CEDO is the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans, or in Spanish, El Centro Intercultural de Estudios de Desiertos y Océanos. In 1980 CEDO opened, beginning our long journey. Our headquarters are in, and have always been in, Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, México, in the biogically rich and beautiful Northern Gulf of California.

*** This page is a work in progress so check back frequently for updates on CEDO's history and story. ***

Over the course of CEDO's almost 30 year history, we have become a bi-national and bi-cultural organization focusing on three very important areas: research, education and conservation in the Northern Gulf. Guiding the public on eco-adventures in the region and welcoming researchers, school groups and other organizations to use our field station and teaching resources to support hands-on learning and experience, are two other important aspects of CEDO. We also strongly believe that the communities and people situated on the Northern Gulf must be involved, and that's why we emphasize community-based management when it comes to making sure the Northern Gulf of California remains a healthy and biologically diverse ecosystem. 

* Below are pictures of CEDO's field station and main office, named Edificio Agustín Cortés, after Augustín Cortes, a Puerto Peñasco pioneer and avid promoter of scientific initiatives and causes. To view the captions for the photos just move your cursor over them. Click on the pictures for a more detailed and enlarged view. To view more pictures of our field station visit our Facilities page.

The history of how CEDO came to be is both fascinating, and a great example of how a variety of people and institutions came together in the name of the Northern Gulf and its surrounding desert. 

the CEDO Story: Growing a Conservation Community

In the Beginning (1975-1980)
Peggy Turk Boyer, CEDO's current Executive Director, first visited Puerto Peñasco in 1975, with professors John Hendrickson and Don Thomson of the University of Arizona's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Department, as part of the UA's thriving marine biology program. They and their students conducted field activities out of a small beach house in Puerto Peñasco owned by a gentleman named José Garcia. The house sat beside an experimental shrimp mariculture enterprise, being operated jointly by the UA's Environmental Research Lab (ERL) and the Centro de Investigación en Ciencia y Tecnología of the Universidad de Sonora (CICTUS).

Carl Hodge, ERL's first director and founder of the affiliated nonprofit Desert Development Foundation (DDF), and CICTUS director Xico Murrieta understood the importance of basic marine science, so they began making plans to support and expand the UA marine program. They envisioned a new organization called the Institute for Deserts and Oceans (sound familiar?), or IDO. It would operate out of a new facility located in the Las Conchas housing development east of the shrimp labs and would be supported with profits from the shrimp mariculture commercial enterprise. Nicholas Yensen was hired as the first director in 1978. After a successful fundraising campaign led by Blake Brophy, Yensen was able to convert the unfinished Las Conchas recreation center and office builiding into a simple functional biological field station (the same field station pictured above). He received a grant to travel the world in search of halophytes, salt-tolerant plants that were being raised at Puerto Peñasco using the effluent from the shrimp farm. These plants showed commercial promise for coastal desert regions, where freshwater is scarce.