Coke and Pepsi, gardening together in Mexico’s mountains to preserve urban water

The Nature Conservancy hopes to plant perhaps 100,000 native agave and pine trees in the forests around Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest metro area.

The semiarid Mexican city of Monterrey has two major challenges with water: either there is not enough or there’s far too much. Improving and fixing the area’s infrastructure could cost billions. But a USA environmental organization has a far cheaper solution, and it’s getting rival corporations — like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo — to come together to pay for it.

Monterrey is Mexico’s industrial hub. It’s also the country’s third-largest metro area, home to some 4 million people in the northern state of Nuevo León. To see the city’s twin problems — too much water or not enough — visit the Santa Catarina river, which runs right through the center of Monterrey. It’s a dry riverbed most of the year, a gully of dirt and grasses surrounded by businesses, factories, and hotels.

It’s hard to imagine what it looked like seven years ago when Hurricane Alex tore through the area. “In two days, we had [the] equivalent of one year’s rainfall in Monterrey,” says Colin Herron, director of fresh water programs in Mexico and Central […]

Full article: Coke and Pepsi, gardening together in Mexican mountains to preserve urban water