Introduction
The Mexican Baja Peninsula has a complex geological history, characterized by tectonic activity and volcanic processes that have led to a topography that supports an array of habitats. This has led to a high degree of endemism among the peninsula’s 14 ecoregions all of which touch the interior peninsular mountain ranges, which reach just above 10,000 ft at their highest point (Due and Polis, Reference Due and Polis1986; Roberts, Reference Roberts1989; de Grenade, Nabhan and Cariño Olvera, Reference de Grenade, Nabhan and Cariño Olvera2015; Cazorla et al., Reference Cazorla, Garcillán, Cabello, Alcaraz-Segura, Reyes and Peñas2021; Villegas-Patraca et al., Reference Villegas-Patraca, Aguilar-López, Hernández-Hernández and Muñoz-Jiménez2022; de Pedro et al., Reference de Pedro, Ceccarelli, Sagot, López-Reyes, Mullins, Mérida-Rivas, Falcon-Brindis, Griswold, Ascher, Gardner, Ayala, Vides-Borrell and Vandame2024). The peninsular ranges extend longitudinally for nearly the entire peninsula, creating physical barriers that have, over time, nurtured a vast array of unique habitats with varied climates and connectivity. Together, these geologic and ecological attributes have driven speciation and ecological adaptation (Riddle, Hafner and Alexander, Reference Riddle, Hafner and Alexander2000; Grismer, Reference Grismer2002; Leaché, Crews and Hickerson, Reference Leaché, Crews and Hickerson2007). When considering the criteria to assess potential biodiversity hotspots, the state occupying the southern half of the peninsula, Baja California Sur, stands out as an obvious and strong candidate (Maxwell et al., Reference Maxwell, Cazalis, Dudley, Hoffmann, Rodrigues, Stolton, Visconti, Woodley, Kingston, Lewis, Maron, Strassburg, Wenger, Jonas, Venter and Watson2020).
The ranch communities nestled along the mountain arroyos (or ephemeral streams) of the peninsular ranges of Baja California Sur have organized into a largely self-sufficient system since the Jesuit missionaries initially introduced ranching in the seventeenth century (Massey, Reference Massey1949). Historically, each ranch system has been connected to an oasis pueblo (or village) for commerce, but rapid environmental changes and weather patterns have put into question their viability (Crosby, Reference Crosby2015; de Grenade, Nabhan and Cariño Olvera, Reference de Grenade, Nabhan and Cariño Olvera2015; Macfarlan et al., Reference Macfarlan, Schacht, McCool, Davis, Yerman, Landeros and Amador2023). In recent generations, unpredictable weather patterns have made life in the ranches nearly impossible for a portion of the year. This is further compounded by increasing maximum temperature days each year sustained for longer periods during the year (Martínez-Austria and Jano-Pérez, Reference Martínez-Austria and Jano-Pérez2021). These changes have reduced the rancher’s ability to produce and deliver products for sale to the pueblos (villages) or for their own sustenance. These difficulties not only put the ranch system at risk of collapse but also put the remote villages they are connected to at risk of completely losing an important local fresh food source for meat, dairy, fruit, and vegetables, and becoming more reliant on external aid. This illuminates the advantages of integrating ecological and socio-economic factors into biodiversity science, not only for the welfare of the ecosystem but also for the well-being of the people living in it.
This sentiment is important to Mexico’s sovereign goals and has been for some time. These goals are outlined in Mexico’s Programa Producción para el Bienestar (Secretaría de Agricultura, 2025), the 2025 Operating Rules issued by the Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, and the 2003 PROGAN (Programa de Producción Pecuaria Sustentable y Ordenamiento Ganadero y Apícola), both of which prioritize strengthening the vitality of small- and medium-scale producers, especially those engaged in rainfed and marginal agricultural systems. These national programs promote agroecological practices, direct financial support, provide technical assistance, and focus on inclusive rural development (Secretaría de Agricultura, 2025). An emphasis on gender equity, Indigenous participation, and territorial targeting strategies is a key theme directly related to this study and aligns with Programa Producción para el Bienestar (Secretaría de Agricultura, 2025). These policy priorities mirror the environmental and socio-economic challenges faced by family run ranches in Baja California Sur, particularly in contexts of prolonged drought, extreme weather events, and economic transition. Furthermore, this study’s proposal to integrate off-grid environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling and metabarcoding aligns with the program’s goals by offering low-cost, community-accessible tools for monitoring biodiversity and land use change. Though preliminary, the proposed participatory approach provides a scalable, data-informed complement to national sustainability programs in rural Mexico.
