Thanks to a partnership between the Mono Lake Committee, our colleagues at Laguna Mar Chiquita in northern Argentina, and Eastern Sierra high school educators, local high school students and teachers are participating in the third edition of Experience Ambientalia.
In September, students at Mono Lake joined International Coastal Cleanup Day through the program. They participated in a canoe tour of Mono Lake, where we explored its political and natural history and the challenges preventing it from reaching the healthy level set by the State Water Board in 1994. We also talked about the significance of the saline lake network for migratory birds and the responsibility we have as a community to protect our environment. Following the canoe tour, students removed trash from Navy Beach and South Tufa.
On the other side of the hemisphere, youth and teachers at Laguna Mar Chiquita also spent the morning picking up trash along the shores of their lake. The students and teachers who collected the most trash earned a trip to Córdoba City to help clean the Suquía River, a tributary of Laguna Mar Chiquita.
In October, students and teachers from Lee Vining, Mammoth, and Bishop celebrated World Migratory Bird Day. Due to strong winds, the activities were moved indoors, where students took part in a bird banding lab and a nest matching activity. These activities helped them learn how scientists track bird migration and explore the diverse nesting strategies used by native bird species in the Mono Basin.
In Argentina, Fundación Líderes de Ansenuza collaborated with the National Parks Administration to host a bird-watching event in La Para. Former Ambientalia exchange participants served as guides for the next generation of students, leading bird walks through the wetlands surrounding Laguna Mar Chiquita and teaching about local bird nesting behaviors.
Experience Ambientalia is beginning to expand to new locations. Students at Lake Abert in Oregon, Great Salt Lake in Utah, and Laguna de Pozuelo in far northern Argentina participated in their first-ever Ambientalia activities this year, and all groups are now sharing their experiences with one another through WhatsApp.
The next Experience Ambientalia activity will take place later in November, as participants across the hemisphere come together to celebrate World Fisheries Day.
About the Experience Ambientalia program
Experience Ambientalia is a community group that connects young people to their home ecosystems, introduces them to sister saline lakes across the Western Hemisphere, and encourages environmental stewardship. It was launched in 2021 by Fundación Líderes de Ansenuza and the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network at Laguna Mar Chiquita in the Cordoba Province of Argentina. The program came to Mono Lake in 2022 because Laguna Mar Chiquita and Mono Lake are sister lakes that provide critical habitats for Wilson’s Phalaropes, a migratory shorebird that is at risk due to the declining health of saline lakes worldwide.
Top photo courtesy of Yaretzi Bonilla.