Earth Day Durango 2025 kicked off Saturday morning with the annual Procession of the Species, in which some participants dressed up as plants and animals and made their way up Main Avenue.
The parade led to Buckley Park, where representatives of nonprofits, student groups and businesses mingled with the public to the tune of live music.
Earth Day Durango organizer Gail Harriss said she has planned the annual celebration for the past three years.
“Sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint is so important, and I feel like educating people in a fun environment is the way to do it,” she said.
There were more than 40 booths in Buckley Park on Saturday. Bear Smart Durango, the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Durango, SOIL Outdoor Learning Lab and other organizations attended to show their appreciation for Mother Earth and share their advocacy efforts, projects and services with the community.
Among the booths and vendors, student environmental groups with Durango High School and Fort Lewis College showed off their efforts in sustainability and advocacy.
DHS Green Team President Sophia Valdez said the Green Team, created three years ago and currently 30 student members strong, is a space for kids to learn how to be sustainable and good environmental stewards.
“It is easy and it is fun to be an environmental steward, and it doesn’t necessarily mean being the biggest and the loudest voice. Sometimes it’s just little things,” she said.
In February, the Green Team pushed a “Lights Off” campaign and convinced DHS to turn its lights off for an entire school day, saving energy and generating awareness about energy consumption and sustainability.
“It was super fun. We had lots of kids come up to us later and they were like, ‘Wow, school felt fun,’” she said. “That’s a lot of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to just be positive.”
She said she thinks of the Green Team as a light in the darkness.
“It’s so cool to see these like really young voices stepping up and making a positive change and being so passionate about the environment,” Green Team Vice President Annabeth Hanson said.
Green Team Secretary Olivia Glover said the group is currently working on reducing waste in the school cafeteria by encouraging a switch from disposables to reusables.
“Stay positive and do good stuff,” Valdez said.
The Green Team is holding an end-of-year celebratory potluck from 6 to 8 p.m. April 23.
A group of students representing the FLC Environmental Center said they have a dozen or more initiatives being spearheaded by center members.
“I personally am doing trails, maintaining trails and working with Durango Trails,” Ryan Deam, FLC sophomore, said.
FLC junior Kyle Selman said one team is focused on planting trees around the college campus. Another works on gardens and a food forest behind the Center of Southwest Studies at FLC.
The Environmental Center at FLC is meant to be a place for students to engage in environmental sustainability, he said. The center is located inside the Student Union on campus.
“They can learn how they can be more sustainable students,” he said. “They can sign up for the Digest that’ll inform (about) events that are happening around campus. We’re just trying to get students engaged with more environmental stuff.”
Deam said he and a large group of volunteers built a new trail near Animas High School last week to give students a place to walk other than the roadside.
The group accomplished drain work and filled trail spots with rock on Fort Lewis College mesa to prevent the Lamppost and Rim trails from washing away as they seem to do each spring, he said.
“That was a whole lot of rock moving in,” he said. “We probably have 50 people at any given time. And it was really fun. It’s the biggest (project) I’ve ever been part of.”
Selman said he and FLC senior Theresa Simmons are setting up a free plant-based meal program at the college that starts next week. The Environmental Center is also conducting its yearly “Weigh the Waste” program.
Waste emptied into bins at the FLC dining hall will be weighed at the end of the day and recorded; at the end of the program, the data will be compared with last year’s data, which will inform the Environmental Center whether waste-reduction efforts are on track or need to be adjusted.
“Even before I was part of the Environmental Center, they were doing Weigh the Waste and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to use as many napkins,’” Simmons said. “It just makes students more aware of what they’re taking.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
