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February/March 2007
CEA Electronic Communications are in English and Spanish. Para leer este boletín en español, favor de haga clic aquí.
Click on the images to see larger versions.
Fabulous Festival
The 2nd Annual CEA Festival, Save the Sea, was a magnificent event, thanks to so many people. Our thank-you list is so long that we ask you to click here to see who helped. The silent auction was wonderful—the diversity of donations was amazing, from hand-made artwork to exquisite jewelry, coin collections to villa rentals! We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. The activities were fun and well received, and the Gala Dinner and Dance was a night to remember.
We reached our goal of doubling funds raised from last year’s festival, but even more important were the camaraderie, support and encouragement that we felt from those attending or helping from afar. We hope that each year we can also give something back through this festival and that you may have a chance to get to know and understand CEA just a bit better.
Together we will be able to make a difference and save this piece of paradise that is so near and dear to us all.
For those of you who missed this year's festival, go ahead and mark your calendars for February 20 & 21, 2008!! Each year we just keep getting better, so don't miss out. In order to ensure that we can improve the festival each year, we welcome your input, suggestions and ideas. Please feel free to contact us.
To see the winning photos from our first annual Photo Contest, please click here.
Water Quality Program
by Edith Sosa Bravo
Dr. Patricia A Beddows and her team from the School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, made a study with the goal of ultimately establishing a GIS-based karst inventory. Karst is a type of limestone terrain with subsurface drainage, such as is found around Akumal. The team was working towards establishing a standardized data collection methodology that may be employed by local persons, tourists, and visiting college classes hosted at CEA. A three-page data collection form has been created, and this is supported by a 10-page orientation guide, including instructions and examples, a field picture guide, and inventory sheets for GPS coordinates and photographs. The data collection methodology is rapid, applicable by persons of diverse backgrounds and with limited prior experience in the area or in karst terrains in general, and provided in both Spanish and English. While developing these materials, data have been collected on 50 dissolution shafts and depressions, 12 cenotes, and 4 rock shelters, all in the course of one month.
Kids Who Care
by Paul Sánchez-Navarro
We know that the future of Planet Earth is promising because there are so many kids who care. Earlier this year, CEA received three donations from children in the United States and another from a Mexican school group.
Using money from his allowance, gifts and odd jobs, eight-year-old Jesse Marley, from Oregon, has become a CEA Member, after he and his family traveled through the Yucatán Peninsula and stayed in Akumal. He is concerned about the future of the area and feels strongly about supporting our efforts. Jesse loves the sea turtles and the ocean at Akumal.
Ten-year-old Julia, from New York state, also became a CEA Member. Julia uses part of her allowance each year for special causes and chose Akumal this year, to help protect the reef. She has traveled to Akumal several times and especially loves Yal-Ku Lagoon. Julia came to hear our presentations at the Information Center on coral reefs.
Julia’s 12-year-old brother, Russell, sent a donation to CEA from his earned allowance, with the hope that we continue to protect and improve the environment at Akumal. He thinks Akumal is a beautiful place and would like it kept that way. It was great to hear that he appreciates all that CEA does.
Finally, Miss Ana Mariscal’s sixth-grade English class, at the Grijalva Montessori School in Villahermosa, Tabasco, raised funds in the school to adopt a turtle at CEA. The class made bookmarks and ran a campaign to sell them, going from class to class in order to raise the funds. What a great initiative on their part!
All these efforts from young people are a great inspiration for all of us at CEA, helping us to remember why we are here working to protect the sea turtles and the reef, making sure the water is clean, among many other activities that go into protecting our ecosystem. Educating people about solutions to environmental problems becomes a lot easier knowing that tomorrow’s generations are on board today. Thanks to you all!
Environmental Education
by Mauricio Bautista
We started this year on the right foot, by taking kids from the Akumal schools to the jungle to raise their awareness of the importance of this ecosystem, one of the main kinds in this state. The students are learning about the animals and plants in the Interpretative Nature Path at the Fundación Ecológica Bahía Príncipe, where they are expanding what they learn at school by these field trips.