In the highly controlled ranch systems of the United States, links have been found between biodiversity and human welfare (Ghimire and Pimbert, Reference Ghimire and Pimbert2013; Kremen, Reference Kremen2020). The same benefits (if not more) should be seen in the naturally rough-hewn ranches that exist in the interior of the Baja Peninsula. Because these ranchers live so closely with nature, they can offer intimate and fine scale knowledge of the environment and its changes. To advance our understanding of the extent of biodiversity, science must first address the widespread lack of detailed biodiversity monitoring for most species (Larsen, Engist and Noack, Reference Larsen, Engist and Noack2024). It can be difficult to measure changes using traditional biodiversity studies that typically involve concentrated efforts by experts from abroad (Bayraktarov et al., Reference Bayraktarov, Ehmke, O’Connor, Burns, Nguyen, McRae, Possingham and Lindenmayer2019). Subtle and important details of the local environment, often missed in short-term or remote studies, might be more apparent to the ranchers who live in the ecosystem year-round. Linking biodiversity studies with local expertise and human well-being offers a valuable opportunity to overcome many of the challenges previously encountered in traditional top-down studies, for instance, nuances in long-term ecological patterns, human-nature feedbacks, and culturally significant species (Levis et al., Reference Levis, Flores, Campos-Silva, Peroni, Staal, Padgurschi, Dorshow, Moraes, Schmidt, Kuikuro, Kuikuro, Wauja, Kuikuro, Kuikuro, Fausto, Franchetto, Watling, Lima, Heckenberger and Clement2024). This effectively underestimates the utility of local knowledge gained over generations and may obscure the true biodiversity of an area. Biodiversity loss has cascading impacts that extend beyond ecological systems, affecting human communities and their resilience to environmental changes (Bal et al., Reference Bal, Chandran, Subba and Timmanna2025). This is particularly significant in regions like Baja California Sur, where local livelihoods in the ranches are deeply intertwined with rapidly changing ecosystems.
The relationship between biodiversity conservation and human well-being highlights both the potential of current conservation efforts and the challenges. One challenge that integrating science and socio-economics could address is that of diminishing returns in improvement in quality of life for participants during and after active natural history and conservation studies (Ghimire and Pimbert, Reference Ghimire and Pimbert2013). Exacerbating the issue, younger generations in remote communities around the world have no choice but to permanently move to populated areas with more hospitable environments and stable income opportunities (Richards and Bradshaw, Reference Richards and Bradshaw2017). Alternative avenues for income, like ecotourism, have been debated as a solution for poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection with mixed results (Hutton et al., Reference Hutton, Adams and Murombedzi2005). Worldwide, small-scale livestock ranches like these in Baja California Sur are especially vulnerable to environmental variability and economic insecurity compounded by climate change (Ezenwa et al., Reference Ezenwa, Civitello, Barton, Becker, Brenn-White, Classen, Deem, Johnson, Kutz, Malishev, Penczykowski, Preston, Vannatta and Koltz2020). In these types of environments, risk mitigation strategies have proven to be effective in addressing these challenges, among others (Faisal et al., Reference Faisal, Abbas, Xia, Haseeb Raza, Akhtar, Arslan Ajmal, Mushtaq and Cai2021), and are seen as particularly important for rural, impoverished communities living in arid ecosystems of Baja California Sur (Macfarlan et al., Reference Macfarlan, Schacht, McCool, Davis, Yerman, Landeros and Amador2023). In a rapidly changing environment with very few workable solutions, a community-driven biodiversity survey will add essential knowledge to support both the environment and community well-being, with the potential to lessen the negative impact from extreme environmental fluctuations. Our study aims to explore the connections between ecological resilience and scientific equity, placing a specific emphasis on the value of community engagement in biodiversity research. Building on the sentiment of Guevara (Reference Guevara2019), concept of Claw et al. (Reference Claw, Anderson, Begay, Tsosie, Fox, Garrison, Bader, Bardill, Bolnick, Brooks, Cordova, Malhi, Nakatsuka, Neller, Raff, Singson, TallBear, Vargas and Yracheta2018), and the process outlined by Carlson et al. (Reference Carlson, Granados, Phelan, Ramakrishnan and Poisot2024), scientific equity is defined here as the fair inclusion, shared authority, and just distribution of benefits in scientific research, ensuring that marginalized communities participate meaningfully and retain rights to knowledge, data, and outcomes in scientific research.
Considering scientific equity, a review of historical participation in biodiversity research reveals that while the contribution of local communities has increased, past methods may have unintentionally overlooked the nuances in equity, local knowledge systems, and some unforeseen socio-cultural impacts (Sterling et al., Reference Sterling, Pascua, Sigouin, Gazit, Mandle, Betley, Aini, Albert, Caillon, Caselle, Cheng, Claudet, Dacks, Darling, Filardi, Jupiter, Mawyer, Mejia, Morishige and McCarter2020; Suich and Dawson, Reference Suich and Dawson2023). Projects focusing on sustainable resource management have often employed community-based approaches (Kremen and Merenlender, Reference Kremen and Merenlender2018). For instance, cultural burning studies and Indigenous-led fire governance have successfully integrated local Indigenous priorities (Rodríguez et al., Reference Rodríguez, Inturias, Masay and Peña2023; Greenler et al., Reference Greenler, Lake, Tripp, McCovey, Tripp, Hillman, Dunn, Prichard, Hessburg, Harling and Bailey2024). Biodiversity science projects, on the other hand, have largely maintained a more top-down framework due to the extractive mining nature of the data collected from natural history museum specimens (Sterling et al., Reference Sterling, Pascua, Sigouin, Gazit, Mandle, Betley, Aini, Albert, Caillon, Caselle, Cheng, Claudet, Dacks, Darling, Filardi, Jupiter, Mawyer, Mejia, Morishige and McCarter2020).
