In December the first 30 youths will graduate from a Honduran education project that for the past two years has been teaching children of farming families about environmentally friendly farming techniques. The Virgen de Suyapa agricultural school, in El Merendón mountains, 250 km from Tegucigalpa, “is self-sustaining and teaches children under 18 about soil conservation, windbreaks and growing vegetables, as well as raising chickens and rabbits,” priest Fausto Henríquez, one of the authors of the initiative, told Tierramérica.

The “servants of the environment” graduates will be “specialists in agro-ecological techniques that will allow El Merendón to continue to flourish,” said Henríquez.

The range is the main environmental lung in the area of the industrial city of San Pedro Sula and holds a wealth of biodiversity.