Chiltepins in Mexico’s Rio Sonora Valley: Community Conservation Initiatives for a Critical Species

Chiltepins are a cultural, economic, and ecologically significant species unique to the landscape of Northern Mexico and Southwestern United States. Information collected through surveys and interviews reveals that communities in the Rio Sonora Valley have responded to overharvesting concerns changing their management practices of chiltepín plants. Factors that may play a greater role than harvesting for the survival of this species in the Rio Sonora Valley are climate change and cultivation. As with other conservation management decisions that focus on local rather then global challenges, the direct and indirect pressures on chiltepins in the Rio Sonora Valley are complex and may be much more then commercial harvesting by local peoples.