Reef Monitoring
by Hamid Rad
The first volunteers’ phase of the redesigned program came to an end on February 9. After three months spent with us, they have acquired a solid knowledge in reef fish, coral, algae and invertebrates, target species identification, and monitoring techniques.
In accordance with the MBRS Synoptic Program Methodology, three sites have been selected on the reef out of Akumal which sample the location representatively, according to different affecting factors such as anthropogenic impact, diseases and natural events.
A total of 35 dives have been conducted and 74 transect lines have been deployed. The data they collected on the three sites will now be used as a reference for future monitoring sessions.
A descriptive analysis will now be done from the raw data to make a first evaluation of the reef’s general health level, abundance and distribution of its key species.
For the next volunteers’ session, a set of three new sites will be selected, the idea being to monitor each site twice a year, during different seasons.
We thank our volunteers: Maria, Thalia, Jose and David, as well as Veronica and Diana, the two national PADI scholarship holders, for their hard work and commitment to the program and CEA. We hope their experience and the knowledge they acquired with us will be useful in whatever they do in the future.
Thanks for the Palms
CEA is pleased to thank Fundación Ecológica Bahía Príncipe Tulúm A.C. for the donation of five Caribbean palm trees and 15 chit palms, which were placed on the coast dune near the jungle in our parking area.
Species of the Month – Mangrove
by Edith Sosa Bravo
photo by Humberto Bahena Basave
Mangrove is the fundamental species of the coastal-marine ecosystem. They are located in the tropics and subtropics of the planet and are on the coasts of Latin America, from México down to Peru.
Mangroves have great biotic productivity. They grow up at the intermediate tidal zones and in flooded areas. They can adapt to different degrees of salinity, because they are in contact with sea water and fresh water. They are located on sandy, muddy, clay soils, which have little oxygen and are sometimes acidic.
Ecologically mangroves supply important functions that allow natural balance: flood control; erosion control; purification of water running to the sea by retaining sediments and toxic substances; desalinization of water running to land; and providing a source of organic matter, storm protection, and microclimate stabilization.
It is important to emphasize that México has advanced in the protection of these ecosystems. Last February 1, a Decree was published in the federation official diary, by which an article is added in Vida Silvestre's General Law, which establishes the conservation of 886,760 hectares of mangrove that still exist in the country.
Staff Birthdays
March 1 – Jorge Vera, Accounting Manager
March 1 – Alma Boada, Communication Program Coordinator
Calendar of Events
Beach Clean-Up – Every Monday Morning, 7:30 (weather permitting)
Over the next few months, CEA volunteers will be doing early Monday morning beach clean-ups. If you'd like to join in our work, contact us at the CEA Information Center.
CEA Meditation – Every Full Moon
Please feel free to join us in our meditation focusing on the importance of healthy water. For further information, contact us at the CEA Center, or e-mail us.
Evening Presentations at the CEA Information Center, Tuesday through Friday, at 6:30 p.m. We hope that you will join us to learn more about our work, the important conservation issues of this wonderful place, and your role in helping to protect paradise. Please always stop by to confirm, but the current schedule is:
- Tuesdays – Water Quality
- Thursdays – The CEA Turtle Watch Program
- Fridays – Living Reefs
CEA Presentations in the Lol-Ha Snack Bar – 6:30 p.m.
- Mondays - Living Reefs
- Tuesdays - The CEA Turtle Watch Program
Please continue to tell your friends about CEA! Many CEA Members join after being referred to CEA by people like you. If you have questions about how you can become more involved, please contact us. The Yucatan Environmental Foundation is the U.S. 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor for CEA. All donations made through YEF for CEA are tax-deductible in the U.S.
If you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or simply need to contact CEA, please click here.
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