GreenLatinos

Tag: blog

  • COP30: Descarbonizando la Movilidad: Un Camino hacia la Salud Pública y la Justicia Ambiental en las Américas

    COP30: Descarbonizando la Movilidad: Un Camino hacia la Salud Pública y la Justicia Ambiental en las Américas

    The U.S. Capitol during GreenLatinos Advocacy Week in Hispanic Heritage Month.

    For Latino communities across the country, this fight is deeply personal. For decades, we have lived on the frontlines of environmental harm, from the refineries in Houston’s East End to the highways slicing through predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—our cornerstone environmental protection—has been our shield, giving us the power to push back against projects that threaten our health and future. And now, it’s under attack again. The Energy Permitting Reform Act would strip away these protections, silencing public voices and paving the way for fossil fuel projects that we know will disproportionately harm communities like ours.

    This election and anticipated attacks on environmental and social protections has shown us the urgent need to stay vigilant and unwavering in our commitment to environmental justice. We cannot allow lawmakers to rubber-stamp policies that perpetuate the same harms of the fossil fuel industry under the guise of “progress.” This bill is a Trojan horse, fast-tracking fossil fuel projects while sprinkling in token clean energy measures to distract from the harm. Sacrificing frontline communities to secure incremental wins is not progress—it’s betrayal.

    As a community advocate, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when we let harmful legislation slide. Growing up in Whittier, CA, a predominantly Latino community plagued by air pollution, I lived the impacts of environmental injustice every day. NEPA was one of the few tools that gave us a fighting chance—a voice to demand cleaner air and a healthier future. Now, as I see these same protections threatened, I can’t help but think of the next generation and what kind of future we’re leaving for them.

    GreenLatinos advocates walking in front of the U.S. Capitol during Advocacy Week.

    This election was a wake-up call: we can’t wait for ideal circumstances to fight back. The time to act is now. If we give an inch, they will take a mile—and our communities will pay the price. GreenLatinos stands firm in our commitment to environmental justice and to ensuring that no frontline community bears the brunt of harmful legislation. We’ve fought too hard for too long to let the fossil fuel industry dictate our clean energy future.

    We must reject the Energy Permitting Reform Act, no matter what form it takes, and demand bold, just policies that don’t compromise our values or our people. This is a moment for courage, for unity, and for an unshakable commitment to equity. We refuse to repeat the harms of the past or bolster the efforts of the industries that have caused them.

    The clean energy transition is our chance to write a different story—a story where every community, especially those long overlooked, has a say and shares in the benefits. Let’s not let this moment slip away. Together, we can ensure a future where progress uplifts everyone—not just a privileged few.

    Irene Burga is GreenLatinos Climate Justice and Clean Air Program Director.

  • COP30: Decarbonizing Mobility: A Path to Public Health and Environmental Justice in the Americas

    COP30: Decarbonizing Mobility: A Path to Public Health and Environmental Justice in the Americas

    The U.S. Capitol during GreenLatinos Advocacy Week in Hispanic Heritage Month.

    For Latino communities across the country, this fight is deeply personal. For decades, we have lived on the frontlines of environmental harm, from the refineries in Houston’s East End to the highways slicing through predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—our cornerstone environmental protection—has been our shield, giving us the power to push back against projects that threaten our health and future. And now, it’s under attack again. The Energy Permitting Reform Act would strip away these protections, silencing public voices and paving the way for fossil fuel projects that we know will disproportionately harm communities like ours.

    This election and anticipated attacks on environmental and social protections has shown us the urgent need to stay vigilant and unwavering in our commitment to environmental justice. We cannot allow lawmakers to rubber-stamp policies that perpetuate the same harms of the fossil fuel industry under the guise of “progress.” This bill is a Trojan horse, fast-tracking fossil fuel projects while sprinkling in token clean energy measures to distract from the harm. Sacrificing frontline communities to secure incremental wins is not progress—it’s betrayal.

