Haitian and Dominicans are bonding together to save the highly endangered Ricord's Iguana and a youth group is leading the process.

From Dominican Today:

Institutions from both countries also participate in the effort, headed by a group Haitians of the Anse-a-Pitre Active Youngsters Organization (OJAA), whose main goal is to monitor and protect the Haitian area where the iguanas (Leza Rico in Creole) live and nest.

The group’s efforts have already bore fruit with a proposal to declare the zone "communal protected area" and managed to halt some activities such as the extraction of sand that threatened to ruin the potential reserve.

Having just spent time seeing the San Diego Zoos work with the conservation efforts, I am extremely excited. Outreach in countries can be hard and getting folks involved can be even harder. The International Reptile Conservation Foundation (IRCF), one of the charities kingsnake.com has supported for years, also has put work into saving the Ricord's. To learn more about the IRCF's efforts click here. Photo of the Ricord's taken from the IRCF page.