Thank you to each community member who participated in the 2024 Latino Conservation Week (LCW) Photo Contest. LCW is an initiative of Hispanic Access Foundation. This week-long celebration of community, cultura, and conservation was created to support Latinx communities with increased access to the outdoors to protect our natural environment.

This year, each photo spoke to the annual theme of amor y comunidad and contributed to our ever-growing story of what conversation and outdoor engagement means to us.

FIRST PLACE

Photograph by Lorena Rodriguez
Our children and youth are the seeds of this great Milpa we inhabit and call community. They carry within them the possibility of blooming into the flower of collective love.

To care for our seeds is to bring them to the earth, to let their bodies be covered in mud, to show them where the water comes from, to teach them to wait patiently for the flower and then the fruit. It is to share with them the secrets of how to heal plants naturally, to tell them stories about the colors of the corn, and to remind them that we ourselves are made of maíz.

To love and protect our community and territories means tending to our seeds with care, working together to open fertile, green furrows for their lives, and passing on memory, songs, and stories.

The Chicha Collective is a community process that has been growing for four years. We are a Escuela Popular of art and permaculture, made up mostly of immigrant and chicano artists. We are guided by curiosity and by the exploration of our roots and our identities. We believe that art is a vehicle for expression, for community cohesion, and a form of spirituality.

This photo was taken on September 7th, during our first corn harvest, under the Corn Moon. 

SECOND PLACE

Photograph by Angel de Jesus Huerta
Love/Amor looks like presence.

When my brothers and I are on the water, fishing and kayaking, we are not just spending time outdoors; we’re practicing connection. Each paddle, each moment of quiet, is a way of honoring the land and waters that have provided for generations, and a means of quality time with those I love most. 

This is amor y comunidad — a relationship built on care, gratitude, and deep respect for the land that sustains and heals us.

Land Acknowledgement: These photos were taken on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Nʉmʉnʉʉ Sookobitʉ (Comanche) peoples. I honor their enduring relationship with these lands and recognize their ongoing presence, resilience, and stewardship.

THIRD PLACE

Photograph by Carlos “Charlie” Campos
Loving and protecting public lands means treating them not just as places to visit, but as living, shared treasures that connect us to each other and to the Earth. It looks like treading lightly on trails, leaving no trace, and respecting wildlife as neighbors rather than intrusions. It looks like speaking up for policies that safeguard forests, waters, coastlines, and open spaces from exploitation, so that they remain sources of peace, joy, and healing for future generations. It looks like volunteering to restore habitats, picking up litter even when it isn’t ours, and inviting others—especially those historically excluded, to share in the beauty and belonging these lands offer. Above all, it looks like remembering that public lands are a gift held in common, and that to protect them is to love both the Earth and each other.

Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge that we gather today on the ancestral homelands and unceded territory of Indigenous Peoples who have cared for and stewarded the Boulder Valley for countless generations. These Nations include the Hinóno’éí (Arapaho), Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), Núuchiu (Ute), and many others who lived, traded, and traveled across these lands. We honor their histories, their descendants, and their enduring presence, while recognizing the painful legacy of forced removal and broken treaties.

FOURTH PLACE

Photograph by Rebeca Garcia
Whenever we visit the motherland, we have to go on long walks taking in the beauty of Oaxaca. There is so much to grieve in this world, but nature gives us the gift of joy, play, and energy! On this walk, my brother and I wanted to make fun pictures using the flowers we found. I love looking at them to remember that the future is bright and full of so much color. 

Land Acknowledgement: Zapotec land