MEXICO CITY – The Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development, or AECID, said it would provide more than $1 million to fund several environmental projects in Mexico, the Mexican government said.

Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat and the AECID “approved financing of 17.6 million pesos ($1.3 million) to execute nine projects,” the secretariat said in a statement.

“The resources will help bolster conservation strategies and biodiversity” in the Meso-American Biological Corridor and the Tacana Volcano Biosphere Reserve on the Mexico-Guatemala border, the secretariat said.

The goal is to “mitigate the effects of global warming, conserve biodiversity and fight poverty in southern Mexico,” the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat said.

The funds will be used to develop local plans for dealing with climate change in the western state of Michoacan, the central state of Tlaxcala and the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, as well as to construct the Cascada Brisas Las Nubes Agrotourism and Wildlife Management Center in the southern state of Chiapas.

The funds will also be used for the “institutional strengthening of the National Protected Natural Areas Commission (Conanp) in the area of climate change” and for the design of “a guiding plan to promote the denomination of origin of honey from (the eastern state of) Yucatan,” the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat said.

Chiapas, Veracruz and the central state of Puebla will benefit from “biodiversity studies and strategies,” the secretariat said.

A joint Spanish-Mexican technical cooperation committee agreed on which projects to fund under the 2009-2011 Bilateral Cooperation Strategy developed by the Mexican Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat and AECID. EFE