The Salazar Center has chosen to focus on the Baja-Sonora region of Mexico and the U.S. for the 2026 Accelerator program. This landscape is defined primarily in accordance with the Baja California & Southern Deserts bioregion, as outlined by OneEarth. The Accelerator’s boundary strategically expands upon the bioregion to include the Tijuana River Basin and the marine area of the Sea of Cortez, to meet the boundary of the Rio Grande basin to the east on the U.S. side, and—in recognition of the efficacy of working within political boundaries in Mexico—to align with the state borders of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur. This target geography supports the Salazar Center’s desire to recruit a cohort of project teams with a shared ecology and common socio-cultural ground but from a large enough swath to bring together groups from two countries in a context where they might not otherwise interact.The Baja-Sonora region includes diverse terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems from Baja California to the Sonoran Desert and Sierra Madre forests, all connected by shared challenges like water scarcity, habitat loss, and development pressures. It represents an array of complex challenges, as well as opportunities, to enhance biodiversity, climate resilience, and community wellbeing, and the Accelerator program will help position selected project teams to deliver solutions that benefit people and nature across the landscape.
