On Monday, April 9th, BEMP hosted a group of 4 delegates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are visiting the United States to learn about sustainability practices. Specifically the goal of their visit was to learn about sustainability in the mining industry through the International Visitor Leadership Program by exposing them to best practices in preservation of ecosystems, environmental laws, and techniques for continuing mining while protecting the environment. The delegates included a supervisor of a copper company, a human rights activist, a manager from the Natural Resource Governance Institute, and a coordinator for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. They were accompanied by two translators from France and Senegal.

Mr. Shaw’s Wildlife and Conservation Biology class led the delegates into the bosque to demonstrate how the BEMP monitoring that Bosque School students conduct helps to inform how management and extraction practices affect our local ecosystem. They demonstrated monitoring depth to ground water, water quality, leaf litter, precipitation, and small mammal trapping. We even got to watch a porcupine climbing around in a cottonwood tree! Emma (’18), Ella (’18), and Donny (18′) also shared their research on the Rio Grande chub and Albuquerque aquatic turtles by showing of their research posters (which are hanging in the Pera Science Center). The delegates learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed their time spent in the bosque. They will take what they learned from BEMP/Bosque School and other organizations across the United States back to the Single Country Project for The Democratic Republic of Congo with the goal of increasing the sustainability of mining practices. We are very grateful that they visited!

Blog post by BEMP Educator Katie Elder