Closing of the month of the environment and celebration of Arbor Day

Escuela Agricola Salesiana, Catemu, Chile

With shovel in hand, the rector of the Salesian agricultural school of Catemu, Ms Nataly Araya Baquedeno, showed with actions and not words, the duty that we all have, even more in the schools, to preserve, promote and educate in the care of the environment.

But our school is not and was not alone in this environmental crusade. It’s collaborating partner ‘Fundación la Semilla’ headed by its founder, Mrs Carmen Garcia Dominguz, were present. As always contributing both in materials and in training and a great team was deployed by the fields of our school together with our Agroecological Managers, carried out the planting of the first bushes that will be destined for the Chilean Palm Restoration Area.

About this work, Doña Carmen Garcia told us how happy she feels when she returns to school and how she continues to grow in this line. She recalled that Fundación la Semilla was born and inspired by Don Bosco so she highlights the importance of youth, "They have to value what they have and take care of it. They are the future and our continuity".

After the moment of joint work in the land of the school, the attendees went to the greenhouse sector, where it was received from the hand of the Director of the botanical garden, Alejandro Peirano, and about 1100 bushes of native trees of sclerophyllous forest of about four years of age. In the words of the Director, the donated trees will return our hand in spades, pointing out "We took care of them for 4 years, now they will take care of us for 100 more years."

Remember that we are living a water crisis and our fields need a flora appropriate to this reality, in the case of the trees donated by the Botanical Garden. They are precisely a type of tree typical of the local area, which for different productive reasons was replaced by foreign crops that today are increasingly unsustainable.

At the end of the emblematic day, in which palms were planted, trees were donated and support ties were forged between the different attending institutions, our school ends up enriched, putting direct actions at the service of its mission as a regional agroecological centre. We will have a nursery of native trees, a Chilean Palm Restoration Area and above all educational capital to train young people with the Salesian seal, as always, but now incorporating another seal, the agroecological one.

This action was carried out in the month of the environment, but it is part of a process of awareness and protection of the native environment and its importance for a healthy ecosystem that the school and its partners are carrying out as educational leaders of the new generations.