Seacology Announces Desal Plant at Isla Guadalupe

MEXICO, Guadalupe Island, Baja California Pacific – Sea water desalination system in exchange for a 1,235-acre marine reserve for a duration of 10 years.

Guadalupe Island, with a total land area of 80,000 acres, is one of the most remote islands of Mexico. The island’s only community is mostly fishermen and their families who have been using the island for decades, fishing lobster and diving abalone. Guadalupe Island has one of the best preserved marine environments of Mexico. Since the decree in 2007 of the “Guadalupe Island Biosphere Reserve”, the management and regulated protection of its natural resources is under the federal authority of the Natural Protected Areas Commission.

Guadalupe Island is one of the best examples in the world of an ongoing island ecosystem recovery where different entities (governmental and nonprofit) are participating. A water desalination plant is the local community's most urgent need. A desalinization system will be purchased with the help of Seacology in exchange for the creation and protection of a 1,235-acre marine reserve for a period of 10 years, where fishing, extraction of resources, damage to the sea floor, contamination or any other kind of damage is forbidden.

The desalination system will be able to supply as much as 3,000 gallons per day. The water supply could also support reforestation and restoration projects, particularly in the remaining patches of endemic forest. In 2000 and 2002, Seacology funded projects to construct and maintain fences to keep invasive goats out of the most sensitive areas containing endemic plant species. Goats have since been eradicated from the island.