Two teens from La Chorera were selected to participate in the Birds, Careers, and Conservation Youth workshop organized each year by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in USA, this as part of the Celebrate Urban Birds program.
Terra Peninsular nominated Joan and Diego from the high school at La Chorera. Both of them met the age requirements to apply for the competition, and were selected along with 26 other participants from the American continent.
The workshop will take place from October 1st to the 3rd of this year in Ithaca, New York and Cornell University will cover the travel, housing and food expenses. On this trip the Education and Community Outreach Officer, Mirna Borrego, will travel with them.
“We believe that this experience will raise awareness about the conservation of birds and native flora, strengthen the identity of the community and, above all, encourage the conscious appropriation of natural spaces”, said Mirna Borrego about the trip.
The workshop main goals are to strengthen the identity with their community and the environment in which they live, promote the conscious and responsible appropriation of their community’s natural spaces, to create a community outreach project, implement and follow it up with the support of their guide, and to be ambassadors for the conservation of the San Quintín Bay nature reserves.
Besides, during the workshop, the teens will have the opportunity to meet leading professionals and researchers from Cornell University’s Ornithology Laboratory, as well as to participate in a variety of activities, such as bird banding, creating bird inspired art, conservation and, above all, learning about participatory science.
The Celebrate Urban Birds program is a participatory science project founded in 2007, its main objective is to integrate people of all ages into participatory science and bird conservation efforts.
The importance of San Quintín Bay for birds is that it houses more than 35,000 shorebirds annually and was designated as a Site of Regional Importance by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) in September 2008.