The primary aim of this study is to critically explore themes, focusing on the intersections of assessing biodiversity in a scientific equity framework while assessing the broader implications of conducting an interdisciplinary, community-driven biodiversity study within a small and remote ranching system. Using Braun and Clarke’s (Reference Braun and Clarke2021) framework with open-ended conversations, thematic analysis provides a way to explore the complex relationships between human communities and the biodiversity they are immersed in. Thematic analysis can help capture the extensive knowledge and shared experiences of communities in biodiverse regions like Baja California Sur, enabling a deeper understanding of how environmental changes are affecting ranch life and the surrounding biodiversity.
Study design
The study area is situated in an elevational transition zone between two major ecological zones in the Baja Peninsula: the Vizcaíno Desert and the Magdalena Plain (Fig. 1). The coastal region sits in a rare coastal fog desert that is one of only four of its kind existing in the world today. The local environment experiences extreme temperature shifts but has historically been relatively cool and arid compared to the rest of the Baja Peninsula. Daily moisture in the area is received primarily from the natural progression of the fog desert (Grismer, Reference Grismer2002), with the step-hills typically receiving seasonal rain with abundance tied to both the 4-year El Niño-Southern Oscillation and 10-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Reyes-Coca and Troncoso-Gaytán, Reference Reyes-Coca and Troncoso-Gaytán2004).
Figure 1. Map of the study area situated between the Vizcaíno Desert and Magdalena Plain in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The study site of San Juanico lies at an ecotone between the two major ecoregions. The Magdalena Plain is characterized by coastal plains dominated by a desert scrub ecosystem, whereas the Vizcaíno Desert, on average, shows higher elevation dominated by xerophytic vegetation.
Two of the oldest ranch systems known in Baja California Sur (Crosby, Reference Crosby2015) were visited for this study (Fig. 2). The La Ballena ranches are primarily connected to the oasis pueblo of Mulegé on the Gulf of California. Mulegé is a large pueblo (pop. ~4,000) along the peninsular Federal Highway 1, which is currently the only shipping route for trucks; thus, the pueblo has a lot of commerce. The ranches exist along the trans-peninsular El Camino Real de Mulegé passage, which currently exists as a challenging and rugged path passable most of the year only by 4 × 4 and high clearance vehicles or horseback. The camino (road) was established during seventeenth-century Spanish colonization and historically connected the Gulf of California with the Pacific Ocean, with San Juanico being the closest oasis pueblo on the Pacific Ocean (Crosby, Reference Crosby1994). In contrast, the slightly more southern Cadejé ranches are only connected to the oasis pueblo of San Juanico on the Pacific Ocean, and terminate mid-peninsula (Fig. 2). San Juanico is a small isolated community (pop. ~800), 100 miles from the peninsular Federal Highway 1. The town’s primary industry is artisanal fishing through a cooperatively managed fishing territory for which they have exclusive rights under the Mexican ejido land tenancy system (Morett-Sánchez and Cosío-Ruiz, Reference Morett-Sánchez and Cosío-Ruiz2017). This community is also located at a popular beach destination and at the gateway for the dirt roads and tracks into the Vizcaíno Biosphere reserve, the largest continuous area of protected land in Latin America, and thus receives some ecotourism. The associated Cadejé ranch system is nestled in the Cerros Chilpitines foothills that course south to the Sierra de la Giganta (3,858 ft) peninsular mountain range of Baja California Sur, Mexico, within 50 miles of San Juanico.
Figure 2. Locations of 12 ranches along the seasonal northern La Ballena and southern Cadejé arroyos in the Comondú municipality between the pueblos of Mulege and San Jaunico, Baja Sur. The arroyos terminate at the Pacific Ocean to the northwest of the San Juanico Bay.
Logistical difficulties in obtaining basic resources, such as water, food, gas, and transportation, have been barriers to long-term studies in the remote ecosystem just beyond the edge of San Juanico. San Juanico is located in a bay just south of the terminus of the ranch arroyos, at the end of the only paved road and 75 miles from the nearest state sanctioned petrol station. As a result, the immediate area surrounding the town remains one of the least researched areas of the Baja Peninsula and possibly the world. The aim of this work is to design a biodiversity assessment while addressing the challenges ranchers are encountering in the face of rapid climate change. In 2022, the principal investigator (PI) of this study completed the construction of a remote field station near San Juanico fitted with an off-grid DNA extraction lab with the capability of storing long-term frozen, stabilized DNA extractions to facilitate this and other biodiversity studies in the surrounding area. Despite logistical difficulties, such as resource scarcity and the region’s remoteness, the establishment of the lab offers a crucial base for long-term ecological research and serves as a hub for the disbursement of findings between locals and science. Together with the ranchers’ knowledge, access to technology will provide the ability for critical insights into both biodiversity studies and ranch planning in this remote and rugged environment.
