SchoolsEstela RomeroJanuary 28, 2020

"Miguel Hidalgo"

SchoolsEstela RomeroJanuary 28, 2020

SCHOOL VISIT

We continue our way all around the back-belt forest to the “Sierra Chincua” Sanctuary, where two last locations have a few more schools to visit. We have now arrived to “San Jerónimo Pilitas”, a tiny village with only three hundred inhabitants in average, owning part of the forest with the most density of Oyamel trees as main part of the buffer forest area to Monarch butterflies in this Sanctuary. The visit to the “Miguel Hidalgo” Elementary school in the location, --as at all schools we have been to--,was all fun and learning and counting stories of all kinds on going into our topic con conservation: threatened, endangered and extinct species in our local ecosystem. Our children, not being familiar with these latter terms, got, after a short and didactical explanation from Estela, really aware of the meaning of every word, using examples of their own local flora and fauna: “We have to inform our friends from the North in the United States and Canada that a few animal species of ours sharing hábitat with Monarch butterflies are endangered and at least two to three are lost for us now: deer, roadrunners and wild cats”, --Camila raised her voice in the class--. “Some or our medicine plants should also be from threatened to endangered too” they said as they went on mentioning uncountable names of plant and animal species, and got proud of the richness in their ecosystem but concerned to know about the risks surrounding their local natural environment. As at all other schools, their main two questions from our children living around this Sanctuary --as well as the two former ones we have visited-- in their letters to their counterparts in the north, were: “Are there any animal and plant species disappearing where you live up there in the North?”, “what are you doing to protect them?”. They would also make these questions to themselves and responded to each other regarding their own ecosystem, altogether with concepts like, “massive hunting”, “deforestation” and “pollution” against the different aspects conforming the word HABITAT, making them realize, on the other side, our privilege to live in such a special región in the world, as well as our responsibility for the sake of our own future. “We have been losing forest; we have been losing underbrush or canopy at our forests due to the severely dry springs and summers we have had, and we know now from our lesson on pollinators last season that the less wild flowers, rain, wáter and moisture, the less insects, and by that, the less pollinators, the fewer birds and a fewer anphibians, which main food are insects, for example, and so on, and so on…” –Ramiro, a really knowledgeable boy in class followed by a few of her classmates stated what they now hear from their parents being trained by our conservation state organisms to learn to protect and conserve their forest. “Our parents and grandpa’s tell us once and once again that just as our traditions, our food, our music, our language, our dancing, and all of our ancestral culture our forests have got to be part of our rich legacy for generations”, --Cristobal added proudly ramarking his important statements, with words that he got from his seniors at home, for sure--. This last statements from Ramiro and Cristobal, are exactly the aspects on which the Symbolic Migration is aiming to contribute in evey child and family living around the Monarch butterflies biosphere reserve in Central México, through the friendship links that your Ambassador Monarchs and book donations from Monarchs Across Georgia have been building over the years across borders.