Guanajuato, Gto. June 22, 2016.- As part of her Professional Social Service, Jaqueline Muñoz Plascencia, student from the degree in Environmental Engineering from the Division of Engineering (DI) from Campus Guanajuato, made the project "Environmental valuation of the Protected Natural Area (ANP) Basin La Esperanza," where she exposes the social, ecological, cultural and even economic importance of that place.

The student revealed that the project was the interest of the Institute of Ecology from the State of Guanajuato, because even her work is the first valuation from the entity, and it would be ideal to take to other ANPs and create proposals to improve the conservation of these natural assets that are so important in our state.

Muñoz Plascencia commented that the "environmental valuation" pretends to obtain a monetary measurement of the profit or loss of wellbeing because an improvement or damage to the environmental asset and works as a tool for decision making, for example, how much money it would be lost if the place were to be privatized of if all the flora and fauna would disappear from here. It is a way to measure the importance of a natural asset in our society, she said.

She trusted that in the future they could make similar projects in the rest of the 22 ANPs, being the first valuation there is in the state of Guanajuato, it is not possible to make comparisons with other areas to determine if the obtained value is low or high, "I hope I can make it in another area and at the same time, I hope that the university community is interested in the subject to broaden it and create proposals to improve the conservation of these natural assets that are so important for our state".

Origin of the project

She explained that the project emerged in the class of Environmental Economy, when her teacher asked to pick a subject where they could apply a methodology –from environmental economy or ecological economy—to a natural asset in the state, to present it as a final project.

Therefore, her team chose to make an environmental valuation using the method of trip cost to the ANP Basin La Esperanza, for its closeness to Guanajuato and the importance as a supplier of resources for this city, since it has several creeks that pour their water in La Esperanza dam, which supplies it, in addition of its vast vegetation and varied fauna.

To get a hold of numbers such as the amount of visitors and where they come from, they went to the Institute of Ecology of the state, dependence that was interested in her work and so she finished it as a Professional Social Service from February this year, with good results because it is a useful tool to know, quantitatively, the importance of the conservation of this place.

Finally, the young college student commented that projects like hers, are good to be aware that these areas are not only places of visual appreciation or that they only provide some benefit, but they have an economic value and keeping them costs, "but losing them costs even more."