It was a balmy, tropical Saturday evening. The town square was very busy this night - concessions lined the perimeter with merchants selling a potpourri of toys, CDs and DVDs, T-shirts, snacks and ice cream while children frolicked in this festive atmosphere, many of them gravitating towards the portable playground with giant slide and a small trampoline. Surveying the whole scene, I noticed a young lady showing slides and addressing a group of over 25 young children in Spanish. Inching closer to get a better idea what was happening, I realized that the young children were viewing a special presentation on the ecology of sea turtles. The teacher was instilling in these small children an environmental ethos and a love of nature. Furthermore, most of the children would probably become advocates of not only protecting the sea turtles but of safeguarding fragile ecosystems - mangroves, coastal estuaries and fisheries of the area - from greedy developers and urban development. Oh, I forget to mention - this story took place in La Manzanilla, a small but growing beach town cum tourist resort located on the southern edge of the Bay of Tenacatita on Mexico’s popular Costa Alegre.

While surveying the nearby mangroves on the northern edge of town, home of a very substantial population of American Alligators, I noticed a very interesting poster obviously designed by a young child from the community. My heart was warmed see that the children of La Manzanilla were becoming Environmental Advocates at such a tender age. There still is hope for our planet…..

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am and is filed under Mexico, Nature, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.