The study area is located in the rugged interior ranches of Baja California Sur, Mexico, on the Pacific-facing slope of the southern peninsular ranges (Fig. 2), and the cohort consisted of 12 ranches. In the late seventeenth century, the Spanish missionary expansion introduced European ranching and farming practices to Baja (Cazorla et al., Reference Cazorla, Garcillán, Cabello, Alcaraz-Segura, Reyes and Peñas2021). This marked the beginning of the first permanent settlements on the landscape (Crosby, Reference Crosby1994, Reference Crosby2015; Fujita and Ainis, Reference Fujita and Ainis2018). During data collection, the ranches were visited in a west to east orientation following rugged desert terrain along the course of the seasonal Cadejé and La Ballena arroyos in the municipality of Comondú. The ranches are remote, anywhere from 2–6 hours’ travel time (or more) into the foothills, with a total elevation gain of approximately 4,000 feet. Access to these ranches is often affected by the ever-changing conditions of the numerous dry gullies and arroyos, which contribute to the elevation gain.
The participants primarily live an agrarian lifestyle with strong commerce ties to the closest pueblos. Ranches consisted of anywhere from one or two people (typically matriarchal and/or patriarchal figures) up to a dozen or so extended family members and friends living in small habitations, typically with a central, often open-air, kitchen with a palm thatch or tin roof (Fig. 3). The ranches were typically mixed agriculture and livestock, and included fruit trees, vegetable gardens, fowl, goats, and cows, each varying in extent and level of development. Livestock are mainly free to roam the open range for food and water, but many ranchers reported losing animals to mountain lions, especially in dry seasons. Dairy products, eggs, and dulces (sweets) were specialty products from the ranches, with each ranch having a seemingly favored specialization. At least one ranch talked of ecotourism, with infrequent cross country mountain bikers staying overnight while using the El Camino Real de Mulegé to traverse the peninsula during the cooler winter months. These ranches are some of the least served communities in Baja Sur, lacking essential infrastructure, such as paved roads, access to the electric grid, piped water, sanitation, and medical facilities, which leaves them heavily dependent on and vulnerable to ecological conditions for daily life, as also observed by Macfarlan et al. (Reference Macfarlan, Schacht, McCool, Davis, Yerman, Landeros and Amador2023).
Figure 3. A typical kitchen setting at the ranches in Baja California Sur (top) and a setting for the ranch conversations in Baja California Sur (bottom).
Data collection
The ranches were each visited along two arroyos on the western-facing slopes of the foothills and mesas between San Juanico and Mulegé during two separate full-day trips (Fig. 2). Conversations at the ranches were conducted with the aid of a locally hired guide to navigate the backcountry terrain between each ranch. The interviews were conducted with three interviewers, including the PI (co-author E.O.S.), an undergraduate student from the University of California at Riverside (co-author D.C.V.), and a local high school student from San Juanico recommended by the principal of the school (co-author V.B.S.). Both students are fluent native Spanish speakers, making them essential for conducting smooth and effective interviews at the ranches. The interviews were recorded on a digital voice recorder, with the verbal permission of the participants recorded at the outset.
Interviews were used to gather data from participants in a conversational manner, with the ability to freely and openly share ideas and experiences about the intersections between ranch life and the natural environment where they live. Each interview consisted of open-ended conversation style questions and lasted approximately 35 minutes. The interviews always took place in the common ranch space around a table or seated in a circle with coffee and some homemade refreshments (Fig. 3). The recordings were later transcribed locally on a secure laptop from audio to anonymized transcript word files with the artificial intelligence program EasyWHisper (OpenAI, 2023b; https://easywhisper.io/). This is an automatic speech recognition system trained to identify speakers by voice and anonymize the speakers in the transcript it produces. The anonymized transcriptions were then checked against the recordings and edited when needed by the local high school student for accuracy. The transcripts were then translated from Spanish to English using ChatGPT 4.0 (OpenAI, 2023a; https://openai.com/index/gpt-4/), and the translation was checked for accuracy against the original Spanish transcript by the university student. All the transcript files were then imported into NVivo One (2023) for analysis.
While our interviews included diverse roles within ranch households, the sample size and need to maintain anonymity limited our ability to explicitly and reliably analyze patterns across gender or racial identity. However, we acknowledge the importance of these intersecting perspectives, particularly the unique ecological knowledge held by women and Indigenous people. In the future, purposive or stratified sampling of the locally driven research design could examine the effect of identity to further contextualize biodiversity and climate adaptation strategies in rural Baja California Sur.
