Escudilla is exploring project opportunities in the Western United States, Northwest Canada, Central America, and Southern Africa. Below are two active priorities.
Mogollon Wildlife Conservation Initiative
The Mogollon Wildlife Conservation Initiative aims to establish an 11-million-acre intertribal managed wildlife conservation area through existing or newly legislated designations. Intertribal management will be supported through a Project Finance for Permanence approach designed to secure the policies, develop capacity and institutional arrangements, and provide funding for effective and long-lasting protection.
The Mogollon Rim is a vast area of mountains, rivers, and forests sweeping west and north from the Gila Wilderness in southwest New Mexico to Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona. The Rim exemplifies the Southwest landscape's rich diversity of life while providing core habitats for the recovery of the Mexican wolf and jaguar.
Mogollon is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico, Arizona, Northern Sonora, Chihuahua, and Western Texas. These peoples, ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi, and Tarahumara tribes, flourished from c. 200 CE to when the Spanish arrived in 1450. The Mogollon was and remains essential for ceremonial, gathering, and hunting purposes for the Apache, Zuni, and Hopi.
As a long-proposed initiative by the Rewilding Institute, the ecological values of the Rim are well documented. Efforts are now required to develop partners and secure tribal participation and direction to complete an inclusive vision for the initiative’s proposal and work plan.
Botswana Community and Conservation Initiative
The Botswana Community and Conservation Initiative (BCCI) is committed to honoring the Traditional Authorities of Botswana and integrating their governance and knowledge with conservation science. Our vision is to facilitate regional conservation and rural community development by supporting sustainable land-use practices. Our initiative aims to assist communities in implementing practices that not only promote conservation but also create economic opportunities, preserve wildlife habitats and movements, and enhance climate change resilience.
The overarching goal of the BCCI is to enhance land use, climate resilience, and rural livelihoods while establishing a Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) with private sector partners. By fostering collaboration between Traditional Authorities, government entities, and businesses, we aim to elevate natural resource decision-making and ensure sustainable livelihoods rooted in wildlife-compatible economic activities.
Spanning from southern to northern Botswana, our scope covers over 30 million hectares. We focus on enhancing protection across 10 million hectares of existing parks and reserves while securing long-range seasonal wildlife migrations. In particular, we prioritize the 5.5-million-hectare Okavango/Chobe/Mababe/Nxai Pan/Makgadikgadi complex, ensuring contiguous protection. Through the BCCI, we aim to increase conservation security by over 12 million hectares within existing Wildlife Management Areas. Additionally, we implement climate-resilient land-use measures across more than 10 million hectares of communal areas. These measures not only promote agricultural productivity for community well-being but also conserve vital wildlife habitats and establish connecting networks essential for wildlife movements.
The Botswana Community and Conservation Initiative stands as a beacon of collaboration, working tirelessly to ensure a sustainable future for both the natural world and the communities that depend on it.
