This year’s Earth Day had a different shine to it than past years.

While we were shivering at 0℃ here at our annual Fort Collins, CO community celebration, our friends at COEAS in Honduras were in the thick of another heat wave, having put out yet another forest fire in their newly designated National Wildlife Refuge, and inaugurating the new protected area to the public.

After a unanimous congressional vote, 12,620 acres of forest and a water source serving 5,000 families will be permanently protected as the Wildlife Refuge of Suyapa, Luís Hernán Baca Valladares, “MERO”.