    As a community advocate, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when we let harmful legislation slide. Growing up in Whittier, CA, a predominantly Latino community plagued by air pollution, I lived the impacts of environmental injustice every day. NEPA was one of the few tools that gave us a fighting chance—a voice to demand cleaner air and a healthier future. Now, as I see these same protections threatened, I can’t help but think of the next generation and what kind of future we’re leaving for them.

    GreenLatinos advocates walking in front of the U.S. Capitol during Advocacy Week.

    This election was a wake-up call: we can’t wait for ideal circumstances to fight back. The time to act is now. If we give an inch, they will take a mile—and our communities will pay the price. GreenLatinos stands firm in our commitment to environmental justice and to ensuring that no frontline community bears the brunt of harmful legislation. We’ve fought too hard for too long to let the fossil fuel industry dictate our clean energy future.

    We must reject the Energy Permitting Reform Act, no matter what form it takes, and demand bold, just policies that don’t compromise our values or our people. This is a moment for courage, for unity, and for an unshakable commitment to equity. We refuse to repeat the harms of the past or bolster the efforts of the industries that have caused them.

    The clean energy transition is our chance to write a different story—a story where every community, especially those long overlooked, has a say and shares in the benefits. Let’s not let this moment slip away. Together, we can ensure a future where progress uplifts everyone—not just a privileged few.

    Irene Burga is GreenLatinos Climate Justice and Clean Air Program Director.

  • The Future of Sharks Depends on Us

    The Future of Sharks Depends on Us

    By: Dr. Camila Cáceres, Dr. Val Schüll, Kristin Butler

    Sharks have been around for almost 450 million years, before trees evolved on Earth and longer than Saturn has had its rings. Sharks are an incredibly diverse group of fish, with over 500 different species ranging from 8 inches in length (the dwarf lantern shark) to 60 feet (the whale shark, the largest fish in the ocean). Sharks live in a wide variety of habitats, from coral reefs to deep pelagic waters and even freshwater ecosystems. However, despite sharks’ ancient history, powerful adaptations, and numerous species, in recent decades global shark (and ray) populations have declined by an estimated 71%, primarily due to overfishing (catching too many sharks) and bycatch (when sharks are unintentionally caught by fishers and their gear). The slow reproductive rates of sharks hinder their ability to rebound from these pressures, resulting in the risk of extinction for numerous species and possible disruption of marine ecosystems.

    Given the important role many shark species play in ocean ecosystems, such as maintaining biodiversity, regulating marine populations, nutrient transport, and supporting coral reef health, scientists and conservationists have been working diligently to protect sharks. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has expanded its protections for sharks globally, NOAA has banned shark finning in the Atlantic Ocean, and several shark species have been added to the list of Endangered Species Act in the U.S. 

    Due to these recent conservation efforts, some shark populations have started to recover in a few regions in the U.S. Florida, North Carolina, California and Hawai’i are some notable places that have reported a diversity of shark species and improved numbers in recent years, yet there are mixed responses from the community regarding healthier shark populations. Fishers are reporting losing their catch (like tuna, snapper, grouper, etc.) to sharks when sharks bite, or completely take, the fish off the line. This term has been coined depredation, the act of a shark removing or damaging a fish hooked by a fisher before it can be landed. Depredation results in the loss of catch and/or gear, causing frustration among fishers and potentially jeopardizing fish populations if fishing pressure for target species increases in response to depredation.

    Depredation is a tricky issue because both sharks and fishers are vying for the same scarce food resources. Sharks are attracted to chum and bait, while fishers’ increasingly efficient fishing equipment and technology can heighten the likelihood of interactions, and can lead to the perception that there are more sharks in recent times. However, we must consider the concept of shifting baselines when discussing depredation. Shifting baselines describes a phenomenon in which each generation comes to accept increasingly deteriorated environmental conditions as the new standard. Therefore, even though some fishers may be experiencing a recent increase in shark presence in some areas, it is still far less than what previous generations of fishers encountered given that global shark populations are still below historical levels. 

