Estela RomeroDecember 29, 2020"Our Oyamel forests, "Our Oyamel forests a vital community commitment

OUR OYAMEL FORESTS, A VITAL COMMUNITY COMMITMENT

Estela RomeroDecember 29, 2020"Our Oyamel forests, "Our Oyamel forests a vital community commitment

OUR VISIT

Dear friends, the Symbolic Migration hurries from this to that location bringing our highly important topic of the year: “The Benefits of Trees”. Our second big group of elementary school students coming from the surrounding valleys and lower mountain hillsides to Sierra Chincua Sanctuary is here. Their families are most Ejidatario families owning either agricultural or forest areas all around and the center of life to all of them is Aporo town. At announcing the central topic of the Symbolic Migration visit, they get excited and proud assuring they DO know about their local forests!. To the facts we went… many of them can recognize most names of the trees in our forests, but many of them not: “Pinos, Cedros, Encinos, Oyameles.… mmm, mmm, er… oh, oh…”, --they slow down at not quite knowing the other names of our forest trees. As Estela shows the rest of the slides, they open their eyes wide at recalling them and shout loud: “Ailes, Madroños, Tepozanes and Fresnos and Sauces!”, --they end up as they pass each slide over to each other on the big table, looking at their leaves and else characteristics and reflecting about their benefits. “Oh, I did not know that we had 2-3 types of Oaks!, Encino Roble, Encino Amarillo and Encino Laurelillo!”, --Marcos, a very outward boy in the group said as most in the group shook their head. Then Estela comes the the target point as she does at every visit and presentation: “Our forests are unique in the world due to the Oyamel trees growing at this high altitude (over three thousand meters); look at the map showing the tiny black spots as the only few Oyamel nucleus left in México. It might even be that our Oyamel forests could be the largest spots remaining in our planet among the very few still left all over the globe. Oyamel trees are the reason why Monarchs overwinter here maybe for hundreds for thousands of years now… that is how old our forests are…!. Oyamel trees are supposed to contribute to create a microclimate that Monarchs find ideal to spend the winter, to get mature and to mate before they leave in the spring; they also contribute to a considerable water precipitation; that is why we have so much rain in the summer!. Oyamel trees are not easy trees. The can only grow this high and experts say they need a lot of canopy around to shelter themselves and grow even faster and healthier; it takes many, many years, --as for most trees--, for them to go around 40 meters high and up to 1-5 meters wide!. It is vital that reforestation is done with the same seeds falling from the same ancestral trees in our forests, including our Oyamel trees!. Every single tree is so very important, but Oyamel trees are exceptional!”. The photos attached in this blog show how local grandpa’s and grandma’s and parents collect Oyamel seed cones in the fall and winter to store them and reforest the following summer, every single summer, paid through Federal State programs so as to support local families financially, to reinforce conservation awareness and to teach them different reforestation facts and techniques. See an Oyamel seed cone from the inside; each seed has got a Sharp needle which, when falling down, clings into the ground and grows as an Oyamel tree!. Look how Oyamel baby trees look and compare to the giant, beautiful ancestral Oyamel trees where Monarchs overwinter every season!. Here, participant friends in Canada and the United States, the photos of these so familiar pictures to our young students in their every daily life during this season!. Reinforcing our presentation with the Monarch Butterfly Fund invaluable donation of the two different books on TREES, one showing wonderful pictures on the structure of trees and their function in the forest and another responding to as many questions as possible from children about flora and fauna life in the forest, results the perfect complement for teachers to go over much more aspects in class once our schools get open next year, hopefully.