How can the Sister Bird Club Network facilitate youth participation in conservation?

          I’ve spent most of my adult life training and working in the field of conservation.  So, I can say with some degree of certainty that conservationists are saddened and deeply concerned about things like diminishing habitats and the accompanying loss of species diversity and abundance.  Yet, I also know that conservationists are among the most optimistic of my fellow humans.  They are passionate about the world they live in, and are even more passionate about the world the next generation will experience.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard conservationists utter the adage: “youth are the future of the world!”  This is a rather obviously true statement, but it has another side to it that is equally true and just as important.  Without paying attention to conservation of natural resources now, those youth will not have much of a future world in which to live. 

Youth birders from Club Comunitario, Los Chipes, based in La Ceiba, Honduras.
Photo Credit: Club Comunitario.

          I gained first-hand experience with both sides of this "youth are the future of the world" coin when I spent almost five weeks in Honduras during fall 2016 on a trip to set-up contacts for the Sister Bird Club Network.  Twice during my travels around the country I had the privilege of visiting Montaña de Santa Bárbara - fuente de vida.  Translated to English, "Mountain of Santa Barbara -- source of life" is a cooperative of three small communities nestled in the Cloud Forest on the high slopes of Santa Barbara Mountain on the northwest shores of Lake Yojoa in north-central Honduras.

          Their website describes the cooperative this way...

 "our three communities - El Sauce, San Luis Planes and El Dorado - have come together

to form a project we have named ¨Montaña de Santa Bárbara – La Fuente de Vida¨. 

Thousands of people depend on Montaña de Santa Bárbara for food, water and shelter and 

income. It is truly the source of life - la fuente de vida - for all of these people. 
Because of its incredible biological diversity it is also the source of life for the innumerable 

plants and animals that call the mountain home.  Our communities are working together to
develop new sources of income based on ethical and sustainable tourism in the hope that 

these additional resources will enable us to improve our livelihood while protecting this 

critical environment and maintaining our cultural values.  This project aims to build the 

capacity of our communities to manage the ecotourism opportunities and develop and

implement conservation programs on our own terms rather than being overwhelmed
by external commercial interests.”

Community members and visiting birders at Montana Santa Barbara -- Fuente la Vida.
Photo credit: Montana Santa Barbara.

          Although youth are not mentioned specifically in the paragraph above, they play a very important role in the story of Fuente la Vida, both as visitors fro outside the cooperative and as residents in those communities.  Here are a couple of stories about some of those youth. 

The first time I had the pleasure to visit Fuente la Vida, I was participating in the Lake Yojoa Birding Blitz – a three day event that brings together birders and bird clubs from around Honduras and beyond to monitor bird diversity and abundance.  Part of the fun of the Birding Blitz was that several youth were taking part, including Daniel Torres and

Here I am with Daniel (left) and Norman (second from right)
and their faculty mentor, Franciso Rovelo.
Photo Credit: Francisco Rovelo.

Norman Espinosa from a youth club called “The Hummingbirds” out in the western city of Gracias, and Abiel Martinez from the local club, Las Clorofonias. 

Here is Abiel Martinez (right)
with the U.S. Ambassador to
Honduras, James Nealon.
Photo Credit: Oliver Komar.

One of the field trips for which I signed up was to spend a morning at Fuente la Vida, and Daniel and Norman joined me on this trip.  We arrived early in the morning and were met by two local guides, Juan Pablo and Denis, who live in these communities. 

I was quite excited to bird there because Santa Barbara National Park was established to protect the higher elevation slopes (~8,000 feet elevation) of the Santa Barbara mountains that surround the northwestern portion of Lake Yojoa.  Another National Park called Cero Azul Meambar protects the slightly lower slopes (~6,500 feet elevation) on the east side of the lake.  Lake Yojoa is the largest lake in Honduras and provides drinking water for millions of people.  In addition, there is a large Talapia fish farming operation that provides both food and employment for many Hondurans.  Protecting the steep, higher elevations of these mountains and their amazingly diverse cloud forests is aimed at protecting water quality and minimizing soil erosion and siltation of the shallow lake that already is experiencing substantial pollution and spread of invasive plants associated with the Talapia fish farms.  

