Nicaragua's Nature Stewards: The Junior Rangers

Dear Friend,

Since we last send an update about the pause on the Junior Ranger program in Nicaragua, we have taken meaningful strides towards sustaining educational opportunities for youth in that country, and to open up new opportunities for children in El Salvador via a new Junior Ranger there. Your support for our Junior Ranger program has made that possible.

Here are a two key updates that you helped make possible:

Students at the public university Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua) and the Universidad Nacional Agraria (UNA) participated in bird surveys and bat counts, remote telemetry data, and the students have also shadowed Paso Pacifico rangers monitoring sea turtles. In addition, our staff is presently supporting two teams of college students in an innovation contests to improve upcycling of plastic pollution. We also hosted a workshop for local birders young and old to teach them techniques in using eBird, Merlin, and other tools for citizen science. We also imparted a workshop in a private San Juan del Sur school to share about the wonder and important role of native bees.  

In El Salvador, we have finally received our official status as a foreign NGO from the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministries. This will enable us to make an agreement with the Ministry of Education to bring the Junior Ranger program to children in the eastern portion of the country. In the meantime, we are working with docents from Mujeres y Naturaleza to build awareness about birds, especially the endangered yellow-naped Amazon parrot to over 80 children across three schools in Eastern El Salvador. 

We are excited to launch our Junior Ranger program in the tropical dry forests of eastern El Salvador, in a wildlife corridor called the Paso del Golfo. Please consider donating during #GivingTuesday and the end-of-year fundraising season, to help us make a difference.

With gratitude,

Dear Friend,

Thanks to your support for the Junior Ranger program, we celebrated seventy-two young people and their graduation from this environmental education program in Nicaragua. For over a year, the children attended hands-on environmental lessons at least twice a month, observed scientists monitoring wildlife like migratory birds, and participated in community service events like clean-ups and tree plantings. 

We are so proud of these kids and also very grateful to people like you who have helped us to sustain this program for over a decade.

Yet, this note is not without mixed emotions. After twelve years of running the Junior Ranger program in Nicaragua we are suspending the official program in that country at the request of the government there. We want you to know that through your support, Paso Pacifico docents in Nicaragua will continue their environmental outreach in 2024 and 2025 by leading field trips, community workshops, and inviting children to participate in our citizen science events. 

We are now working toward the launch of the Junior Ranger program in 2024 in communities of the Paso del Golfo Wildlife Corridor located in Eastern El Salvador. For this program expansion, we are asking you for your help. Please consider contributing to the Junior Ranger program in El Salvador.

If you have any questions about the Junior Ranger program, please reach out to sarah@pasopacifico.org

For the children,

Sarah