Donate

Category: Environmental Stewardship

The Future of Public Lands Depends on Us

Por Jazzari Taylor

At Latino Outdoors, our stories connect us to land, community, and responsibility. Recently, our staff member Jazzari Taylor participated in a virtual town hall (Time 37:42) with Representative Jay Obernolte (CD23) and asked a question about staffing at Joshua Tree National Park.

In response, the Congressman stated, “We need to support the people who keep our parks running and protect this incredible asset for our community.” That statement reflects a shared understanding that public lands depend on people.

Across the country, public lands are essential to our communities. They support local economies, sustain small businesses, and hold cultural meaning for Latino, Indigenous, and other communities. Places like Joshua Tree National Park are not just destinations. They are part of our collective experience and identity.

Yet these lands require care, and that care requires investment. Staffing shortages at agencies like the National Park Service (NPS) are already affecting visitor safety, resource protection, and basic operations. Proposed federal cuts and policies that open lands to development or sell-offs put additional pressure on systems that are already stretched thin. Ongoing threats, including weakened resource management plans and efforts to roll back protections for places like Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in Utah, show how decisions made in one region are connected to the future of public lands nationwide.

Joshua Tree National Park Rally, 2025

Support for public lands must go beyond statements. It must show up in federal budget decisions, in full agency funding, and in protecting lands from short-term exploitation. Investing in stewardship strengthens local economies and protects the places that communities rely on.

We call on Representative Jay Obernolte to publicly uphold these commitments by supporting the protection of all public lands, including surrounding places like Chuckwalla National Monument, and recognizing their importance to community members, small business owners, Tribal nations, and all who steward and depend on these landscapes.

Public lands belong to all of us, and so does the responsibility to speak up. Contact your members of Congress and ask where they stand on funding for public land agencies. Urge them to fully fund staffing and protect public lands from harmful policies and sell-offs.

Know who represents you. Stay engaged. Hold them accountable.

Take action:

  1. Find your Representative and Find your Senator
  2. Email or call their office on the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

When you call or write, you can say:

“I’m a constituent [city/ town/ area you live], and I’m calling to ask that you fully fund public land agencies like the National Park Service.”

“Please protect our public lands from budget cuts, staffing shortages, and potential sell-offs.”

“Our communities depend on these lands for jobs, culture, and access to the outdoors. I urge you to take action.” 

At Latino Outdoors, we know that telling our stories is only part of the work. Acting on them and holding our elected officials accountable is how we protect the places that connect us all.

Resources

Defending People and Our Lands: Why Attacks on Communities and Public Lands Are Connected

Por Latino Outdoors

This time last year, Latino Outdoors joined Tribes, community leaders, and representatives from across the country at the White House – East Wing, to celebrate and protect public lands shaped by grassroots leadership.

It was proof that community voices matter. Proof that land is worth fighting for.

Fast forward to now, across the country, we are witnessing rollbacks, budget cuts, and fear-based rhetoric being dressed up as “policy.” Harm is being normalized in real time, not only through immigration enforcement but also across environmental and public lands decisions.

Jazzari Taylor, LO’s Policy Advocate, in the White House East Wing, January 2025
President Joe Biden and former Secretary Deb Haaland, January 2025

At Latino Outdoors, we see clear parallels between these attacks. The same systems that justify surveillance, detention, and the displacement of communities are the systems that support the sell-off of public lands, the weakening of environmental protections, and the prioritization of profit over people.

This is not a coincidence. It is a strategy. Let’s be clear: people deserve protection just as much as the land does. Our communities are not separate from the outdoors. They are an extension of the land, just as the land is an extension of us. Without each other, there is no “United” States of America.

Protecting the outdoors and public lands without addressing the impacts comunidades face is irresponsible and insensitive.

As an organization, Latino Outdoors envisions a world where our comunidades experience nature as a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space, where we can share and celebrate our stories, foster leadership, and build a vibrant community of people who love and care for the outdoors.

It is not a means to an end to envision such a world, but a continuous moral compass to measure our humility, just as it is to honor Indigenous peoples, elders, and our ancestors. It means protecting land and people together, for future generations. When harm toward communities is justified in the name of “order” or “security,” environmental harm soon follows. When voices are excluded from decision-making, both people and land suffer. Latino Outdoors remains committed to defending access, equality, opportunity to learn on the land, and the many benefits it offers.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, start where you are, within your capacity and capability. Support a local family. Share trusted resources. Volunteer. Donate. Join a Latino Outdoors outing or event. Hold leaders accountable. Defend your neighbors. Defend public lands. Defend the right to live without fear. If you’re ready to take action right now, here is one immediate way to help:

  • Oppose Steve Pearce’s Nomination as Bureau of Land Management Director; the administration has nominated Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency responsible for managing 245 million acres of public lands. Pearce has a long record of supporting the sell-off of public lands and weakening land and water protections, and his deep ties to the oil and gas industry raise serious concerns about whose interests would come first. There’s a narrow window to stop this nomination before it advances, so please contact your Senators today and urge them to oppose it.

