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The area around Kino Bay is known as the
Midriff region of the Gulf of California. It is an area of extremes
- from the diverse coastal Sonoran desert to the blue Sea of Cortez
and its islands.
The
local deserts are unusually diverse, supporting a unique assemblage
of desert flora and fauna, many of which are of importance
to the local Mexican and Seri Indian communities. Seri use of local
plants has long been of interest to ethnobotanists and populations
of desert big horn, tortoises, migratory hummingbirds, and insects
have drawn attention of prominent American and Mexican researchers.
 The coastal environments
around Bahia Kino include sandy beaches, rocky headlands, and three
mangrove estuaries all of which support diverse avifauna and invertebrates.
The negative esteros at Santa Rosa and Punta Sargento support the
northern most mangrove communities in North America. These critical
habitats provide a wealth of nutrients to the marine environment,
host an impressive collection of migratory shore birds, and serve
as breeding grounds and nurseries for offshore commercial fisheries
species.
The Midriff Islands are
the largest islands in the Gulf of California. These islands are
home to a vast number of endemic species and provide an ideal laboratory
for the study of island biogeography. Many islands in these region
are breeding grounds for a variety of sea birds, including Isla
Rasa, which is the breeding ground for 300,000 Heermann's Gulls
(Larus heermanni) and 45,000 Elegant Terns (Sterna elegans), which
constitutes 95% of the world's population of both species.
The
marine environment in this region supports a unique and diverse
assemblage of fish, invertebrates, sea birds and marine mammals.
The islands contribute to the high biological diversity in this
region of the Gulf, not only by offering island refuges to many
terrestrial and avian species, but by creating upwellings that
bring
nutrient-rich waters to the surface for marine and marine-dependent
species. Over one quarter of the marine
mammals species in the
world occur in the Gulf of California.
 The
cultural landscape of the region is as diverse as the surrounding
ecosystems. Isla Tiburon, the largest island in the Gulf is the
homeland of the Comcaac people, the indigenous people who have
inhabited
this area for thousands of years. Also known as the Seri Indians,
they are famed for their baskets, ironwood carvings and knowledge
of the sea turtle. Kino Bay and its immediate surroundings currently
support communities of resident small scale Mexican fishers and
their families, transient industrial fishers, two Seri Indian
settlements, retired Americans, and tourists from larger cities
in the U.S.
and
Mexico. The area is rich in cultural tradition and has recently
been plagued by many of the social, political and economic tensions
existing in the border region.
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