This town sits on an aquifer, which provides an excellent place for the trees to get their water using their roots at a big depth, and it also provides great lush of vegetation, where we are able to see in many houses around, their yards with walnuts, avocados and a another mesquites and some other fruit-trees that gives pomegranates, persimmons, oranges, lemons, (and others) and among all of this characteristics, there’s the most important: is the place that sets the needed conditions for a forest to grow and remained for a long long period of time developing flora and fauna native of the state of Nuevo Leon and this is the case of La Pastora Forest.
In 1598, settlers arrived in to the city of Monterrey (as it was known at that time “Nuestra señora de Monterrey”) and founded the estate in the metropolitan city with the name "La Pastora". Over the years, La Pastora was officially opened in July of 1985 making the old hacienda a zoo. Little by little since that moment, it took different animal species and flora and together they formed and give life to this place that is one of the most complete zoo in northern Mexico.
With the time and after renovations and other factors, the park "La Pastora" has four main areas which are: the typical town, the zoo, the lake and the forest zone. The zoo shows native animals and flora species that include an exotic wildlife, providing visitors to appreciate these animals that have a different habitat of the area. The animal park management has been concerned about the species that they have and they’ve been trying to present a similar scenario to that of their habitat, with vegetation and soil according to the mode of life of each animal. In addition to every place you can find scientific information and life of each species, as well as its family tree, evolution and development of life.
It also a marine aquarium, and the main attraction is that the area has over three hundred species of fauna. This Zoo is seen to be one of the most complete where you can find from a simple bird habitat, such as ostrich, peacock blue, owl, etc in the same way as species of reptiles such as lizards, crocodiles Mexican boa, scorpion , etc., and mammals such as spider monkeys, puma, ocelot, Bengal tiger, buffalo, hippopotamus, giraffes, and so on.
In March 2009, Greenpeace Monterrey Local Group declared “La Pastora Ecological Park” as a Protected Area, protecting its scenic beauty, its scientific, educational, recreational, historical value, and the existence of flora and fauna native from the development of tourism, or other similar reasons of general interest.
A forest constitute one of the most important aspects of the Earth Biosphere. They can be found in all the regions capable of supporting the growth of trees, Russia is country with the most extense area of forests (3.952.025 thousand of hectares) while in Mexico, the zone of forests reach up to 64.5 millions of hectares representing the 33% national territory.
As we already explained, the moderate forests are the ecosystem of major coverage in Mexico and here at “la Pastora” we can idenfity the following flora and fauna characteristic of this place:
Fauna: The diversity of animals in the moderate forests is enormous. Beginning for the big mammals, stands out the black bear that can be found in this are and that is distributed in the forests and semiarid zones of the north; the golden eagle, our national symbol and it has the richest birds (341 species). As mammals we can find the Mexican Wolf (only it exists in captivity), coyotes, squirrels, gray fox, badger, deer white tail, racoon, bats, moles, puercoespín, guajolote wild and as reptiles: small lizards, snake mousetrap, ranera and as insects the beetle and butterfly chirrionera.
Flora: we can find poplars, Royal Poinciana, laurel, common Privet, Peruvian Pepper (anacahuita), Old Fustic and others, are few examples of the extense fauna that we can see in the forest La Pastora, some of this plants only can be seen in this forest.
However, despite all these features that we previoulsy explained, it’s been established that the Government of Nuevo Leon is going to destroy it and instead of it, it will create a stadium for the local team Rayados, and that have caused arguments for and against that we will later discuss.
Arguments in Favor and Analysis
The construction of the new stadium in La Pastora has raised a large amount of arguments in both, supporting and against arguments for the built of an stadium in that location. Although arguments in favor of the stadium have shown themselves appealing for many people, there are a lot of arguments that make us doubt about the selected location for the stadium.
It’s been said and confirm that at least 2,300 new jobs will be produced by the construction of the stadium. After its construction, 1,000 more employments will be created for the maintenance, and functioning of the stadium and the creation of these new jobs will help the economies of families of Guadalupe and neighboring municipalities, by constrast we say that it do not matter where the stadium is constructed employments will be made anyway but it is a good argument in favor.
The construction of the stadium can also increase the tourism and will help the economy of the state and of the municipality of Guadalupe and will certainly improve the tourism of our city. A problem that will raise later with the construction in this stadium in La Pastora is that the streets around it (Paseo de las Americas, Exposición, Eloy Cavazos, Tolteca, among others) haven’t got the capacity to allow the expected flow of cars, as shown in Figure 1.1.