This moment calls on us to stand firmly in our values, to protect people and land with equal care, to reject fear-based narratives, and to act with intention and responsibility. Together, through collective action and community-centered leadership, we can shape a future where belonging, dignity, and stewardship guide the path forward.

You need to add a widget, row, or prebuilt layout before you’ll see anything here. 🙂

This Land is Your Land

Por Vanessa Herrera

There was an ICE raid half a mile from my house the morning we left for our trip. To call it a raid is a misnomer. A group of masked men in uniforms handcuffed and threw a Latino man walking down the street into an unmarked car. I watched this happen live on Instagram, took a deep breath, and put my kids in the car to drive to the Klamath River.

For me, being a third-generation nature-loving Chicana means straddling the space between city streets and the backcountry. I have the privilege to leave the realities of my city behind and get lost floating downstream. I felt conflicted about leaving, but I had been planning this trip for months. 

It took two days to drive from Los Angeles to the Klamath. I was there with my two children, river friends, and friends of friends. The eleven of us traveled in three rafts, roughly 50 river miles. We prepared our rafts to launch at Indian Creek. My boys played in the creek while I rigged my raft, loading it with everything we needed for the next 5 days: drinking water, tents, a stove, sleeping bags, a first aid kit, a cooler, and food. The familiar act of loading dry bags and tying in all our gear set my mind at ease. I was already more relaxed than I had been in months. 

I spent my 20s guiding rafts all across the West, chasing whitewater and honing my skills. I worked hard to excel in a sport that was not made for me. At every company I worked for, I was always the only person of color and one of only a handful of women. It was the early 2000s. There was very little diversity in professional outdoor spaces. I learned to code-switch and carved out a place for myself in this community. I made good friends and formed a deep connection to rivers and water. Rivers were the place I felt the most like myself, but racially and culturally the most out of place.  

But this trip was not about whitewater. This was a kids’ trip; meant to get my boys (ages 4 and 6) comfortable with long multi-day river trips. I want them to know wild places and to feel connected to nature, to take up space and know they belong. 

Just downstream from the put-in, we dropped into the first rapid, a wave train, a series of standing waves. I teed up my boat and pushed on my oars into the waves with my boys and friend sitting in the front of my boat. Waves after wave crashed over them. Silence. “Is this too much for them?” I ask myself. Then squeals of delight, “¡Mamá, otra! ¡Más olas! ¡Somos balseros!” I am relieved. They loved it. My wild boys have grown up in rafts and have already logged more river days than most. They named the rapid olas grandes. Somos balseros. 

We made camp a few miles downstream. Everything came out of our boats. We set up tents and the kitchen. My friends made dinner while my children swam in an eddy, a calm spot in the river. By the time dinner was ready, my boys were covered in sand. I bathed them in the river and put on dry clothes. We ate in a circle, sitting in camp chairs, taking in the canyon walls, debriefing the day.  

As the sun set, a thunderstorm moved in. My boys are scared of thunder. We ran to hide in our tent. My boys asked me for a story. I told them a story my abuela would tell me when I was little. The one where she sends each child one at a time to pick ceresas, but instead of returning with the fruit, the kids climb the tree to laugh and eat. She sends more and more children to bring back what she needs, and soon there is a party in the tree of children eating and singing “Come. Come. Come.”  My boys giggle as I add their names to the story and describe how they climbed the tree, the taste of the fruit, and the sticky juice of the fruit running down their faces. Eventually, they fell asleep. 

The days continued with more rapids between meandering stretches of flat water. We camped on a beach each night. The boys caught tadpoles. The adults took turns cooking. The boys collected sticks and skipped rocks. They learned to identify osprey, Canadian geese, and umbrella plants. They took turns rowing the raft through flat water. With no cell phone reception, the outside world faded. 

We rounded a bend and spotted a bald eagle perched on a rock. “Aguila calva,” my boys whisper. My oldest learned the Pledge of Allegiance in Kindergarten this year and knows it’s our national bird. He asks me to sing an American song, a patriotic song. We float by, and I sing the closest thing to a patriotic song I can stomach, “This Land is Your Land”, to the eagle and my children as I row.  I don’t know if I made the right decision leaving the city while my community is under attack, but these are the experiences I want for my children. This is the type of patriotism I want my boys to know. To know that this land belongs to the birds and them. It is their legacy to protect, steward, and enjoy.