The communities of El Sauce, San Luis Planes, and El Dorado occur in the Cloud Forest Zone of Santa Barabara Mountain.  This mountain is the tallest limestone massif in all of Central America. As warm moisture-laden air pushes in from the Caribbean Coast to the north, it pushes up the slopes and condenses into persistent fog banks that provides substantial moisture to the always-green forest here.  These communities also occur in the buffer zone for the National Park – a working landscape of coffee plantations, corn and bean fields, and communities interspersed within the forested slopes and semi-protected areas of the National Park boundaries.

Birders participating in the Lake Yojoa Birding Blitz enjoyed
seeing many species of birds at Fuente la Vida.  Local guides,
Juan Pablo with binoculars in front center, and Denis on the far
right are accomplished birders.  Note Daniel Torres (second from
right) was never far from all the action.
Photo Credit: Jody Enck

After a fairly long bus ride from the other side of Lake Yojoa, I was anxious to get birding.  Local guides, Denis and Pablo,  led our group of birders along village roads, and past young coffee fincas containing catimor coffee bushes (relatively easy-to-grow, resistant to leaf rust, but requires a lot of sun and fertilizer input), and paca bushes (a specialty coffee bean that is more valuable, but susceptible to leaf rust and harder to grow).  Some of these fields were shielded from direct sun-light by plantain plants.  In these areas, I saw Central American birds like Rufous-collared Sparrows, Yellow-winged Tanagers, Yellow-billed Caciques, and Cinnamon Hummingbirds.  I also observed lots of neotropical migratory species in these disturbed habitats, such as Wilson’s Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Summer Tanager, and Tennessee Warbler.      

Leaf rust on paca coffee leaf.
Photo Credit: Jody Enck

Daniel and Norman never were far from the front of the group.  Each had been birding for a couple of years, but they eagerly sought out sightings of life birds and inquired about field marks and vocalizations that made a given bird a MacGilvray’s Warbler (which we saw) rather than a Mourning Warbler (which we didn’t).  The other thing these teenagers did was to help this out-of-towner learn something about resident bird species that they knew so well.  They gave me a run-down on many of the bird species we were seeing and gave me hints on how to remember their names.  They also gave me a primer on some Spanish phrases for finding birds arriba (above) or abajo (below) things like “that red patch of flowers on the hillside.”

Next Pablo and Denis led us into some harvested, and over-grown-with-weeds corn and bean fields.  Even in these disturbed habitats, we saw an amazing diversity of birds, including Green-throated Mountain Gem, Prevost’s Ground-

Birding in a harvested and very weedy corn and bean
field at Fuente la Vida.
Photo Credit: Jody Enck

Sparrow, Emerald Toucanet, and Rusty Sparrow.  And, we saw more neotropical warblers, vireos, and orioles.  Even though we were birding in a working landscape, the youth and I were excited to see many species we had never seen before.

We ended the morning with a hike in a patch of protected cloud forest.  This area is private land (still within the buffer zone of the national park, though) and is protected by Fuente la Vida to provide habitat for birds like Resplendant Quetzal, Collared Trogon, Scaly-throated Foliage Gleaner, and Slate-colored Solitaire.  Oh, and we also found lots of neotropical warblers, vireos, and orioles there, too.

Daniel (center) and Norman (far right) birding with our group
at Fuente la Vida.  Photo Credit: Jody Enck.

More than a dozen of us birders ate lunch in a private home (part of the experience when you visit Fuente la Vida).  Norman and Daniel chose to sit with me and talk about their interest in birds.  Both hope one day to become bird guides, and both are keenly interested in making a real difference in terms of bird conservation.  Visiting Fuente la Vida gave them a chance to watch the local guides, Denis and Pablo, work with us birders to see wildlife and to learn a little something about the cooperative and its efforts to conserve habitat in the Cloud Forest.

          Exactly four weeks to the day later, I was back again visiting the same fields and forests at Fuente la Vida.  This time I was on a team with 9 other birders competing in the Honduras Birding for Conservation Tour.  We were 8 days into a fairly-grueling, 9-day competition.  We were tired but focused.  I had told my team mates that we could easily pick up about a dozen new species for our aggregated competition list just in the working landscape around the houses and farmed fields of Fuente la Vida.

The working landscape in the buffer zone of Santa Barbara
National Park.  Photo Credit: Jody Enck.

