Paving paradise: Plans are in the works for at least four major highways to traverse the Water Forest. With no integrated strategy, the result is ‘anarchistic urban growth’. Photo Credit: JORGE NEYRA JÁUREGUI

YUCATAN, Mexico – Over 1,500 delegates from all over the world gathered for the 9th World Wilderness Congress held in Merida, Yucatan, in Nov. 2009.

Launched by the WILD Foundation in 1977, the World Wilderness Congress (WCC) is the world’s longest-running, public and international environmental forum.  The Congress meets every three to four years, having been held eight times on five different continents.

The central theme of this year’s WILD9 was Wilderness and Climate Change, which points to the critical role of wilderness as carbon sinks absorbing CO2 emissions.  Research has shown that protecting primary ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and peatlands keeps their carbon stocks intact and avoids carbon emissions from degradation. For instance, after the U.S. and China, the world’s third largest carbon polluter is Indonesia – not because of its energy consumption, but because of its peatland and forest destruction which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. …read more of Mexico’s Grand Water Forest here