Another aspect to analyze is the area for the parking lot in the stadium where it’s been planned to plant hundreds of trees. Along with the construction of the stadium there is going to be developed a park that will become a place where families can spend time together so it is good to support familiar bonding, but at the same time this has already been an argument for the construction of the Parque Fundidora, the Paseo Santa Lucía, and the Mirador del Obispado.
This great park, apart from becoming an icon of the state of Nuevo León in international scale, is expected to inspire an ecology culture in the population. But, in words of biologist Antonio Hernández, “there is nothing less ecologic than destroying a natural forest”.
And what has the government said about the construction of the stadium in the only natural park in Guadalupe? The government has supported the project of the stadium giving to the company FEMSA-Heineken 25 hectare of La Pastora (which has a total area of 140 hectare, Figure 1.2). “We are only enabling the usage of the land. The responsible of the construction of the stadium are the promoters (FEMSA-Heineken) and the construction company (Maiz Mier), we have little saying in the matter” was expressed last year by the Governor of Nuevo Leon, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz.
Although the government claims the stadium is not their responsibility, many brows have been raised by the acknowledgement of the constructer company Maiz Mier. This company is already known for the construction of the Torre Administrativa, the Paseo Santa Lucia, and other public and private constructions. In these past constructions, there have been rumors about hidden arrangements between this company and Medina’s predecessor, Natividad Parás.
**. Figures 1.13 and 1.14 shows how the “La Pastora zone forest” the comparison between how the zone looks like and how it will look with the construction of the stadium.
Arguments against the destruction of “La Pastora”
As we have seen, La Pastora is the last natural forest of Monterrey, the habitat of different species of plants, animals and insects and we must make conscious that with the destruction of this forest, the population of this species will decrease instantly and all of the ecosystems of the forest in Nuevo Leon will crash eventually.
This forest represents an important part of the chain of living cycle of Monterrey, this means, most of the plants that grow everyday in the city and other parts of Nuevo Leon, are connected to the forest.
So, for what do the forests help us in the city? That is almost to say, what does the environmental services give us? We must think about it because first, they are producers of the oxygen that we breathe, the give the seeds needed in order to make other plants to grow, they caught the dampness of the environment. So, is like a chain, this seeds are transported by the numerous birds that live in this habitat, the major treat in the destruction of the forest will be that the number of birds species will decrease, then the population of new plants also, then the animas that eat from those plants will need another source of food and all of this may cause to this animals visit frequently the city, now with the lack of tolerance to the animals in Monterrey, the people will eradicate them to a dangerous numbers.
Another main reason with the destruction of this habitat is that they are the important regulators of the quality of the air of the city and they diminish the global warming, the lack of trees in the city, may cause the lack of purification of the air from the city, without it the pollution in the air will increase making a big treat to the people in the city, the population in the hospitals and clinics due to pulmonary diseases will increase making the state lose money.
Some other valuable service that we receive from “La Pastora forest is the recreation that it offers. Due to its agreeable climate and his scenic beauty, million of “regios” enjoy to go to the forests on weekends to play sports, explore and liberate the tensions of the urban life.
In La Pastora there’s reported 107 species of important fauna which include species of special protection, threatened and endangered species like the yellow-headed parrot*. In addition, the forest is home to the last living river in the city, the river “La Silla”, which is surrounded by oaks and junipers integrating a living ecosystem and that is born in the hill of La Silla and surrounds it at the northwest.
Finally and to conclude, we have shown the importance of the forest “La Pastora” in our city of Monterrey, however, the government already gave the permission for starting the construction of the stadium has been made and it will need an investment of 2,000 million pesos (mdp), and will have a capacity for more than 50,000 spectators although there were many arguments for and against, in October there will begin the destruction of 18 hectares, which will include the rescue of the flora and fauna and the plantation of 2,000 trees in the zone where there will be a parking for 3,000 cars. Once initiated the work, they are estimated 30 months for his conclusion.
Bibliography:
http://www.e-local.gob.mx/work/templates/enciclo/nuevoleon/municipios/19026a.htm
http://www.paraconocer.com/la-pastora/
http://www.obrasweb.mx/construccion/2011/09/23/el-nuevo-estadio-de-monterrey-se-mancha-de-verde
http://www.eambiental.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=19&id=105&Itemid=202
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosque
http://www.eambiental.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=19&id=105&Itemid=202
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