In October 2010, MCHF helped the Mo. Dept. of Conservation’s Runge Conservation Nature Center host three guests from a Honduran after-school environmental education program.
During their week-long visit to Missouri, the two teenagers and the executive director of Guaruma conservation education center studied glades and woodlands at Spring Creek Gap Conservation Area, spent a day on the Missouri River, visited area high schools and Lincoln University, and even met the Governor and First Lady during the Jefferson City Harvest Festival and Multicultural Event. Runge Nature Center staff and volunteers, MCHF Executive Vice President Rick Thom, and the many other people who helped host the group enjoyed learning about the conservation and education challenges and programs in each others’ countries.
Funding for the trip was provided by the River Bluffs Audubon Society in Jefferson City and by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks in Springfield. Scholastic Press, Inc. of Jefferson City donated several hundred Spanish language children’s books to MCHF to send back with the group for their local schools.
Tropical bird conservation links the Runge and Guaruma programs and geographic areas. Many of Missouri’s birds migrate to national parks surrounding the villages served by the Guaruma program. The work that organizations like Guaruma do in and for their communities helps to build conservation awareness near these important national parks. This helps to protect the places where Missouri’s wood thrushes, orioles, tanagers, and other birds live more than half of each year. MCHF helps protect critical tropical habitat through its Missouri Tropical Bird Account.
