Center for Sonoran Desert Studies

Cultural Conservation

To inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world, The Center for Sonoran Desert Studies conducts research on and provides educational programs about the cultural heritage of the Sonoran Desert region. Programs promote knowledge and appreciation of local foods for human health and production techniques that support a healthy environment.

Current projects include:

Seafood Watch Brochure

  • Sustainable Seafood

    The mission of the Desert Museum's Sustainable Seafood Program is to help consumers understand and recognize unsustainable and environmentally destructive seafood harvesting, and to encourage people to purchase sustainable seafoods in restaurants and markets, with a special focus on seafoods from the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez). The Desert Museum has partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Sonoran Sea Aquarium to research and produce a Gulf of California Seafood Watch Guide. Use this guide and help make a difference! Your wise choices will help create a healthier Sea of Cortez, and healthier oceans worldwide. Pocket-size Seafood Watch Guides are available at the Desert Museum's ticket window, and can be downloaded here. For more information about the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, or to view the research summaries upon which the Gulf of California Seafood Watch Guide is based, visit this web site.

  • Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project

    The Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project aims to research, locate, propagate and re-establish historically-accurate fruit cultivars to the mission orchard area. These trees represented a critical part of the fusion of cultures that took place on mission lands around the Greater Southwest. The primary goal is to reintroduce Spanish-era stock into the orchard and mission gardens at Tumacácori National Historical Park.

  • Biotic Knowledge of Rural Sonora/Baja California

    Interviewing rural residents in Sonora, Baja California, and Sinaloa about their knowledge of plants and animals is a long-standing tradition at the Museum as part of botanical inventories, migratory pollinator surveys, ethnobotanical studies, etc. Recording the common names and uses of plants and animals is fundamental to interpretation and cultural conservation in the Sonoran Desert Region.

  • Sonoran Plant Names Database

    A cross-referenced database of scientific, English, and Spanish names is essential for enabling visiting researchers, educators, and naturalists to communicate with the local people who have extensive knowledge of the flora.