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860 NATURALRESOURCES/OURNAL [Vol. 40 Fall 2000] MANAGING ECOSYSTEM CONSERVATION 861 stewardship is likely to enhance the Delta's health.186 Support from the broader conservation community-the community of interest-is also essential, for without pressure from broad constituencies, decision makers in the United States and Mexico are unlikely to put Delta conservation ahead of the demands of consumptive water users. Like many natural resource management institutions, those responsible for the Colorado River operate on a mechanistic, reductionist worldview.187 The inertia of these institutions will require that NGOs press them to adopt a paradigm shift to a perspective that provides products and services within a broader social and ecological context. 1. Local Communities and Advocacy People living in the Delta region continue to depend on the ecosystem, from fishermen in the Gulf of California to burgeoning ecotourism operators.188 To the extent that conservation plans include these economic interests, local communities will advocate for them, and will have the incentive to be good ecosystem stewards. The Delta generates significant economic activity in addition to irrigated agriculture. Three communities-El Golfo de Santa Clara, San Felipe, and Puerto Peftasco-continue to rely on fishing as the basis for their culture and economy.189 Sixteen tourist camps located near the confluence of the Rio Hardy and the Rio Colorado are used by visitors from Mexicali and the United States for fishing, hunting, and other water-based recreation, and local residents work as guides for these visitors.l90 Many communities in the Delta rely on riparian forests for fuel wood. One community produces catfish in an aquaculture facility.19I Approximately 600 Native Americans live in the Delta region, some 200 of whom are Cucapd.192 No longer able to engage in their traditional subsistence practice of harvesting Palmer's salt grass, which has limited reproductive capability without regular flooding to disperse seeds, the Cucaptf have looked to other harvests that the Delta supports. Members of several Cucapd settlements (ejidos) hunt and fish in the Delta,193 but diminished river flows have forced many to truck their boats miles to reach. the nearest waterways, and many travel farther to find work in the agricultural fields of the Mexicali Valley.l94 The Cucapd people have the only licensed commercial fishing operation in the Delta, with tribal rights to fish'::.:' for Gulf corvina and shrimp.195 However, subsistence fishing, hunting, and~ gathering are no longer common, and many Cucapd work as hunting andc...:> fishing guides and sell arts and crafts to tourists.196 i.. " Current debates over the Delta's future assume the support of Delta -.] residents for ecosystem conservation. U.S. environmental groups act as if the benefits of conservation that would accrue to local communities outweigh the costs to the local communities. Yet human-induced threats to Delta ecosystems include local activities, not just damage from the absence of water. Overfishing has depleted Totoaba stocks.197 Agricultural activities can result in the loss of native vegetation. People living in the Delta rely on local natural resources, and unless their subsistence needs are met, local pressures on the resource will continue. Successful examples of ecosystem protection in inhabited landscapes, such as ChitwanNational Park in Nepal and Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe, demonstrate that protected area management can be structured to allow direct harvest of resources. 198 There are also ways to reduce locals' demand on ecosystem resources by developing alternative income sources. Although some ecotourlsm exists in the Delta, the potential for its expansion has not been well researched. The management plan for the Delta's Biosphere Reservel99 recognizes that local communities have subsistence needs, but need greater incentives to shift from patterns of resource use to other income-generating activities. Several agencies and organizations working on Delta restoration have sought input from communities in the Delta concerning strategies to improve Delta ecosystems. Two Mexican organizations, PRONA TURA Sonora and the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans 193. In 1937, Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's forceful and popular president, ordered the creation of the first 67 ejidos in an effort to reform land tenure. The Cardenas reforms triggered the first wave of migration to the upper Delta. See WILUAM DEBUYS & JOAN MYERS, SALT DREAMs 141-44 (1999). 194. See Peggy Boyer, Colorado River Wllter, CENTRO lNTERCULnJRAL DE EsTuD10S DE DEslERTClS YOC~OS NEWS, Spring/Summer 1998, at 25. 195. SeeCARLOSV ALDas.cASlLLASlIT AL., WE'IUNDMANAGEMENT ANDREsToRAll0NIN 1HE COLORADO RIvER 'DELTA: THE FIRST STEPs 17 (1998). 196. See V ALDas.cASILLAS lIT AL., supra note 12, at 50. 197. See Tom Knudson, Sea a/Cortez Teeming with Greed, SACRAMENTO BEE, Dee. 10, 1995, at AI. 198. See JOHN A. DIxoN Ie PAUL B. SHERMAN, EcONOMICS Of PRoT'Ec:TBD AREAS 65 (1990). 199. See generally CEmRC> DE INvEsTIGACIONES ClENTlPIoo Y TECHNOL6GICAS DE LA UNIVERSIOAD DE SoNORA lIT AL., supra note 81. 186. See BoB DoPPELT lIT AL., ENTERING TIiE WATERSHED: A NEW APPROACH lOSAVE AMERICA'S RIvER EcOSYSTEMS 62 (1993). 187. See generally Winifred B. Kess1eret al., New Pers-pectives for Sustainable Nlltural Resources Management, 2 EcOLOGICAL APPUCAll0NS 221 (1992), 188. See V ALOas.cASILLAS lIT AL., supra note 12, at vi-vii. 189. See id. at 50. 190. See id. at 51. 191. See id. 192. See id. at 48.