RED works with universities, research institutions, family foundations, and conservation partners designing genuine, long-term commitments with Baja California Sur. Custom research integration, permit stewardship, and pacing that respects both the territory and your cohort.
The peninsula contains four of the world's most strategically managed marine protected areas, two UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, and one of the last functioning cetacean research corridors in the North Pacific. It is also deeply fragile. Institutional access here is not a matter of booking a package. It is a matter of integrating your research questions, your cohort, and your timescale with the permit landscape, the community cooperatives who hold the actual concessions, and a team who has been operating in this territory since 2009.
We do not operate institutional programs on a pre-designed template. Each one is co-designed around your specific research, your specific institution, and your specific timeline. We hold federal permits for marine, terrestrial, overnight, and cetacean work that fewer than ten operators in Baja California Sur possess. We steward direct access to four working community cooperatives. And we employ a permanent field team of marine biologists, naturalists, and researchers whose continuity and territorial knowledge sustain the depth of our partnerships.
— Claudia Marín, Director of Institutional Engagement · The RED studio
Most institutional partnerships fall into one of these patterns. All are fully customizable.
Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers conducting data collection for peer-reviewed publication. Typically two to four week-long deployments per year, integrated with working field teams. We provide field logistics, research partnerships, and marine-biology expertise.
Undergraduate seminars and field courses for credit or certificate. Three to five week immersions, typically tied to a home institution's calendar. We handle co-instruction with field scientists, accommodation, logistics, and integration with local communities and research teams.
Board members, major donors, and mission-aligned travelers building understanding of conservation outcomes. Annual or biennial immersions, often four to eight days, with integration into active research sites and working relationships with community partners.
Marine, terrestrial, overnight, and cetacean research — most held by fewer than four operators in BCS.
Active institutional partnerships with universities, research organizations, and conservation networks.
Marine biologists, naturalists, and logistics teams with a decade of continuity.
Every program is built to fit your institution, your research, and your calendar.
These partnerships define what RED is capable of facilitating. All are active as of 2026.
Graduate-level marine ecology cohorts conducting peer-reviewed research. Focus areas include reef recovery and monitoring at Cabo Pulmo, cetacean ecology at San Ignacio Lagoon, and island biogeography at Espíritu Santo.
Long-term ecological monitoring, endemic flora surveys, and botanical field methods in UNESCO Biosphere Reserves including Sierra de la Laguna and El Vizcaíno. Direct integration with working field teams.
Partnerships focused on marine protected area governance, community-cooperative stewardship frameworks, and donor-engagement programming that connects board members and family foundations to working conservation operations.
Access to San Ignacio Lagoon during the gray whale breeding season. Integration with ongoing bioacoustics and behavioral research. One of the last three major Pacific calving grounds.
Institutional research access to protected areas in Baja California Sur requires federal permits that are held by fewer than ten operators in the state. RED holds permits for marine protected area entry, overnight research stays, cetacean research, and terrestrial biosphere reserve access. These are not borrowed from other outfitters. They are held by RED directly and renewed annually with the CONANP (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas).
Your research cohort can conduct data collection in the Cabo Pulmo no-take marine protected area that a typical travel outfitter cannot access. Your undergraduates can spend nights inside the El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve conducting botanical surveys. Your donor group can visit working research sites at Espíritu Santo that are closed to day-trip tourism. The permits are the mechanism. They are also the constraint — they limit group size, seasonal access, and overnight capacity. We plan your program around what is permitted, not the other way around.
The cooperatives at Cabo Pulmo, San Ignacio Lagoon, San Gabriel (Espíritu Santo), and Bahía Asunción hold the actual operating concessions. RED works with one captain, one chef, one naturalist per cooperative per deployment. These are people we have worked with for ten years or more. When your institution proposes a program, we are essentially asking these communities to add you to their calendar and their territory for the years your program runs. This is not a transaction. It is a relationship.
One of the most significant marine-protected-area biomass recoveries ever documented (Aburto-Oropeza et al., 2011). Three-day immersions grounded in the peer-reviewed record, snorkel-based surveys with RED's marine biologist, and integration with the community cooperative. Best for marine ecology, conservation outcomes measurement, and undergraduate research methods.
112,400-hectare UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with nine endemic amphibian species and thirty-eight butterfly species found nowhere else. Mule-traverse access, working with local ranching families, botanical surveys, and climate-ecology integration. Best for botany, biogeography, and field-methods courses.
El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, 27,000-individual gray-whale population, breeding and calving ecology. February–April window, work with Mayoral cooperative, bioacoustics integration, and behavioral research. Best for cetacean biology, marine mammal conservation, and driver-behavior study.
UNESCO World Heritage Site, 18-million-year rhyolite archipelago, 695 fish species, sea lion rookery. October–June access, working with San Gabriel cooperative, snorkel-based surveys, ecological sampling. Best for island biogeography, comparative marine ecology, and mixed-discipline immersions.
The next step is a letter. Describe your institution, the research or educational direction you are thinking about, and the cohort size and frequency you are considering. Tell us what the territory means to your organization — what draws you to the peninsula, and what success looks like at year one and year three.
We will read it carefully. The institutions team will respond within three working days with initial thoughts on fit, permit landscape, and what a site visit might look like. From there, most programs progress through two or three planning exchanges, followed by a visit to the specific territories your research will inhabit. After that, the program design begins.