    The SHARKED Act (S. 2314/ H.R. 207) recently  passed the House of Representatives and out of the Senate Commerce Committee and aims to establish a task force dedicated to examining shark behavior and providing recommendations. Once the bill is passed out of the Senate, it only needs to be signed by the President to become law. Regrettably, the legislation does not explicitly prohibit the task force from suggesting shark culls or major reductions in population as potential solutions, thereby allowing for the possibility of indiscriminate and mass shark killings to be used as a tool to mitigate depredation. Although the bill is written very broadly, sharks are presented as a problem that needs to be mitigated, as opposed to being a valuable marine resource that we need to protect and learn to coexist with as populations recover. Despite the fact that sharks hold sacred and ancestral significance for some Indigenous, tribal, and native communities, these groups are not represented in the task force. 

    In order to protect shark populations and promote healthy marine ecosystems while conserving the blue economy, fishers’s livelihood, and a vital food source for our communities, we must come together to seek feasible and realistic solutions to the shark depredation issue. Politicians, scientists, conservationists and the fishing industry must all work together to find ways to reduce negative interactions between sharks and fishers and coexist with these amazing animals.  Reassessing fishing locations, practices, and timing can lessen the overlap, while studying which shark species and which fisheries have the most conflict can help us prevent further losses of catch. 

    Successful conservation will lead to more sharks in the water. However, our response to depredation cannot be to reduce shark populations, as this  will only hurt ocean health and the communities that rely on it. Instead, we must work together and look to historical knowledge about how we can all thrive together.

  • George Meléndez Wright Made It Right. We Can Too.

    George Meléndez Wright Made It Right. We Can Too.

    135 years ago on October 1, an Act of Congress established Yosemite National Park making it the third national park designated after Yellowstone and Sequoia. There, the first Latino National Park Service employee of El Salvadoran heritage joined the Park Service as an Assistant Park Naturalist in 1927: George Meléndez Wright. At 23 years old, Melendéz Wright wrote park history articles, taught field classes, and helped establish the Yosemite Museum.

    At the time that Meléndez Wright started his career in national park stewardship, the National Park Service managed Yosemite more like an amusement park than a living ecosystem and cultural landscape. The Park Service once allowed visitors to feed bears–a tourist attraction that undermined the safety of visitors and wildlife alike. Meléndez Wright spoke out against this practice, urging the importance of scientific observation and data to steward our national parks. 

    By 1928 with a year of public service under his belt, Meléndez Wright sought out to make right the Park Service’s lack of wildlife management strategies. He conducted the first wildlife inventory and established the National Park Service’s first wildlife management plan titled, Fauna No. 1. That plan and a subsequent wildlife survey and management plan, Fauna No. 2, would guide the National Park Service Wildlife Division for years after his untimely death in 1936. 

    While endeavoring to complete these novel wildlife inventories, the Congressionally authorized budget fell short. Meléndez Wright was so committed to biological well being in national parks that he used more than half of his own wealth to finish the surveys and pay the salaries of his biology team. 

    Through these wildlife inventories, Meléndez Wright’s management plans led to novel policies in national park management: an end to the bear feeding attractions, stewardship of fallen trees and snags as habitat and food sources for symbiotic wildlife, reintroduction of native species exterminated from a park, protections for predatory species to predate upon other animals in the park, and more. 

    With these policies, Melendéz Wright made the case for the establishment of the Wildlife Division at the National Park Service. He led the Wildlife Division until President Roosevelt appointed him to head the Natural Resources Board in 1934 to integrate biology, zoology and more biological sciences in Parks across the country, and research areas that would ultimately become national parks, like the Everglades in Florida and Big Bend in Texas. 