Data analysis
This study used an exploratory (or reflexive) qualitative approach adapted from Braun and Clarke’s (Reference Braun and Clarke2021) framework for thematic analysis. The approach differed from the traditional inductive analysis primarily in the use of theory-led collecting and coding. This allowed themes to emerge organically from open-ended long form conversations while still allowing for theoretical influences when appropriate. In NVivo, the transcripts were auto-coded to each speaker anonymously using the ranch-code_speaker_number naming scheme. This allowed the speakers from each ranch to be isolated as an anonymous subcase without being identified explicitly. Each line of text could therefore be associated with a speaker and a ranch anonymously. After becoming familiarized with the transcripts, single words were coded within the deductive general theme of ‘Ranch Environment and Economics’ in a hybrid inductive/deductive approach (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, Reference Fereday and Muir-Cochrane2006). From the initial word list, larger code phrases were developed and analyzed by two independent reviewers. The reviewers compared the previous coding schemes and analyzed the codes to ensure inter-rater reliability. Disagreements were discussed and resolved. Each transcript was then coded one final time. After coding, the interviewer and other non-informational participants were manually removed from each of the ranch cases. This allowed for a more accurate representation of each speaker’s relative participation within each code per-ranch case. All the codes were organized into a code book (Supplementary Table 1). From the theme and codes, a final mind map was produced to find the most logical path to a research program (Fig. 4).
Figure 4. Thematic mind map after coding for Baja ranches. This mind map presents the central theme of environmental adaptation and resilience in ranches of Baja California Sur, Mexico. It breaks down into the key codes, including effects of climate change, ranching practices, plant significance, and technology impacts. Subcodes explore the effects of drought, inflation, water usage, and the impact of hurricanes on ranch life. The black circle highlights the logical path toward community participation that, in the context of this study, would provide valuable data for both biodiversity and ranch planning.
Ethical considerations
Responsible Conduct of Research approval was provided by the Human Research Ethics Committee at the Open University, UK (HREC/4767/Stiner). Participants were provided with a Spanish-language printout of the project description, including information outlining the project goals, what the participants’ information would be used for, and how their data would be stored and handled. The potential risk to participants was identified as minimal, and all individually distinguishing participant data were anonymized in the data collection process. Participants were advised that they could withdraw from the study at any stage prior to the termination of data analysis.
It should be noted that initially written consent was offered to the participants, but illiteracy became a serious concern very early on in the study. To be sensitive to participants’ privacy, a recorded verbal approval and consent to record their voice was then used as a best option for each ranch included in the study.
Results
Thematic analysis of the data resulted in one main theme: ‘Environmental Adaptation and Resilience Amidst Climatological and Economic Challenges of the interior ranches of Baja Sur’ with several subthemes and codes that could be traced through the transcripts. The codes with the highest reference values were ‘Drought and the effects for the ranchers’ (52 total references) and ‘The effect of Hurricanes on ranches’ (42 total references), which are both climatological impacts that contribute directly to the main theme mentioned above (Supplementary Table 2). It should also be noted that word frequency from edited transcripts supported the main theme, with the top words ‘years’, ‘rain’, and ‘water’ appearing most frequently in the conversation (Table 1). This is aligned with the effects of hurricanes, through to the negative effects of ambient temperature. Comparing codes with respect to the number of coding references revealed a strong correlation between the major theme and subthemes. The code ‘Effects of Climate Change on Ranch Life’ received the bulk of the code references (n = 243), and the code ‘The effect of Hurricanes on ranches’ received the second highest number of references (n = 88) (Supplementary Table 2). Both of these subthemes follow the recommended path to a research program, as depicted in the mind map (Fig. 4).
Table 1. The most frequently occurring words, their counts, and weighted percentages derived from the complete transcript dataset. The weighted percentage calculation considers the total word count across all transcripts, ensuring that the percentage reflects the word’s relative importance in the full context of all transcripts
Discussion
Mexico and its people are known for their rich cultural heritage and strong sense of community. The ranches of Baja California Sur are no different. In conversation, it became clear that a common concern among the ranchers is the loss of younger generations to more predictable and lucrative careers in bigger towns, leaving a significant gap in the community as fewer young people are able to carry on the ranching traditions. However, the conversations always turned to the more immediate and significant environmental challenges associated with seasonal changes and diminishing resources. These challenge the resilience and adaptability of ranchers in the face of rapidly changing environmental and economic conditions. The spirit of the themem ‘Environmental Adaptation and Resilience Amidst Climatological and Economic Challenges of the Interior Ranches of Baja Sur’n appears persistently in the conversations with ranchers, and perhaps within these extended conversations among ranchers lies a key to the survival of agrarian desert ranch life. This seems especially urgent as younger generations emigrate to areas with more hospitable environments and income potential, as ranch life becomes rapidly untenable.
