Jaquelin Briones – a role model for #NatureForAll
Nobody loves what they don’t know, and whoever spends time in nature falls in love with it. Jaquelin Briones is well aware of this. She is a radio commentator, photographer and leader of the Héroes del Triunfo [Triumphal Heroes] project, which seeks to put children on the Chiapas coast in touch with nature in this region. To this end, along with her environmental education group, she is developing camps for children and bringing them close to nature as well as developing educational materials, including a television program.
Think global, act local. Jaquelin knows this very well, and she realizes that the first people to defend and protect nature should be the people with whom she lives.
Mapastepec, the community in which Jaquelin lives and works is located in a privileged geographical area between two biosphere reserves: El Triunfo and La Encrucijada, which is also a RAMSAR site. That being said, the children of this community are not familiar with these reserves.
The Héroes del Triunfo and Jaquelin organize many activities to familiarize the children with these two reserves and the environmental services that they give us. These activities are supported by printed materials such as comic books, colouring books with mammals of the Sierra Madre and so on. But the main activity is spending time immersed in nature and in summer and winter camps.
These camps have already become a tradition in Mapastepec and over 100 families wait every year to enrol their children and visit rivers, swamps and forests with them. As they are not easily accessible, the logistics / reconnoitering skills that the Héroes de El Triunfo have learned are required.
Jacquelin is an active member of the CEC of the UICN [IUCN Commission on Education and Communication] and their Héroes del Triunfo group joined the #NatureForAll campaign.