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With 20 scientific publications to his name and more than 60 citations in other scientific reports, Dr. José Juan Flores Maldonado is well known and respected for guiding important land management decision-making throughout Mexico. When he speaks about the importance of preserving agaves, Dr. Maldonado addresses the well-being of crop farmers, cattle ranchers, and other land users. Agaves are absolutely vital to the overall landscape of Mexico, he says.

Dr. Maldonado meets with crop farmers, cattle ranchers, and other land users. His advocacy is direct: agaves are part of Mexico’s cattle ranching history, past and present. As drought conditions worsen, due to climate change, the extending root systems of agaves are going to be crucial to Mexico’s future, he says.

In Mexico, land use decisions must consider the wild agaves, how they dot the landscape and provide sustenance to many types of wildlife, including bats. And Mexican spirit producers should be incentivized in growing agaves and adopting sustainable harvesting methods.

Quite likely, Francesca Claverie is the most charismatic, talkative, and persuasive native seed grower — ever. In the nursery she manages for the Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN) along the Arizona-Mexico border, Francesca is raising hundreds of agaves from seed each year to later be planted by Bat Conservation International and partners to assure blooming corridors for migratory bats.

Ask Francesca to talk about agaves and she is mutually cheerleader, proud mom, and scientist. “Agaves are essential to the health of deserts” is part of her advocacy. “Raising agave seedlings is a lot like raising children” is the tender nurturing part of her. “Preserving the genetic diversity of agaves and their ecosystems” is one of her scientific challenges.

It all starts with collecting seeds. How and when the collection is done is critical, she says. “It’s important that seeds from native plants are collected during specific times of year to achieve optimum germination. Keeping track of where the seeds come from is also imperative to preserve genetic diversity.”

Agave plants become large and striking but start as tiny, dark quarter-inch seeds. During germination, the seeds don’t just sit passively in the ground but turn the pointed part of the seeds upward. Leafy shoots that Francesca says look eerily like little alien arms first push through the earth. The seed points then emerge looking like little black ball caps. Raising agave takes patience, she says. From seed to planting can take as long as three years.

In the BRN greenhouses, including an old trailer converted into a nursery, dozens of trays of sprouting seeds are wrapped with wire mesh or hang from the ceiling to protect them from rodents and other desert wildlife. Agaves are juicy with water content and everything — deer, rabbits, javelinas, and rodents — want to eat them, says Francesca.

Agave seed sprouts are very tender but also surprisingly hardy, Francesca says. “During one frost, our agave seedlings turned pink but surprisingly didn’t turn to goo like most succulents.” She says that BCI-donated heaters have been vital in speeding up the growing cycles of clonal agave, vegetative off-shoots that also propagate new plants.

“One way or another, with dedicated effort and patience, growing and planting agaves is our success story.”

Dr. Ana Ibarra, Bat Conservation International’s Strategic Advisor for Endangered Species in Mexico and Latin America, is on the road three of every four weeks, often traveling between a cave in Central Mexico that serves as the only known winter roost and mating location for dwindling numbers of Endangered Mexican long-nosed bats and maternity caves in Northern Mexico that shelter female long-nosed bats and their newborn pups. By her estimation she logs 20,000 miles each year to save this fragile bat species. She’s quick to add that everyone can engage, in some way, in bat conservation.

Reversing the staggering loss of long-nosed bats is Dr. Ibarra’s highest priority right now. Born and raised in Veracruz, Mexico, Ibarra travels the country monitoring the status of bats and meeting with communities, landowners, conservation groups, and … well, anyone who will listen. She’s convincing. She estimates that more than 100 people in Mexico are actively engaged in various ways in saving long-nosed bats from extinction.

Mexican long-nosed bats were considered in peril in 1988 and added to the U.S. list of Endangered Species. Then, several roosts previously occupied by a few thousand individuals had only a few bats or none at all. Today, Dr. Ibarra and other bat conservationists estimate that half of the 26 historically known roosts are empty. Short-term success, she says, will be to stabilize the numbers of long-nosed bats that currently exist. Long-term goals are to recover the roosts that are now empty.

Mexican long-nosed bats — curious-looking with short ears, elongated snouts, and long thin tongues that dart quickly into agave blooms — have a lot working against them, says Dr. Ibarra. They’re small, about the size of a human palm. They roost and mate in a single cave in the foothills of El Tepozteco near Mexico City, a scenic area that attracts thousands of tourists each weekend and has, in turn, accelerated residential and commercial development — threatening the cave structure and disturbing the wintering bats. On top of all that, female long-nosed bats migrate as many as 750 miles north each spring, nourished by flowering blooms, to give birth to a single pup. They return, flying hundreds of miles back to the roosting cave, following corridors of blooming plants.

Dr Ibarra is emphatic: “We must make certain that the migrating females can reproduce to sustain this species. One way to do that is to see that agaves and other flowering desert plants are accessible to migrating bats, and bountiful.”

Climate changes have altered flowering schedules and the impacts of human development have fragmented blooming corridors, says Dr Ibarra. Plus, the numbers of agaves across the desert are diminishing due, largely, to consumer demand for agave-based spirits like tequila, mezcal, and bacanora. Production of agave-derived alcohols becomes a problem when wild agaves are uncontrollably collected and stripped from the landscape, and when producers lose sight of the importance agaves have in maintaining healthy ecosystems, she says.

“We can all become bat conservationists by staying informed, getting involved with organizations that protect bats, and by using our power as consumers to only purchase sustainable products that support the conservation of bats and their habitats, says Dr. Ibarra.

Life is good in northwestern Mexico, says Osvaldo Coronado, where he and his family produce an agave distilled spirit called bacanora. As daylight fades, Chile verdes cook slowly on the grill, and family and friends gather around the large wooden table on the veranda. Beyond the animated dinner conversation Osvaldo’s 24-acre farm stretches toward the sunset — a desert landscape dotted with leafy creosote bushes and gangly mesquite trees, and hundreds of Angustifolia Haw agave, also known as Agave Pacifica.

Centuries before, on the land Osvaldo’s family eventually came to own, agaves were a significant part of everyday life and cultural ceremonies for the indigenous Opata in the Sonoran Desert region. Today, Osvaldo’s family and many of his neighbors depend on wild agaves and the agaves they plant for their livelihoods.

Osvaldo, his wife Ana, and four of their seven adult children produce 200 liters of bacanora each year under the label of Siete Coronados Bacanora. They also run a thriving tasting room and retail shop that, in addition to selling bacanora products, offers arts and crafts from regional artists alongside some of the Opata arrowheads they find on their property.

Growing agave takes years of patience. Producing bacanora is a time-consuming eight-step process that begins with harvesting the hearts of agaves and then roasting them in underground pits lined with river rock, heated by mesquite. After roasting, the agaves are mashed into a pulp, fermented, and then distilled – twice. Like wine, bacanora is noted for its tasting notes and often valued for its production in small lots. Osvaldo calls bacanora “the pride of Sonora.”

Since 2018, Osvaldo and his family have been working closely with a regional non-profit organization, Colectivo Sonora Silvestre, to hone sustainable planting, harvesting and production practices. A significant part of his family’s success is, he says “respecting where our good fortune comes from. Agaves and bats give us more than a drink, they give us our way of life.” He adds: “We’ve become more than farmers. We’ve become conservationists.”