This exposure should give students an advantage not only to understand and respect other cultures but also to have in the future better job opportunities. The focus of the course is tropical forest ecology and sustainable management of tropical ecosystems, Mexican culture and history and social responsibility.
Tropical ecology is the basis for understanding sustainable management approaches.
Sustainable land-use systems aim to provide for the needs of the current population and to ensure that the needs for the future generations will also be met. Sustainable tropical forest management includes a large number of systems and practices that have been utilized for centuries by farmers from rural areas in many tropical countries. There will be opportunities to understand the impacts of tropical forest management at global level, and the influence of consuming patterns of develop countries on choosing managing strategies for tropical ecosystems. However, what identifies Mexico is its culture and the roots of that culture is the indigenous people who are a very large portion of Mexico's population. In this course students will have the opportunity to directly interact with local farmers.