Mexico - Revillagigedo National Park

Improved management of approximately 148,000 km2  

Lead partner: Beta Diversidad

On November 24, 2017, the government of Mexico created the Revillagigedo National Park, expanding the previously small marine reserve around the unpopulated archipelago to become, at the time, the largest fully protected marine protected area in North America (148,087 km2). The National Park, located approximately 400 km south of Mexico’s Baja peninsula, includes three marine use zones – Research, Tourism, and Traditional Use/Naval – all of which ban any kind of extractive activities.  

The Park protects one of the greatest concentrations of tropical marine megafauna in North America, including silky sharks, hammerhead sharks, whale sharks, giant manta rays, tuna, and humpback whales, as well as rich deep-sea habitats. The islands — Socorro, Clarión, San Benedicto, and Roca Partida — are located along at the convergence of the cold waters of the California current and the warm waters of the North Equatorial current, creating upwellings that bring nutrients from the bottom to the ocean surface.  

Moreover, science has evidenced that the Revillagigedo National Park is biologically interconnected to the region as key migratory and endangered species visit this and other areas of the Eastern Tropical Pacific throughout its life cycle. As a result, efforts are currently being conducted to formally include the Revillagigedo National Park as part of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR), a voluntary regional cooperative effort initiated by Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama in 2004 to protect one of the ocean’s most productive and biodiverse regions in the world.

Despite having achieved some key management milestones since its designation, such as the approval of the management plan and the creation of an advisory council, and being awarded with honorable distinctions, such as the Blue Park Award, the Revillagigedo National Park still faces management and enforcement gaps in key programmatic areas. In partnership with Beta Diversidad and the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, the Blue Nature Alliance is committed to support the stand up of critical management systems that will enable long term management effectiveness by increasing the park’s capacity, strengthening and refining the area’s science, research and monitoring program, elaborating and implementing an educational and communicational plan and putting in place a conservation finance business plan.