in the Chihuahuan Desert programs. Since 2000 he has been at CEMEX, where he is the Environmental Conservation Leader, and manages the global Biodiversity strategy and the El Carmen Nature Reserve, CEMEX’s conservation area in the north of Coahuila Mexico.