JOYA-LA BARRETA ECOLOGICAL PARK, Mexico (AP) — As night fell, a rumble of frogs filled the air in this park outside the central Mexican city of Queretaro. In the sky, small stars appeared one by one, aligned with constellations.

Juan Carlos Hernandez used his weight to adjust a large telescope. “Aim at me, Rich!” he shouted to his friend. Ricardo Soriano focused a green laser on a small patch of cloud, targeting where Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas will soon appear.

Hernandez and other amateur astronomers worked to certify the Joya-La Barreta Ecological Park last year as the first urban night sky in Latin America by DarkSky International, an organization that works to educate the public about the harms of indiscriminate lighting.

Located at approximately 8,520 feet (2,600 meters) above sea level on the outskirts of Queretaro, the park provides free access to the night sky. While there are over 200 dark sky sites globally, the Joya-La Barreta park is only one of 11 in areas considered urban. However, its dark sky status is constantly under threat from increasing light pollution and urbanization.

Fading stars

Hernandez, who just turned 40, has relentlessly championed the night sky for more than 20 years.

The president of Queretaro’s Astronomical Society and one of the founders of stargazing tourism agency Astronite, the aeronautical engineer by day has been hunting dark areas to observe the stars since he can remember.

“In 2014, you could see Omega (Centauri) sitting in the sky just above the city,” he said of a constellation over 17,000 light years away. “Today it is unimaginable.”

A 2023 study that analyzed data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers found that artificial lighting brightens the night sky worldwide by about 10% each year. As of 2016, more than 80% of the world lived under light-polluted skies.

Studies in Mexico show that increased urbanization and the need for urban lighting in conjunction with security issues have caused more light pollution.

Fernando Avila Castro of the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said a good analogy to explain light pollution is noise pollution.

“We constantly hear traffic noise from the street, but after a certain level the intensity becomes annoying, it doesn’t let you rest,” he said. “The same thing happens with light. Especially because all living things have this internal clock, the circadian rhythm, which depends on the external values ​​of light.”

“When we go to bed we forget that a whole world remains active” Castro said.

Under the spotlight

The moon and stars are the source of light that guides the nocturnal activity of plants and animals – determining when animals come out of hiding to find food, when plants reproduce and when certain animal species migrate. Artificial light has flourished since the industrial revolution of the 1800s, with efficient, affordable, state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in widespread use.

“There’s also this whole biodiversity part,” Analette Casazza, president of another astronomy society in Queretaro, said as she stood under the stars last Saturday night. “We can hear the song of all the animals that live here (in Joya-La Barreta). A lot of these pollinating animals, their activity is nocturnal.”

Joya-La Barreta Park hosts 123 species of vertebrates.

“The real challenge we have is getting citizens involved,” said María Guadalupe Espinosa de los Reyes Ayala, Queretaro’s environment secretary. “When people come to a place like this and realize how much it has to offer, they see the need to protect and preserve it.”

Conservation challenge

Hernandez and other astronomy activists continue to fight to preserve the park’s nighttime conditions and pass state regulations to reduce light pollution.

Hernandez is also fighting for the enforcement of Mexico’s General Law of Ecological Balance, which was passed in 2021.

The law provides general recommendations to minimize light pollution. It has been recognized in some Mexican states such as Sonora, Baja California and Hidalgo to protect observatories and professional astronomical observations. But in Queretaro, Hernandez filed an amendment with the 2023 state congress to enforce the rules, but has had no luck.

Three times a year, the citizen astronomers at Joya-La Barreta must submit light pollution reports to DarkSky. Increased light pollution levels or a lack of visitors to the park for astronomical activities could jeopardize their certification. For Ricardo Soriano, another founder of Astronite, that’s a constant cause for concern.

“If the contamination continues to grow and the government doesn’t support us and doesn’t do more to see more beyond our certification, then we could lose it,” Soriano said. “We have to leave Queretaro to try to find another park like this. I hope they can see it as something important for the state and the community.”

On Saturday, as the comet came into focus, 10-year-old Matti Gonzalez, along with his parents Antonio Gonzalez and Brenda Estrella, broke into smiles and looked through their telescope.

“What are you going to dress up as on Halloween?” Gonzalez asked his son. “An astronaut!” shouted Matti.

Throughout the night, Hernandez ran back and forth between the participants with a red spotlight guiding his path. He explained certain celestial bodies or helped focus a scope on the rings of Saturn. He paused for a moment and thought about Carl Sagan and how the astronomer said that the same elements formed in the last gasps of a dying star – hydrogen, oxygen, carbon – are elements found in our bodies today.

“Looking at the sky is the most spiritual experience there is” Hernandez said excitedly. “It is the connection to our true molecular origins, but also to our cosmic destiny.”

As he looked up at the stars he said: “For me, the most important thing is that future generations know that a resource that their grandparents had is being lost.”