The future of conservation

I can certainly appreciate being in a country where it's infinitely easier to follow the food chain backwards from my plate to the ground it came from. Often times in the states, I find myself eating a packed lunch with an apple from Washington state, enriched bread products from Iowa, imported soft drinks, cheese from Wisconsin, deli meat from a CAFO in the Dakotas, and hundreds of other corn-based products hidden in the depths of each product's ingredient label. Here it's a bit simpler... although there are a myriad of processed foods, most imported from the US, 90% of what we eat comes from right here in Ecuador and can be traced back to the local farmers we interact with selling their products at the weekend market in Sangloqui.

That being said, Ecuador is a country of rapid development, from new hydroelectric energy to dozens of housing developments going up right here in the Chillos Valley. It's my fear that as Ecuador continues to develop, its children will move away from their love of the natural world and innate understanding of it's importance to their well-being.

As we began reassessing our progress from last year and re-evaluating our goals for the next 6 months, it became clear to me how important it is to focus on environmental education, along with my agriculture projects. I decided to delve into two bigger goals - exposing children to hands-on science and environmental education outside of the library and helping start a nutrition-based agriculture education program with a local school called Aliñambi. I've set to accomplish the first goal through monthly field trips to various science museums in Quito and nearby natural parks. To read about our first one, please see my entry for our MPI blog. The second goal involves colaborating with Haley and Krysta, two other health-focused PDs, to empower the 6th grade class that we work with to take control over their own nutrition and health. Research has shown that students who participate in class gardening projects tend to make better decisions about their daily diets because they feel connected to what they're growing and have a deeper understanding of where their food comes from.

Frank and I attempt to solve one of the interactive science museum's brain teasers

Vincio and Lesli follow the food cycle, from soil to dinner plate

Fellow PDs Krysta, Erik, Chet, Mike and Sarah helping clear the grass for our garden


Teaching our students at Aliñambi how much fun it is to make recycled paper

In a world where nature is disappearing and food ingredients are becoming unrecognizable, it is so important to foster an understand and appreciation for local and international ecology in our youth. As it is so well put in one of my favorite quotes, "in the end, we will conserve only what we love, we love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we're taught" (Baba Dioum, 1968).

Thanks for checking in!
- Jackie