Dr Bauta Joins Board Of Regional Child Advocacy Center

By Darlene Jackson

Dr Humberto Bauta, retired Newtown pediatrician, recently joined the Board of Directors of the Danbury Regional Child Advocacy Center, which works to protect children by supporting families. He was recipient of the Dr Keren Alexander Community Service Award in 2001 at the 25th Annual Meeting of the agency, then called The Danbury Regional Commission on Child Care, Rights, and Abuse, Inc.

Though retired, Dr Bauta volunteers two days a week to help children professionally. Tuesday mornings he is at the Pediatric Allergy Clinic and Thursday mornings he is with the Well Van that travels to where the children are. Children are all “a great joy,” he says.

Dr Bauta came to New York from Cuba in 1962 and met his wife, Gretchen, who though a native of Canada, grew up in England. She is an anthropology graduate of McGill University in Montreal and has a social work degree from London School of Economics. They were married in September 1970 and came to Newtown in 1972.

The Bautas’ interests are many and their enthusiasm contagious. They are both passionate conservationists. They collect original paintings, he grows orchids, and serves on the board of the Connecticut Grand Opera and Orchestra in Stamford. He even has a collection of antique highchairs.

Reforestation is a major interest both at home and abroad. The couple just returned from a three-week trip to a threatened forest habitat of the migratory monarch butterfly. The monarch sanctuaries are just north of Morelia, Mexico. They are 10,000–11,000 feet up and accessible only by foot or horseback.

In this area, illegal poaching is destroying the microclimate needed by the hibernating butterflies. Poachers from Mexico City build logging roads to cut the big pine and oyamel fir trees that provide the canopy needed by the butterflies during the months of November to March. The colorful butterflies migrate from the northern states and Canada, arriving in Mexico at the beginning of November around the date of the Mexican holiday of Dos Dias de Muertos or Day of the Dead.

The Aztecs believed that the monarchs were the returning spirits of slain warriors. The monarchs hang in thick clusters on the branches of the fir trees making beautiful multicolored clusters.

None of the migrating monarchs has been to Mexico before. This Mexican generation starts north early in March in a spectacular nuptial flight. The males die and the females lay the first generation of eggs in the milkweed plants growing in Texas. The milkweed plant is the sole food of the monarch caterpillars. The mature butterflies go north as land warms and the milkweed comes into flower. It is the third to fifth generation of the summer butterflies that returns to Mexico a distance of thousands of miles.

In this country, the spraying of milkweed by farmers who see it as a pest and the overall lack of nectar-producing wildflowers to sustain the butterflies during the summer are serious threats to the long- term survival of this amazing migratory phenomenon.

The reforestation work on the butterfly sanctuaries was originated by Jose Luis Alvarez, a Mexican forester at his nursery, Vivero Hacienda La Cruz. He grows thousands of oyamel and fir seedlings that he gives to the indigenous community groups free of charge. Their mountainous land is depleted by the constant planting of crops like corn, which have diminished the thin topsoil. Mr Alvarez teaches the value of trees and a sustainable forestry. The communities are becoming protective of their trees and are starting to resist the illegal logging done by outsiders, sometimes at gunpoint.

Another area of interest to the Bautas is Newfoundland, Canada. Since the moratorium on cod fishing, the little fishing villages of Newfoundland have lost their economic and cultural base. The Bautas, working with artists and business advisors, are trying to revive traditional crafts unique to the area, particularly the mat making introduced in the last century by the medical missionary, Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who is a great hero of early Canada.

There is currently great enthusiasm in the Bauta household in anticipation of the marriage of the oldest child, Christian, to Tess Munro. The young people are working in Chicago, but they met in China, and will be married in Boston this September. Tess provides AIDS education to Asian groups in Chicago. Christian is an investment analyst.

The Bautas’ daughter, Pilar, is in New York City studying to become homeopath. The youngest child, Nicolas, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, is restoring old buildings and developing a nonprofit studio space for his fellow artists.

Dr Bauta will be working on the Program Committee of the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) Board of Directors and will have found yet another way to help children.

The CAC Board meets the second Wednesday morning of each month, except in the summer, at the office a 268 Main Street, Danbury. It serves 14 towns, including Newtown, and receives money from the Department of Children and Families, two United Ways, area towns, other grants and donations, and fund raising, for which the board is responsible. For more information, call 748-4245 or call Darlene Jackson, nominating chairman of the Board of Directors, at 426-5192.