A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measure the depth of his own nature.
~Henry David Thoreau
Today’s Earth Day, I would wish a happy earth day to everyone, if only it would be something to be happy about.
I won’t argue here about global warming and its effects, first because if by this time you really are not convinced you are not going to be convinced, and second because global warming is only one of many issues affecting us. Desertification has been occurring in Africa and America since the 50s, and there are many examples of the many riches vanishing from earth; the snow of Kilimanjaro, Greenland’s Glaciers, the Sahara’s advance into the savanna, the savanna’s advance into the jungle, and the pond next to your home. The latter example is the one that hurts a lot to only a few. It do no caught headlines and it is only known to locals, but its effects are as bad as the others, as for one person, his immediate environment is the most important of all.
In El Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, there was a hidden jewel known only to some locals. It is call “La Alberca”, the pool, a lake inside a volcano’s crate. The jewel is not more:
The picture is taken from El Norte (since they do not publish their photographers’ name, I feel free to take what was taken). Antonio García offer us more pictures in this link. Observe the degradation. This is a real ecocide that will go unpunished and mainly unnoticed in this Earth Day. A global issue that affect a local community, a local community that cannot care less about Greenland and the Kilimanjaro, they probably never see it, but they will never see their lake again, as we won’t.
