YOUTH-LED BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

At the halfway point to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is more important than ever that youth contribute in high-level discussions to ensure our voices are heard. This was one of the many topics discussed at the 8th Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals at United Nations Headquarters in New York. 

Fifty years ago, world leaders met in Stockholm for the world’s first international conference devoted to the environment. This meeting led to the landmark Stockholm Declaration and the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme, the body that oversees all UN work related to the environment. To commemorate the original Stockholm conference and the last fifty years of environmental governance, the United Nations General Assembly voted to reconvene for “Stockholm+50.”

Orchid Conservation Alliance’s first-ever Orchid Conservation Symposium showcased conservation and research of the orchids of Ecuador and Colombia. In a day packed with presentations with over 100 live viewers, we particularly enjoyed seeing the fantastic work of our friends, Lou Jost and Youth Council member Marco Monteros from Fundación EcoMinga.

Ecuadorian conservationist, biologist, and educator Javier Robayo was recognized today as one of “The Explorers Club 50: Fifty People Changing the World the World Needs to Know About” (“EC50”). Since 1904, The Explorers Club has supported scientific expeditions of all disciplines, including several “famous firsts”—first to the North Pole, South Pole, summit of Mt. Everest, deepest point in the ocean, and surface of the moon—and the work of household names including Jane Goodall, Theodore Roosevelt, Buzz Aldrin, and Sylvia Earle.

The recent, rapid rise of the youth environmental movement has been well documented, with young people being increasingly recognised as ever more influential agents of change in the political space. But did the so-called ‘global youth’ receive this same level of recognition at one of history’s most pivotal climate conferences, COP26? Last November, I was lucky enough to join some of my fellow Reserva team members at the conference to get involved with the action and see for myself.

Today we said goodbye to half of the Herp Team as Juanito and Mario were headed three hours away to Altotambo in search of other exciting finds. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was, unfortunately, the last we would see of Mario before we left Ecuador. Though Callie, Natalia, and Javier had left early that morning to go inspect a potential new property to add to Dracula Reserve, the rest of the expedition team lined the dirt road in front of the campsite and waved goodbye.

Callie and I had fallen asleep late after a midnight photoshoot with Dipsas elegans and awoke to the sound of the song “Angel Exterminador” by Ilegales and Miguel showing off his vocal skills in the shower before our alarm could even go off. We had breakfast at 7:30 with the now expanded team, including Marco, Gaby, and Rolando, whom we had all met the day before.

What do clothes and chocolate have to do with each other? Well, for one thing, the color of the water in which our clothes from the first week in the field had soaked overnight could really only be described as that of dark chocolate. In warp speed, as to not outlast our held breaths, Javier and I transferred over these “chocolate” soaked clothes to the washing machine at Casa Dracula.

Our last morning at the Peñas Blancas campsite began with our now-routine activities of drone flying and bird monitoring. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day, and Callie took advantage of the good conditions to give Milton and Geovanny an impromptu lesson with “Bebecito,” EcoMinga’s new DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone while Javier opened the mist nets.

Day five started with our customary drone flight from the abandoned pasture above camp, filling our memory cards with blankets of dripping green, billowing clouds, and a beautiful cascade of two twin waterfalls nestled deep in the hidden jungle. The morning conditions and the associated soft light set the ideal stage for sending our drone, affectionately-dubbed “Bebecito,” to the sky. After our perfectly timed flight, both maximizing flight time and ensuring that Bebecito made it back to camp (rather than crash landing and requiring a search mission … *foreshadowing*), we joined Javier and Daniel Valencia in opening two perpendicular mist nets along the forest edge.

We started off our fourth morning by joining Javier for the first early session of mist-netting, which is essential to monitor both the diversity and the health of the birds on our site. The previous afternoon, Daniel Valencia and Milton, with help and instruction from Javier, had cleared a path and installed two 2.4 m high, 12 m long, mist nets (very fine nets to catch birds for scientific research) at the forest edge of the clearing above camp.

This morning was our first at the Peñas Blancas field camp, a 50 meter2 tarp-covered clearing within “Dracula Youth Reserve,” the site we have been fundraising to protect through Reserva all year. Raised above a nearby stream (our water source while at camp) and 20 meters below a recovering pasture, our field camp provided the perfect combination of running water, elevated clear space for drone flying, and breathtaking views of the surrounding pristine cloud forest.

After staying indoors for over six months because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened them on our first morning in Carchi. Callie, Pearson, Javier, and I had each been given our own rooms in the beautiful wooden construction of Casa Dracula, a luxury that we would only have for this first night of our expedition.

While our first day got off to an early start (5 am departure from Quito), it took until the early afternoon before it fully settled in that I was actually in a foreign country again. After all, trips to the grocery store had become rare in 2020, let alone expeditions to far off lands.

What does nature mean to me? What doesn’t nature mean to me? Nature is my everything. Nature is my sanctuary, my playground, my study, my place of physical and mental rebirth, my place of infinite knowledge and discovery. Nature is my second mother. Nature is where I was raised, where I was nurtured, where I learned the way the world works, and where I found myself in some of the greatest moments of living so far.

This particular drama starts with an ant. Or does it start with a mushroom—or is that where it ends? For cyclical mother nature, ends and beginnings don't really exist, and so I will start where I like, and that is with a spore.