Un Árbol Hecho En Casa
We are Juan Pablo (13 years old) and Marcelo (10 years old). Our project of "Un Árbol Hecho en Casa" was born in the heart of Group XI of the Scouts Provincia Nuevo León. And it arises as a necessity to the strong damages that we are experiencing due to climate change: wild fires in the Sierra de Santiago, lack of water, excessive contamination and the lack of trees in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area.
We give workshops to create awareness about the importance of urban trees within the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, as well as the importance of using native species from the Northeast of the country. Likewise, we want the population to know the way in which they can germinate their own trees at home, to then take care of them and donate them to reforestation efforts in the city.
Everything started during the pandemic (2020). When we isolated at home and couldn't go out, we used to take family walks and found a lot of acorns in the street. So we collected a lot of them and then learned how to germinate them watching YouTube videos. Afterwards, and due to wildfires that our mountains were suffering, we decided to do something. So we joined some reforestation groups of other citizens that were fighting for the same cause, and in the mean time we started learning about native trees throughout some books and Internet. So in 2021 we decided to start planting some trees and begun a Facebook and Instagram page. My parents begun to help us to put us in contact with other schools to offer the germination workshop. We had the chance to participate in a social programs contest and got the chance to be selected like one of the awarded projects from the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM) and that has helped us a lot because it has empowered us. We struggled a lot in 2022 due to the lack of water in Monterrey, but we managed to keep some of our trees alive thanks to the use recycled water from the washer. This year (2023) the rain has helped us to keep up with our project and keep germinating and donating trees.
We hope the schools which we presented to can have more knowledge on them, and maybe even plant some themselves. The ones with newly planted trees can have better air quality in their spaces and maybe look better.
Also we think is very important to create awareness of the importance of using native trees in our urban areas so we can avoid invasive species that affect our ecosystem and also to have species that are more resistant to critical weather conditions from the regions.
We learned that not many people have access to places with trees or that they have no knowledge about them. We learned that not many people know about how important they are and their important roll in sustainability and water scarcity. We learned that you can inspire people to take action when you show them how wonderful and exiting can be to germinate a tree. I remember this one time, the mayor came to visit our neighborhood, ad we talked to them about needing trees for reforestation projects in schools, and like a week later, they start their own project about planting trees in schools, so we think our project could've been an inspiration for them. We also learned that we need to give time to the project, sometimes is hard because we are very busy doing other things, but if you want your project to work you need to give some of your time.
We also learned that even when public spaces needed a lot of trees, we wouldn't plant them there, because they can get cut off by other people and there is no one to water them. So we decided to focus on planting trees in schools, because in one side students will have a more beautiful place to study at, with a nice shade that protects them and in the other side there will be someone to take care of them (the janitors). So our project developed a new campaign to donate and plant native trees at public schools.
In November 2022, we started to create a Logbook that will give us information in which are the best conditions to germinate acorns and have more probabilities of success.