In the interior ranches that we interviewed, every rancher spoke of enduring hurricanes and coping with the worsening conditions and the unpredictability of the cyclical nature of the seasons. They spoke of the ways in which these natural forces profoundly impact their lives, including cattle loss to predation, impassable roads, and severe droughts. Ranches that are not resilient and continuously adapting do not survive. This sentiment is mirrored by the NCEI (2025) data for the Baja peninsula. Fifty-four years of NCEI (2025) data show warming of about 0.8 °F per decade from 1970 to 2010 that has since leveled off, along with a 45% rise in annual rainfall driven almost exclusively by a few very wet El Niño years. Within the study area surrounding San Juanico, eight NCEI (2025) stations recorded a 0.3 °F increase in yearly extreme-maximum temperature between 2002 and 2011. Together, the peninsula trend and local station record observations support ranchers’ reports of occasional severe heat and rainfall within a broader climate that has warmed and become more variable over the past half-century.
We saw many recently abandoned ranches along the arroyo trails that were, at one time, active members of the ranch network. This loss of community becomes more troublesome, given the frequency with which ranchers spoke of the increasing severity of weather, rising costs of fuel and other supplies, and the isolation that these dispersed ranches of the Baja interior must endure during lean times. Some participants mentioned sporadic government aid, which adds another layer of uncertainty and stress in what are already rapidly changing conditions. Government aid is only available to deed-holding land owners (Macfarlan et al., Reference Macfarlan, Schacht, McCool, Davis, Yerman, Landeros and Amador2023), and it was not clear how many of the ranches fell into this category. Overall, the conversations with ranchers steered toward increasingly unpredictable weather and rainfall patterns that make it difficult for them to predict future conditions and strategically plan ranching operations to minimize their impact. This led to a pervasive sense of uncertainty and the grim expectation that conditions will generally continue to deteriorate.
The ranchers have an intimate and long-range perspective of the ecosystem and nuanced observations about the environment gathered over years and decades. Their life on the ranch keeps them attuned to subtle environmental shifts that may go unnoticed by researchers working in the area with limited time and capacity. In remote study areas, collaboration between ranchers and scientists not only strengthens the quality of the data collected but also ensures that the research process remains locally relevant, bidirectional, and involves joint problem-solving methods that are actionable by the people living locally. The goal of this research is to foster trust and meaningful engagement between scientists and local communities, empowering ranchers to have current information and agency in the preservation of the ranch system and adaptation efforts.
This work aligns with socio-ecological systems (SES) theory, which highlights the interaction between ecological processes and human decision-making, especially in regions where long-term familiarity with the landscape and resource scarcity shape adaptive capacity (Rubiños and Anderies, Reference Rubiños and Anderies2020). In the context of this study, SES theory draws on situational knowledge, seasonal patterns, and labor practices that reflect deep entanglements with the land. Moreover, the findings from this study underscore the need for interdisciplinary and holistic approaches to understand climate adaptation by human and non-human populations in hyper-biodiverse regions like Baja California Sur. The intertwined nature of biodiversity with ranch life means that neither can be addressed in isolation. By collaborating with local communities, it is possible to co-create strategies that enhance both ecosystem resilience and the sustainability of ranching practices. Efforts like these are a starting point for not only preserving biodiversity but also for supporting the long-term viability of rural livelihoods in the face of accelerated global climate change (Supplementary Fig. 1). In arid and semi-arid environments of the Global South, such as those found in Mexico, Africa, and India, resilience is not only about recovery from environmental disruption but also about the capacity to adapt, reorganize, and sustain livelihoods under persistent uncertainty (Cinner et al., Reference Cinner, Adger, Allison, Barnes, Brown, Cohen, Gelcich, Hicks, Hughes, Lau, Marshall and Morrison2018; Woroniecki et al., Reference Woroniecki, Spiegelenberg, Chausson, Turner, Key, Md. Irfanullah and Seddon2022). Incorporating these perspectives helps illuminate how the nature of climate change, resource access, and biodiversity loss intersect with identity, place, and knowledge.
Translating community-based ecological insights into formal biodiversity science programs, planning, and policy is an evolving process. Participatory research has been shown to enhance farmer knowledge, foster more sustainable pest management strategies, and build collaborative models of science that reflect local priorities and practices in varied systems around the globe (Dlott et al., Reference Dlott, Altieri and Masumoto1994; Togbé et al., Reference Togbé, Haagsma, Aoudji and Vodouhê2014). More recent approaches have shown success in promoting local control of data and strengthening the meaningful participation of stakeholders in both the scientific process and decision-making (Dangles et al., Reference Dangles, Carpio, Villares, Yumisaca, Liger, Rebaudo and Silvain2010; Cuff et al., Reference Cuff, Barrett, Gray, Fox, Watt and Aimé2024). The potential to further develop this process is particularly evident in Baja California Sur, given the strong ties between biodiversity and the rancher’s environmental concerns. Advancing these participatory models in Baja California Sur offers a timely opportunity to align ecological monitoring with local ranch practices and knowledge systems, creating more responsive, inclusive, and resilient biodiversity science frameworks.
