Green Inspiration is a series of articles developed by Local.mx to showcase the most relevant environmental projects. In collaboration with Rolex's Perpetual Planet initiative, our goal is to raise awareness, inspire new generations and encourage all good ideas that improve life on Mother Earth. Rolex is supporting inspiring organizations and individuals on a mission to make the planet perpetual. #PerpetualPlanet. For more information visit rolex.org.
"How many of us, as children, had a dream? We liked fine arts or sports. But how many of us really dedicated ourselves to that dream, to consolidate what we wanted to be as children? And fortunately, for athletes and artists there is a very positive scenario, but not for science, not for those children who want to be environmentalists." With these words Maritza Morales Casanova - laureate of the Rolex Award for Initiative in 2012, as part of the Young Laureates Program - explains the core philosophy of HUNAB, the organization she started in Mérida 26 years ago. She discovered her mission as a child, at the age of 10, when she realized the disconnect between people and the world around her and decided to create activities to create a harmonious relationship with the environment. That idea evolved and grew into what it is today: an association with several lines of action focused on education, sustainability and conservation.
Maritza Morales Casanova has trained 100 children from 40 families in snail aquaculture. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
The entire HUNAB experience is reflected, since 2013, in the Ceiba Pentandra environmental education park, named after the region's most emblematic tree. There, children and teenagers train every week as environmentalists - or heroes of Granny Earth, as they are called - in modules in which they learn to protect all forms of life. The most unique thing about this park is that the instructors are the children themselves who, as they advance in their training, are able to share their knowledge with others. They soon discover their particular interests, the heart of their project, and from there they begin to specialize in what most appeals to them. It's like a university degree, but small in size and full of fun activities.
A child participates in a game that focuses on the dilemma facing endangered species. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
A young teacher leads an environmental workshop for children following Maritza's view that children can protect the world as well as adults. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
So far, some 27,000 children have participated in the program, and the figure does not include those who have gone as part of a school visit, or the 8,000 students who receive the HUNAB didactic newspaper in different regions. For Maritza, however, the stories behind the hard data are more important. She talks about some students who, after years of training, have moved on to the mentoring program, in which they also have the support of experts from different institutions: Sofi, for example, is 15 years old and seven years old at HUNAB. One day she discovered that the gel she was using contained glitter and that it ends up in subway rivers, and that is how she began to specialize in water care. Santiago, 12, works with melipona bees and other pollinators. He visits producers and does direct research with beekeepers, and with the information he obtains he draws the newspaper comic so that other children can learn from his findings. Saraí is dedicated to soil recovery and has done all kinds of experiments with compost. David is convinced of recovering creole corn, so from his backpack he doesn't take out carts, but a collection of colorful ears of corn.
Families can earn extra income by selling handicrafts made from snail shells. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
The circle is completed in several ways: when a student decides to study professionally in some branch of environmental sciences, and if necessary, HUNAB can help him or her, through alliances, to obtain a scholarship to do so. Or when a former student returns to give his volunteer support to the association, like Gaspar, who studied engineering and today helps in the construction of new areas of the park, or Diana, who did a doctorate and now specializes in the recovery of native bean species.
Children in Sinanché, Yucatán, attend a workshop that Maritza Morales hopes will inspire them to become environmental entrepreneurs. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
Ceiba Pentandra has continued its online activities during the pandemic season, and during this time spaces have been rebuilt to ensure safety in terms of health and civil protection. Face-to-face activities will resume in October. And that is just the first piece of good news: the next step is to replicate the pedagogy in other places. The city of Pune, in India, is ready to adopt the HUNAB philosophy - an acronym for Humanity United with Nature in Harmony for Well-being, Goodness and Beauty - and the goal is to keep expanding: "We need many hands, many volunteers to spread the message about protecting Grandmother Earth," says Maritza.
A harmonious relationship with nature in Mexico City
Mexico City, vast and multitudinous, is home to an immense and resilient biodiversity to which, on many occasions, we do not pay enough attention (how many of us can distinguish resident and migratory birds, identify butterfly species, etc.). However, our city is, like all big cities - and like every square centimeter of the Earth - part of nature: "Originally, they were nature, more modified, yes, with more artificial elements, it is true - says Maritza Morales Casanova - but every time I go to Mexico City, the first thing that catches my attention are these little sparrows that hop, that are everywhere. What we need is to reinforce that connection, to know that there is nature, that we still have spaces where we live, near the office, in the tree. To learn to observe those small living details that the city has".
Maritza Morales Casanova distributes educational books to children in the El Limonar community in Yucatán. Photo: ©Rolex/François Schaer.
And although it is true that a solid and continuous educational offer for environmentalists (and the curious) is sorely lacking, there are ways to get closer to local biodiversity and become familiar with it. One option is La Caja de Luz, an educational laboratory that on weekends organizes visits to Xochimilco, whose canals make up one of the most unique ecosystems of our city. They offer a trajinera tour with local guides, who teach a workshop on agriculture in chinampas and lead the sighting of endemic species. Further on there is a visit to a farm -with 1,500 meters of green area to run around, perfect for those visiting with children who, after a year of pandemic, have an extra reserve of energy-. There you can see rabbits, turkeys and sheep. The most special thing, of course, is the population of salamanders that happily reproduce here.
Photo: Courtesy of La Caja de Luz.
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Green Inspiration is a series of articles that fills us with excitement. Throughout the year, we will showcase the most relevant environmental projects that have been carried out around the globe under Rolex's Perpetual Planet initiative, and we will also tell the local stories of those facing enormous environmental challenges.
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