Earlier this month, Lee Vining students participating in the Experience Ambientalia program celebrated World Wetlands Day. In partnership with the Mono Lake Committee, local high school teachers, and our colleagues at Laguna Mar Chiquita in northern Argentina, these students learned about wetland habitat along the shore of Mono Lake and participated in a stewardship activity.
Students braved cold conditions to learn about wetland ecology and what makes wetlands some of the most biologically diverse habitats in the Eastern Sierra. The group then discussed threats to wetland habitats in the Mono Basin, the most critical being excessive water diversions resulting in less available groundwater and wild horse impacts to wetland habitat. Students were joined by the Mono Lake Committee’s Eastern Sierra Policy Director, Bartshe Miller, who discussed both of these threats with the students. The day concluded with students removing horse manure obstructing the boardwalk and trails at South Tufa and Navy Beach to improve visitor accessibility.
Students on both sides of the hemisphere are now doing concurrent environmental stewardship and educational activities at their lakes during the next few months. Our goal is that students from the Mono Basin will travel across the hemisphere to visit their sister lake and meet their South American cohorts in July 2025.
About the Experience Ambientalia program
Experience Ambientalia is a community group that seeks to better connect youth to their home ecosystems and cultivate a sense of environmental stewardship. The Mono Lake chapter of Experience Ambientalia parallels a much larger program and contingent of students in Argentina, where Experiencia Ambientalia was founded in 2021 to engage youth in conserving Laguna Mar Chiquita. Mono Lake is a sister lake with Laguna Mar Chiquita within the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network because of their combined role in providing critical habitat for Wilson’s Phalaropes.
We are seeking support to cover essential expenses and educational materials to provide these life-changing opportunities to students. If you are interested in supporting the Experience Ambientalia program, you can do that here:
Top photo by Ryan Garrett.