          I was ready to grind out an intense, next-to-last day of birding for the competition, and trying to stay focused even though I was just days away from leaving Honduras to head home after nearly five weeks in the gorgeous country.  But, I was totally unprepared for two things that I experienced that day.

          First, I somehow had not expected the working landscape at Fuente la Vida to be, well, “worked” in the month since I had been there.  The really weedy, harvested corn and bean fields that had held so many birds on my first visit were being prepared for the next plantings.  Individual farmers using machetes had cleared acre upon acre of hillside.  Without the weeds and other plants, the bird abundance and diversity were greatly reduced.  Also without the weeds, I could see that the corn and beans were being planted among young coffee bushes that were also growing in those fields, but were too young to produce beans yet.

During my first visit, the corn and beans
had been harvested and the field had
grown up with weeds.  This provided lots
of structure for birds that use early-
successional habitat.
Photo Credit: Jody Enck

During my second visit to Fuente la Vida, the working landscape had been "worked."
The senescent corn and beans, along with all the weeds, had been cut down in preparation
for planting the next crop, and exposing young coffee plants that were not yet
producing beans.  This is the same field as above.  At the near, far right of
this photo is the tree that appears in the left foreground of the photo above.
Photo credit: Jody Enck.

          Luckily, the Cloud Forest was still being preserved (in most places – some cutting for firewood and other purposes occurs in a few places).  Still, the change in habitat structure

A farmer preparing the field for the
next crop.  Photo credit: Jody Enck.

that occurred between my first and second visit was a stark reminder of how fast habitat can disappear in Honduras and other places in Latin America.  In many places outside of conservation-minded communities like those at Fuente la Vida, the forest itself is being cut at an alarming rate.  The need for bird conservation was driven home dramatically that day.

          The second thing that was unexpected for me was that our team of 10 birders (plus a Honduran guide, Esdras Lopez, and an “international” guide, Jeff Gordon, who is President of the American Birding Association) grew to a group of over 30 people as we birded our way through both the working landscape and the protected forest.  Why?  Because of kids!

Local kids followed us while birded.
Photo credit: Jody Enck

          During my first visit to Fuente la Vida, the kids in the community had been in school.  I didn’t give that much thought at the time.  On my second visit, these kids were out of school on break.  So, they tagged along the us.  They all kept a respectfully quiet and back behind our group so they would not interfere with the competition.  But, they were curious to see what these birders were doing and wanted to find out why we were so interested in encountering birds.

          These kids were the same ones who often could be found working the landscape with other family members.  These were the same kids who often were tasked with collecting firewood for cooking.  These were the same kids who families’ entire

Denis (in yellow shirt) showing local kids what birds we
were seeing in the field guide.  Photo credit: Jody Enck.

existence depended on the environment on Montaña de Santa Bárbara.  These were the same   kids whose future will depend on what happens on that mountain.  These were the same kids who can affect the future of what happens there. 

          Our group of competing birders did little more than spark a little curiosity among the youth of Fuente la Vida.  Oh, the kids got to see first-hand that a group of avi-tourists mostly from the U.S. were coming to their community to see birds, and as a result, hired local bird guides and provided some additional funds for the local communities. 

          The important work was being done by the adults from the cooperative.  Denis and Pablo were role models for these kids, showing them through their actions how passionate they are about birds and bird conservation.  While Pablo helped us avi-tourists find more birds for the Conservation Tour competition, Denis sat down with the kids and showed them some pictures in a field guide of the birds we were seeing.  It was a spark, maybe only a little spark, but still a spark. 

What future will these kids help create at Fuente la Vida?
Photo Credit: Jody Enck.

          As these kids grow up, they will have choices to make.  They can contribute to more habitat loss, or they can work with others to protect habitat for the future of birds and for their own future on Santa Barbara Mountain.  The best way we avi-tourists can help is to make plans to go visit them.

          The Sister Bird Club Network can help interested birders make connections and visit Fuente la Vida.  Individual birders and clubs can easily visit the cooperative or make plans to help them on any of their various service projects.  Youth clubs might want to establish pen pals or other connections with youth there.  If you are interested, see the Fuente la Vida website or contact Beaks and Peaks Birding and Adventure Tours at info@beaksandpeaks.com.