Let's restore the Colorado River Delta

During the summer and fall, the Community Engagement team at Pronatura Noroeste carried out field trips to priority sites in the Colorado River Delta, primarily the Janitzio and Miguel Alemán Restoration Sites. This season, 142 students, teachers, outreach and environmental program officers, administrators, and parents from various educational institutions in San Luis Río Colorado participated at the sites. Notable participants included Colegio Montessori Bilingüe, Centro de Estudios Tecnológicos, Industriales y de Servicios (CBTIS) No. 33, Colegio de Educación Profesional Técnica del Estado de Sonora (CONALEP), and the Sonora State University.

In addition, about 52 employees and family members from the Tijuana and Mexicali LINDE México plants visited the reforestation site to plant native trees. The reforestation helps counteract climate change and the water stress affecting the Colorado River basin. Cucapá women artisans from the Pozas de Arvizu ethnic community also joined.

To increase green areas in the Mexicali Valley region, the 194 visitors from the social, educational, and private sectors planted more than 1,850 trees. The trees are native to the Sonoran Desert and include honey mesquites, screwbean mesquites, palo verdes, poplars, and willows, species that grow naturally along the riverbank.

These efforts contribute to the recovery of the native forests that once predominated along the Colorado River and in Mexicali.

They also instill values of environmental conservation in new generations of water users of the Colorado River Basin, which is shared by the border-region cities of San Luis Río Colorado, Mexicali, and Tijuana.

These actions are opportunities to promote water stewardship, appreciation for native plants, and the conservation and maintenance of forests; to understand environmental problems; and to become part of the restoration of the Colorado River.