Story Text
In Rosario, my city, there is a woman with a very interesting life story. She is Beba, the environmental warrior who defends the Paraná River and saves the lives of hundreds of animals.
María Esther Linaro, 72, better known as Beba, is a painter, environmentalist and the founder of Mundo Aparte, a rehabilitation center for endangered wildlife species. She worked for many years as a teacher at the University of Fine Arts in the city of Rosario. She also restored antique paintings. A few years later, life led her to get involved with environmentalism and wildlife and that is when everything changed. On August 15, 1990 she took over as general director of the Rosario City Zoo, the first in all of Argentina. She had a purpose, to close the doors of the zoo to give a better quality of life to the animals and to keep them away from the compulsory exposure to which they were subjected. This caused Beba many legal problems and she was fired before achieving her goal.
In 1997, the Municipality of Rosario decided to close the doors of the Zoo in order to appropriate the land where it was located and use it for a real estate business. What happened to the animals inside, they were abandoned in a garbage dump located in the city. Beba could not bear the sadness and started a lawsuit against those responsible. A few years later, she won the lawsuit, taking care of those animals that had survived abandonment and poor living conditions. She founded Mundo Aparte, in 2001, with the purpose of saving those lives.
She left behind her life as a university professor and has been fighting for ecology and animal rights for more than 20 years. Today, Mundo Aparte is an ecological interpretation center dedicated to the recovery and rehabilitation of different species of flora and fauna endangered by illegal trafficking, petting and poaching. It is located in the city of Rosario, Argentina, in front of the wetlands of the Paraná River Delta. Among other achievements, Beba succeeded in banning the use of animals in circuses throughout the country. She became one of the most representative people of the environmental movement in Argentina.