    George Meléndez Wright’s life work modernized the National Park Service, transforming the agency into a better steward of the ecosystems where national parks belong. But today, there is not a single place at Yosemite National Park commemorating Melendéz Wright’s legacy. No exhibits, no signage, and no storytelling infrastructure recount the remarkable sacrifices and contributions Melendéz Wright offered our nation. 

    Amid another MAGA Republican government shutdown, the forced resignation of more than 100,000 public servants on September 30th, the looming threat of increased reductions in federal labor force, and the ongoing erasure of historical and climate change interpretation at national park units, it could not be more clear that the Trump Administration’s aim is to dismantle the function of public lands nationwide: to allow us to keep calling the United States and territories home. Because national parks and the diverse array of public lands nationwide retain their wild, scenic, and historic characteristics, we get the benefit of remaining in right relationship with the natural world and we instill a sense of belonging in this nation for everyone. 

  • From Erasure to Empowerment: Latino History, Public Lands, and the Fight for Truth

    From Erasure to Empowerment: Latino History, Public Lands, and the Fight for Truth

    By: Olivia Juarez

    Will you tell the next generation you did everything you could to defend public land and the truth? Take the pledge to future generations.

    Cinco de Mayo has long been misunderstood and misrepresented in mainstream American culture,  stripped of its roots in anti-imperialist resistance and Latino resilience. Today, reclaiming the truth behind Latine history is more urgent than ever. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. That day is today, September 16, during National Hispanic Heritage Month. Rather, Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory at la Batalla de Puebla, when against all odds an outgunned and outnumbered battalion pushed the French Empire out of Puebla, México.

    The importance of these dates is underlined by extreme right wing policies.  President Trump’s Executive Order to whitewash history is an attempt to minimize the contributions and struggles of communities of color in shaping this nation, erase the realities of oppression, and silence honest, inclusive conversations about U.S. history on public lands and in public institutions.

    GreenLatinos Takes Back Cinco de Mayo in response to this kind of erasure. Cinco de Mayo is not a party theme — it is a symbol of resistance and an assertion of sovereignty and dignity in the face of authoritarianism. This moment matters not only to Mexican-Americans, but to all whose histories are too often dismissed, distorted, or ignored. Cinco de Mayo is one victorious battle in the history of Latinoamérica alongside the Jayuya Uprising, The Haitian Revolution, The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, The Sandinista Revolution, and The Cuban Revolution, where communities stood up against the odds to defend their land, water and cultures. 

    On May 5, GreenLatinos was joined by Sehila Casper of Latinos in Heritage Conservation and Christian La Mont of Latino Outdoors for an online encuentro exploring the history of Cinco de Mayo’s relevance to mainstream American culture, and the utilization of social media for storytelling and recording our histories in our own words. 

    Christian began with a personal story about his family’s involvement in the Mexican Revolution and used photographs to illustrate how individuals can shape their own narratives and preserve community history through social media.

    Sehila with the support of Team LHC’s call on all to support the preservation and accurate interpretation of Latine history in the U.S. and territories  of cultural, historical and social importance. Nominate an Endangered Latinx Landmark.

    Four actions you can take to preserve and reclaim your histories and cultures.

    1. Interview your family members
    2. Take photos
    3. Write a blog post – contact [email protected] to inquire about publishing a GreenLatinos.org blog post or contribute your story to the Latino Outdoors Yo Cuento Blog. 
    4. Share what you document and your stories on social media.

    GreenLatinos Founding President and CEO Mark Magaña says that we are living in a documentary moment. One day there will be documentaries about what we did to confront those who seek to drill, mine, pollute and otherwise destroy our cultural heritage and communities. Who will make those documentaries and where will their sources come from? Take your story, your culture, your home, and your acts of solidarity into your own hands by acting today and sign the pledge to defend public land for future generations. To Take Back Cinco de Mayo is to take back our histories, our freedoms,  y nuestra narrativa, all year long.