STRATEGIC LINES​​​​​​​​​​
Our work is developed in six main strategic lines:

 

• RESEARCH, now focused on the improvement and understanding of the relationship between water and society.

• CONCERTATION, focused on strengthening social and institutional boards of participation.

• PLANNING, that is, the collective definition of the '​rules of the game'​ in the social relationship with nature.

• REGENERATION AND SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION, where we develop and apply specific tools to preserve the natural processes and simultaneously provide  options of sustainable production.

• ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY, in which we continue to document, promote, and apply those techniques, with emphasis on the conservation of  water conservation and soil.

• DISSEMINATION, COMMUNICATION AND DOCUMENTATION, where we try to improve information, participation, and the responsibility of everyone  in ecological matters.

PRINCIPLES​​​​​​​​​​
The following principles guide our projects:

 

• The aspiration of INTEGRALITY IN CONSERVATION, defined as the simultaneous and inseparable pursuit of social welfare and the perpetuation of basic natural processes.

• EMPHASIS ON THE LOCAL and, in particular, the definition of watersheds as CONCEPTUAL and working UNITS.

• The intent to TRIGGER AND ACCOMPANY AUTONOMOUS PROCESSES. This clearly defines our goals in each particular place where we work: we will have achieved our goal when INSO is needed no longer.

• ​CONCERTATION AS THE MAIN ELEMENT of the strategy in two ways: first, it is necessary to involve all stakeholders in the process (government, local authorities, communities, NGOs, researchers, private companies); and second, it is necessary to achieve a non-hierarchical  synthesis between radically different ways of seeing the world: the Mesoamerican, or rural, and the western.

• A GENDER PERSPECTIVE that recognizes the importance and role of women.

Additionally we incorporate the ​HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE​ that illustrates how we have arrived at the complex current condition and  determines the path that we want to follow, and also provides a dynamic vision of water, based on its cycle, which leads to the establishment of sustainable hydro-social models, developed in concert for each watershed.

In a hydro-social model we want to reflect that water, rather than being located in certain places or coming from them, is constantly moving in a very complex way; at different speeds and in different physical states. We need to know how much water falls as rain, how much evaporates or seeps into the ground, where the runoff goes, and how much time is spent in each phase. Additionally, we need to know how society interacts with, and modifies, the natural cycle: how much water we take and from where we take it, how it is returned, how much of it is contaminated, etc. The final goal is to restore the balance of the cycle.