Ever since G.L. Scarborough, a conservation flying veteran, founded Wings of Change, it has been shooting for the skies. And for the past three years, the skies have included those over the North Coast of Honduras.

VERSATILE TOOL

Appleton explains that the plane they use, a Piper Cherokee Six, is a tool far more versatile and opinion-changing than many people realize. You can:

• Photograph or video a landscape which can later be used for management, advocacy, or education, such as the photos of the badly damaged Cangrejal River watershed.
  
• "Air truth" data collected on the ground.
• Fly important people such as politicians over protected areas to win their support. One time they flew the former mayor of Negrito over Pico Pijol National Park, and he saw a 20-manzana cut upstream of his community. He became visibly upset, angry, and promised to call the police the next day to put a stop to it.
• Monitoring of any kind of change on the landscape, such as a dwindling forest corridor.
• Fly potential donors, with the hope that the winds of change might blow some benefit toward conservation. They recently flew some potential donors for Pico Bonito who have committed money to building a tourist trail.
• Fly the media. They flew a Channel 7 cameraman from La Ceiba over an oil palm processing plant upstream of Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge to document toxic contamination of the refuge.
  

But why does a Colorado-based organization take up interest in the North Coast of Honduras? The pilots look to the land for their answer. "If you look around the world for natural treasures, Honduras and the North Coast is one of those areas, and at the same time has tremendous pressure right up against it," notes Appleton. "We're at a key time in its development between sustainable living and the natural environment."

Photo: Kymberley Snarr

G.L. Scarborough, founder and chief pilot of Wings of Change, stands next to the Alejandra the organization's airplane.

NUMEROUS MISSIONS

But certainly a major reason is the people. Appleton and Scarborough have been received with open wings on the North Coast. La Ceiba's two environmental ambassadors, Pepe Herrero and Fito Steiner, presidents of Cuero y Salado and Pico Bonito respectively have made their transition a breeze. Pepe is on their board of directors and Fito sets everything up when they fly down to Honduras. They have flown now over 150 missions there.

On Wings of Change's most recent visit a couple of weeks ago, they took on a variety of missions. They flew Pico Bonito personnel in search of a location to place a deep wilderness trail in the park that without a plane, Appleton attests, could take months or years to locate. They flew conservationists over the biological corridor that connects Texiguat and Pico Bonito. They discovered what was once a corridor over a kilometer wide has been chopped to only a few hundred meters, requiring immediate conservation action. They flew over dry forest in the Aguan Valley, mapping out the territory of Honduras's only endemic bird species, a hummingbird called the Honduran Emerald. This information, they hope, can be used as part of the argument to annex this area to Pico Bonito. They also flew missions over Jeannette Kawas National Park in Tela, Capiro-Calentura National Park in Trujillo, and over Utila.

But by far, one of the newest ventures that excites the Wings of Change folk is flying politicians, especially mayors. Scarborough recalls a previous trip when he had brought up the mayor of Tela. They were flying over Laguna de los Micos to map its perimeter when the mayor observed an illegal cutting. He grimaced and referred to the invader by name. Surprised, Scarborough asked how he knew whom he was from 4,000 feet up. "Because he had applied for a permit to cut there and we rejected it. I'll take care of that next week." Scarborough later found at that he did send in police.

FLYING ALCALDES

Recently Wings of Change had brought up mayors from Olanchito, Morazan, Yoro, and others. Each time they go up, they see potential for change. "We want to expand the alcalde-flying program," Appleton asserts.

They also have other plans for increasing their effectiveness in the air (by purchasing a better plane, GPS system, and an aerial camera mounted in the floor) as well as on the ground. They plan on using their web site for greater citizen involvement and as an educational tool. They imagine putting reports and photos up so that school groups can see their country from above. Even though they can only port three people plus the pilot, these people are the ambassadors from the sky. If students fly, they are expected to report to their peers about their high-flying discoveries. If politicians go up, Wings of Change tries to track a decision process leading to greater conservation. They posit that if they bring the same mayors up in successive years, their results may be even higher.

Appleton sums up their approach: "We want to change the way we see the world and the way we make policy decisions about it." And those are words of change.