ON BACALAR'S DEFENSE. COLLOQUIAL VERSION

and promoting ecologically sustainable and economically productive alternatives for local inhabitants, in addition to turning them into centers of scientific cooperation. Again, something like generating natural laboratories reserved for environmental science in situ. Human populations were not part of the equation, although concepts such as sustainable development or rational use were mentioned or they were seen as mere passive recipients of the wisdom generated by the academy so that they learned to produce and work in harmony with the environment, because the neoliberal academic encomenderos considered they needed to be saved from themselves.

When Halffter's curriculum is reviewed, it does not highlight the 97 pages of it, but the clear profile of scientist and academic of this Researcher emeritus of the National System of Researchers since 1995, and it is understood why the focus of the Biosphere Reserves in Mexico has been research. By the time he proposed and promoted the creation of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in 1986, he was Deputy Director of Scientific Development of CONACYT (1982-1986) and as President of the International Council of the MABUNESCO Programme (1984-1986), even becoming An Advisory Partner of Friends of Sian Ka'an and a member of the Advisory Board of CIQROO, it was quite simple for him, since by this point he enjoyed an ideal position, as a high-ranking bureaucrat, very well related, to promote on a national scale his "Mexican" model of biosphere reserves, forging alliances with governors, and supporting the strengthening of scientific institutions related to biosphere reserves. Very much in the hegemonic style of the school of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the government; let's not lose sight of the fact that the decade of the 70s and even the 90s in Mexico not only gave rise to the neoliberal boom but in context, the country was subject to the totalitarian hegemony of the dictatorship, disguised as hard democracy, of the PRI. The reserves were created by and for researchers, if there is any doubt about it, it is enough to cite a fragment of the presentation of the book "Protected natural areas and scientific research in Mexico" that makes clear the vision and position of academics, mainly from the natural sciences. It states that “…Just as the 1960s were truly prodigious because of the revolution it sparked in arts and culture, the 1970s were for Mexico a singular moment of explosive growth in science and technology, as well as the formation of some of the most outstanding cadres of modern Mexican ecology. At present, ecology and conservation science in Mexico are really cutting-edge areas worldwide...

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