Events & Campaigns

PlantArte winner helps promote binational campaign in México

for Latino Conservation Week

It all began as an Arte Sana proposal for a transboundary celebration of native plants, with some self-led native plant ID walks in Texas and a single group event in Mexico, for Latino Conservation Week. Then it blossomed beyond our wildest dreams to 13 reported group walks with 195 participants in Mexico alone!

Native Plants Sin Fronteras (without borders)

During Latino Conservation Week plant lovers, citizen scientists, and curious conservationists on both sides of the frontera celebrated the native plants that grow within the three transboundary ecoregions shared with México from El Paso/Juárez to Brownsville/Matamoros, and beyond!

PlantArte wildflowers embroidery winner Isabel Ortíz Soto, who is does community outreach work for Correo Real - a Mexican citizen-science program dedicated to preserving the Monarch butterfly migration since 1992 - played a key role in promoting this campaign in México. We were also honored to be able to count on guidance from Rocío Treviño Uloa aka Abuelita Monarca, who cofounded the Correo Real program in 1992 - under the environmental organization Protección de la Fauna Mexicana, A.C. (PROFAUNA) - as well as Linabeth Flores y Alejandra Zamarripa who also led native plant ID walks and/or shared some of the beautiful photos below.

A special gracias to Josie Gutierrez, San Antonio and Regional Coordinator for Latino Outdoors who facilitated the promotion of Native Plants Sin Fronteras among members this inaugural year, and provided valuable feedback. Thanks to the enthusiastic response from Mexican native plant advocates for this new collaboration initiative, we hope to continue this binational project and include more regions beyond the following that were included this year!

Chihuahuan Desert / Desierto de Chihuahua
Tamaulipas-Texas Semiarid Plain / Planicie semiárida de Tamaulipas y Texas
Western Gulf Coastal Plain / Llanura costera del Golfo

Source: Ecoregions of North America, EcoRegions website

* An ecoregion is a large area of land or water that shares similar climate, soils, geology, and plant and animal communities. It uses natural boundaries instead of political lines to help scientists study and protect the environment.

¡Mil gracias a la buena gente de Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, Querétaro y Michoacán, que se registraron para participar!

Reason for the Native Plants Sin Fronteras campaign

The ongoing militarization of the Texas-Mexico border region - with its interconnected river buoys, extensive multi-layered razor wire, steel bollard walls, and makeshift land blockades - has directly destroyed, fragmented, and degraded native plant and wildlife habitats by scraping away highly biodiverse ecosystems, altering vital river hydrology, paving the way for invasive species, and threatening critically endangered species by cutting off their natural corridors. Without these habitats, wildlife such as the Monarch butterfly and pollinators also lack the space needed for feeding or reproduction.

Residents ‘not happy’ with bulldozing of land for border wall

Feds plan to install 536 miles of floating barriers on Rio Grande to deter migrants

The wonderful response - from both sides of la frontera - gives us hope that these types of binational events can help engage more people to protect the habitats of our precious shared ecoregions.

GRACIAS to all guides and participants!