Opinion Matola s Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center is credited with having helped spark a greater environmental awareness in the nation.
Mexico’s southern jungle loses firebrand environmental advocate Sharon Matola lived simply, dedicating most of her life to protecting tropical wildlife
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The year is 1983. Surrounded by a small menagerie of injured rare wild animals, Sharon Matola has a decision to make.
The animals in her charge are unable to take care of themselves in the wild, and they are in the middle of the Mexico-Belize tropical forest with no real access to help or provisions.
After stints as a Mexican circus performer, jungle-trained member of the air force and a wildlife documentary filmmaker, Matola “was at a crossroads,” she was to tell the Washington Post later of that moment.