Image - BuhoMag
He is only 16 years old, but Manuel Calvo Ariza is going to cross the Arctic for a good cause: to census Greenlandic dogs, beautiful animals that, together with the residents of the area, are seeing how the conditions in the place where they have always resided are changing.
Together with his father, Manuel will travel 400 kilometers at -20ºC until he reaches Qannaq, one of the most remote places on the planet.
Arctic Challenge, name they have given to the expedition, aims to raise awareness about climate change on the one hand, and about the responsible ownership, history and culture of the Greenlandic dog on the other. As the temperature rises and the ice melts, more and more people decide to leave the region where they were born to go in search of other safer areas. By doing so, they leave the dogs there. And now there are more dogs than people.
The young 16-year-old teenager, a great lover and defender of dogs, is going to travel the Arctic to try to help them, surveying the Greenlandic canine population.
Image - BuhoMag
The last mission of Desafío Ártico will be to collect information for the universities of Malaga and Barcelona to study these beautiful dogs, and see if there are differences between the bacteria and other organic elements of purebred dogs compared to those we know in other latitudes where the climate is warmer. With this data, they will be able to know how many possibilities they have to adapt to a world where there is less and less ice.
As we see, We are not the only ones who have to challenge climate change, but also animals that have been with us for 10.000 years: dogs, who are said to be our best friends. They are always there, but are we with them when they need us?
Hopefully the expedition helps raise awareness about what it means to have and take care of a dog, as well as what we are doing to planet Earth.