Ultimately, this study highlights the urgent need to prioritize locally driven conservation initiatives that account for both the ecological and socio-economic complexities of the region. The insights gained from this analysis can serve as a model for other studies that could benefit from integrating local knowledge into similar scenarios. By linking biodiversity research with practical, community-led solutions, we can understand the environment in a way that benefits science, local people, and the ecosystems they depend on. These collaborative strategies will be key to addressing the global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and rural sustainability in the coming decades.
The interviews revealed that ranchers are observing increasingly severe and unpredictable weather patterns, including prolonged drought, shifting precipitation timing, and more frequent hurricanes. These observations not only reflect local perceptions but also align with broader climate data trends for Baja California Sur (Martínez-Austria and Jano-Pérez, Reference Martínez-Austria and Jano-Pérez2021). Translating these findings into action means integrating rancher knowledge into climate adaptation tools. Future biodiversity studies in the region should focus on integrating models and advanced ecological monitoring techniques along with the traditional knowledge held by ranchers. For example, DNA meta-barcoding techniques offer a promising method for tracking biodiversity changes, particularly in invertebrate communities, which are key indicators of ecosystem health (Curd et al., Reference Curd, Gold, Kandlikar, Gomer, Ogden, O’Connell, Pipes, Schweizer, Rabichow, Lin, Shi, Barber, Kraft, Wayne and Meyer2019; Kirse et al., Reference Kirse, Bourlat, Langen and Fonseca2021). Applied across various ranching sites, these techniques can provide a comprehensive picture of how species composition and abundance are shifting in response to climate stressors within this ranch system. These preliminary data can then be used against less invasive methods of monitoring and modeling over larger areas. These data can, in turn, give ranchers predictive power in managing their land and livestock.
Metabarcoding and eDNA methods offer an opportunity to formalize ranchers’ observations into scientific datasets, but doing so requires trust, training, and infrastructure. As a next step, additional localized DNA sampling stations and low-cost analysis kits could be introduced as part of a broader participatory monitoring program. These should be actively co-designed with ranchers to ensure cultural relevance, accessibility, and scientific validity. The findings also suggest that many ranchers already adapt through flexible land use, water conservation, and intergenerational knowledge transfer. However, this knowledge remains disconnected from formal policy mechanisms. Programs like Programa Producción para el Bienestar (Secretaría de Agricultura, 2025) could benefit from more structured feedback loops with these extremely remote ranching communities. One action-oriented recommendation is to create partnerships between policy implementers and local monitoring networks that produce scientific results with ecological knowledge held by ranchers. This would ensure that public investment in rural sustainability is responsive, equitable, and grounded in the lived experience of those most affected by ecological change.
Conclusion
This study sheds light on the utility of thematic analysis in understanding and addressing the environmental challenges faced by the ranching communities in the interior of Baja California Sur. Rising temperatures and more intense and increasingly unpredictable storm seasons make life increasingly more difficult for ranchers. The intertwined relationship of ranch life with nature and biodiversity creates a feedback loop where environmental degradation amplifies the stress and ability of the ranch system to withstand extreme seasonal shifts. The combination of scientific and local ranch knowledge offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into the challenges and changes in the ecosystem. Integrating traditional knowledge with applicable scientific research allows us to more completely address the pressing challenges faced by biodiversity and ranchers. A central finding of this study is the persistent and unpredictable nature of the environment as seen by ranchers.
These interviews underscore the ranchers’ perceptions of, and major concerns about, environmental changes and their impacts, including climate change, drought, hurricanes, seasonal fluctuations, and ambient temperatures, all of which significantly affect ranching operations. The ranchers grapple with a myriad of concerns, chiefly the economic viability of their livelihood, the environmental sustainability of the ranches, and the preservation of their rural heritage. The unpredictability of water sources during droughts presents an ever-growing worry and struggle to provide adequate hydration and nutrition for livestock, compounding environmental effects like soil erosion and native vegetation die-off. Hurricanes disrupt every aspect of ranch operations, causing immediate damage to infrastructure and long-term impacts on land productivity. Seasonal changes, particularly fluctuations in rainfall and temperature, significantly impact forage quality and quantity, requiring ranchers to manage much larger areas for their free-ranging livestock. Extreme heat and the decline in forage quality poses significant collateral challenges, including increased predation on livestock, and the health risks to both livestock and ranchers themselves.
One element highlighted through this thematic analysis is the shift in the severity and predictability of seasons and the timing of hurricanes perceived by ranchers in Baja California Sur. To compound matters, the unpredictable nature of the issue is significantly impacting ranchers’ ability to plan, prepare, and mitigate risks. Traditional strategies for anticipating and preparing for the effects of large storms are disrupted by rapidly changing climate patterns, making seasonal and annual progress difficult. Agrarian development in this region is complicated by the semipermanent riparian zone environment in which the ranches are situated. Two major and daily concerns expressed are the unpredictability of water and reliable access to pueblos due to drought and storms. The abundance and scarcity of resources ultimately dictate ranch life and agricultural practices of the ranchers. As such, understanding their views on nature provides critical insights into sustainable living in rapidly changing conditions.
