Third festival “Alas de la Selva Maya” in the community of Ek Balam

Merida, Yucatan, (December 11, 2021).- In order to disseminate knowledge and activities on bird conservation, the Third Festival “Alas de la Selva Maya” was held in the Ek Balam community. For the Conservation of Birds ”; event in which mainly young people and children from the community participated.

Ekʼ Balam, is a Yucatec-Maya archaeological site within the municipality of Temozón, Yucatán, Mexico. It lies in the Northern Maya lowlands, 25 kilometers north of Valladolid and 56 kilometers northeast of Chichen Itza.

“The goal is to spread knowledge in particular of parrots and hummingbirds; and above all about their function in nature and why we must protect and conserve them ”, highlighted Vanessa Martínez García, director of Proyecto Santa María, organizer of the event.

“We have the participation of elementary schools and also the José Vasconcelos secondary school, which is the one with which we have carried out the most activities. With the high school in particular, what we have achieved is to capture the interest of the students to preserve these types of birds. We are also working with them to develop gardens for hummingbirds and other pollinators, which also helps to create feeding spaces for this group of living organisms”, he added.

He stressed that a large part of the work is the conservation of parrots because of the situation in which they find themselves nowadays. The illegal trafficking of species is the main problem parrots face at the national level.

“In Mexico, we have 22 species of parrots of which some are in some category of risk, that is, they are in danger of extinction, they are threatened and are in special protection, so, unfortunately, all the species that we have in Mexico are in a category of risk ”, he pointed out.

He reiterated that this category of birds is in this category of danger because the illegal trafficking of species is very high, given their beauty, their charisma, and that learning capacity since some species can manage to imitate the sounds that humans emit.

“It is a very big problem at the state level, at the national level, and at the global level. In the Yucatan Peninsula we have eight species of parrots and we also have an endemic species, that is to say, that is only in the Yucatan Peninsula and in no other part of the world is the Yucatecan parrot, and it is also an endangered species ”, he highlighted.

We also have the white-fronted parrot, we have the dirty-chested parakeet, we have the yellow-cheeked parrot, the blue-headed parrot, we have the yellow-headed parrot, there are some that are found in the Peninsula. In all species, the main problem in these categories is the illegal trade of endangered species.

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