To buffer the impact of economic hardship, ranchers employ strategies to combat inflation and sustain their livelihoods through alternative income sources and technological advancements. Inflation creates further financial uncertainty by increasing operational expenses and squeezing profit margins for the ranchers, adding another layer of difficulty in planning for the future. Diversifying income streams has become more necessary to keep up with the cost of living, with agrotourism, farm stays, and specialty products like artisanal cheeses and leather goods as alternative income sources, but, at present, this has not entirely worked in alleviating the issue.
Gender and education can influence how people perceive and respond to climate change. In the global south, age, livelihood, and land access influence perceptions of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, with an overall greater effect on women (Djoudi et al., Reference Djoudi, Locatelli, Vaast, Asher, Brockhaus and Basnett Sijapati2016; Bush and Clayton, Reference Bush and Clayton2022). These insights highlight the value of including gender and education more explicitly in future work on climate adaptation in Baja California Sur.
Given that the thematic analysis pointed strongly to rancher’s concerns about worsening drought conditions and unpredictable seasonal variability, a biodiversity study that provides information on the current and past climactic trends could provide useful information for future planning. Ultimately, the goal of such a study would be to collect and understand biodiversity data in a remote and understudied landscape in order to bolster the resilience and sustainability of the ranching communities in Baja California Sur and the ecosystem where they live.
Relating the concerns of the ranchers to the broader ecological context, understanding how ambient temperature changes affect biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, particularly invertebrate assemblages, is critical. The environmental challenges that came to light from the thematic analysis bring about an opportunity to collaboratively design a study that could benefit the local population by providing more predictive power and a finer understanding of the local environment. A study that employs environmental monitoring could be used both to determine the extent and variability of biodiversity in the area and to serve as an ecosystem indicator for seasonal and long-term planning by the ranches. In this context, monitoring arthropod community assemblages through metabarcoding and eDNA have been used as reliable indicators for fine scale analysis to determine ecosystem health (Curd et al., Reference Curd, Gold, Kandlikar, Gomer, Ogden, O’Connell, Pipes, Schweizer, Rabichow, Lin, Shi, Barber, Kraft, Wayne and Meyer2019; Kirse et al., Reference Kirse, Bourlat, Langen and Fonseca2021).
Rapid localized climate change can significantly disrupt invertebrate communities, particularly along elevational gradients like this ranch system (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Gutiérrez, Gutiérrez, Martínez, Agudo and Monserrat2005). This is because diversity in these environments tends to be composed of specialized species with narrow niches and limited migration abilities, making them less adaptable to sudden environmental changes (Harvey et al., Reference Harvey, Tougeron, Gols, Heinen, Abarca, Abram, Basset, Berg, Boggs, Brodeur, Cardoso, de Boer, De Snoo, Deacon, Dell, Desneux, Dillon, Duffy, Dyer and Chown2022). Rapid climate change and severe weather events dramatically alter these landscapes, forcing arthropod species to either adapt, migrate, or face population declines. A decline in the abundance of long-established populations due to rapid climate change can be a key indicator of stress and the weakening of essential ecological functions that the ranchers may be relying on (Bardgett and van der Putten, Reference Bardgett and van der Putten2014). By studying the biodiversity of the native arthropod assemblages of ranches along elevational gradients, both ranchers and researchers can observe how changing species diversity may be correlated with environmental conditions now and in the future. The information could aid in developing sustainable land management and ranching strategies that can adapt to future environmental changes, ultimately contributing to the sustainability of this agricultural ranching system in the face of rapid changes to the environment.
Research across the Global South has increasingly emphasized the need for participatory, place-based strategies that link ecological resilience to food sovereignty and cultural knowledge systems (Altieri and Nicholls, Reference Altieri and Nicholls2017; Taillandier, Cörvers and Stringer, Reference Taillandier, Cörvers and Stringer2023). At the same time, there remains a notable gap in integrating modern climate and biodiversity science with local knowledge systems in a way that is relevant and scalable (Mbah, Ajaps and Molthan-Hill, Reference Mbah, Ajaps and Molthan-Hill2021; Huambachano, Nemogá Soto and Mwampamba, Reference Huambachano, Nemogá Soto and Mwampamba2025). Baja California Sur and its people have unique potential to bolster our understanding of biological richness, historic land tenure systems, and the effects of exposure to climate extremes. The ranches of Baja Sur provide a critical case study for piloting such integrated approaches. While this study presents an initial, small-scale effort, it illustrates the potential for collaborative biodiversity science rooted in community knowledge and scientific equity. Future work should expand geographically, include more representative participants, and develop co-designed monitoring frameworks that bridge agroecology, genomics, and community governance in biodiverse landscapes globally.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at http://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170525100100.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following people and groups for their support and aid with this project: Olaf and Gerri Stiner, Katya Arce, Teresita Carmello, Dr. Sara Emery, Sara-Mai and Travis, Bernard Trinidad, members of the Schlinger Arachnology Lab at the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco), the Department of Entomology at the University of California (Riverside), and the residents of San Juanico and surrounding ranches.
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