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Latino Outdoors Interview: A Conversation with Luis Guillermo Benitez

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Tell us your story, what is your connection to the land and conservation?

My connection to lands and conservation started as a young boy in Ecuador. My father’s family all grew up on a ranch outside of Quito and that is where I also spent most of my childhood. I was taught at a very early age if you take care of the land it will also take care of you.

How is this connection celebrated? How is it understood or misunderstood in our community and culture—as well as in the broader conservation community?

This connection is celebrated in my community and culture mostly by being outside! But in the larger conservation community I think we have a responsibility to ask ourselves some larger questions. The Latino culture has always faced challenges with accessing some of our outdoor resources in Colorado. They are a huge resource here in our state and when you start to ask the question of what access could or should be, I think access is trying to understand if there is a better way to approach permitting and access on federal lands because when you think about it, for smaller rural towns, that access translates into economic development opportunities. When it comes to workforce training, within the outdoor industry the path to a functioning and usable education can sometimes be a bit disjointed. We are exploring everything from trail building to advanced manufacturing and trying to assess if there is a way to codify some of these amazing skill sets into a quantifiable education.

Latino identities are connected to the outdoors, the environment, and conservation—how are those words reflective of YOU and how is it expressed?  

I will always remember as a young boy in Ecuador, my Tío took me to a hillside overlooking our family’s ranch and told me that wherever I went and whatever I did with my life that this tierra, this land, will always be a part of me and be there for me. That gave me a tremendous sense of place and of pride. I feel that our culture and community here in Colorado also has that sense of place and pride. It is a feeling of home and of what is possible.

What needs to change and how do we grow, celebrate, and have the broader conservation movement connect with the role and values Latinos bring to the field?

If you look at the current demographics, Latino/Chicano culture will be the predominant cultures of our state in the near future. We need to understand from an education perspective what we are doing to engage the next generation of adventurers and conservationists. I share this with most people I talk to: EVERYONE needs to have a succession plan! Who will replace me? You? What will their passions be? Their education? How will we make conservation important to them? I feel that it is the connection to the lands we recreate on and utilize that will be an important first step.

Luis Benitez. Photo by Didrik Johnck.

Luis Benitez. Photo by Didrik Johnck.

Why does this issue and work matter to you?

It matters to me because the outdoor industry in Colorado has given me so much. It has given me a community, an education, a job, and a purpose. It has allowed me to connect who I am with what I get to do every day. Imagine if more people felt that sense of purpose and tenacity, what our world could be.

What does success in all of this look like to you? 

Success to me looks like more of us out there in the workforce within the outdoor industry. I used to joke with other Latino friends that conservation was left up to people who worked the lands directly, and not people in the city. I think success will be when everyone understands how interconnected the lands and our cities really are. How important green space is to a culture and a community.

 

How has your work with the current office of Outdoor Recreation been reflective of all this?

I have 4 primary goals for my office here in Colorado:

  1. 1. Economic Development:Understand who is here and who isn’t here. If we can help companies move here or existing companies that are growing relocate within the state, that plays a huge part in the health and viability of the industry within the state. Also, try to help companies that may be struggling. Ensure that people remain connected to this amazing community the outdoor industry offers within Colorado. Sometimes this help comes in the shape of fiscal help with tax credits or incentives, sometimes it is simply ensuring that people are connecting to those best positioned to help. I believe this should apply to for-profit and nonprofit companies alike.
  2. Conservation and Stewardship ( Access ):We have to take care of the product that allows us to HAVE viable businesses and lands to recreate on. I truly believe there is a better way to allow access to our federal lands. As individual users, Colorado has access that is unmatched in most other states, but when it comes to trying to start an outfitter and/or potentially a wilderness education school, or a mountain bike guide service, basically anything that requires permitting, it is incredibly hard. My goal is to help start this conversation for Colorado at a state and hopefully federal level to see if we can’t have a different conversation about access.
  3. Education: I mentioned before we have a Ski Area Management degree here in Colorado. What about a Trail Building Degree? Advanced Sewing for Outdoor Apparel? Advanced Manufacturing? The possibilities are limitless. This also ties into what we are doing for the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. We have to understand the legacy we are leaving and the support structure we are creating to empower the next generation with the great ideas to rise up and thrive. We need to focus on the demographics of our state, and the power that holds.
  4. Industry Anchors:I call this goal Industry Anchors because these are some of the things that anchor industry sectors in our state. We have the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, among other amazing companies whose headquarters are here. How can we impact those that are here and thinking about coming here? Not to mention industry trade shows and large events like the GoPro Mountain games. Colorado is a nexus for disruptive innovation within the outdoor industry; I want to ensure that stays anchored here in Colorado for decades to come.

A final thought…

If you truly are willing to challenge yourself, you can change your world.

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Luis Guillermo Benitez is the Director of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office. He is also one of the more experienced and respected professional guides in the outdoor field and leadership development. He has summited the top of the famed “Seven Summits” 32 times, including being a six-time summiteer of Mt. Everest.

This post was originally posted on La Madre Tierra. Check out LMT for more work on amplifying the Latino narrative and voices supporting our public lands. 

Magical Carbon Dioxide (CO2) drawdown right underneath your feet!

       Since I was a little child, I remember playing with rocks. I was digging for them, grabbing or throwing them on the ravine, or quebrada, right in front of my house back in Puerto Rico. Sitting at big rocks while the females of my street and I cleaned clothes after a Hurricane at the quebrada was another way I found a connection with rocks. However, it was not until very recently that I found out how incredible and magical rocks are for our mother earth. As an environmental educator who is recently learning scientifically how rocks play a role in mitigating climate change, I was intrigued by Hilley & Porder’s (2008) article. The first sentence of the article states that silicate weathering is “the most important regulator of atmospheric CO2 over million years timescales” (p.16855).  With this brief blog post, I will first define silicate and silicate rocks, explain silicate weathering, and conclude with summary of the blog post. I am looking to write another brief blog post later on in regards to climate change and the relation to the Latino community. In the mean time, I encourage all of you to search and ask yourselves how does climate change relate to our Latino community and culture.

       While remembering my times climbing the rocks back in my barrio in Puerto Rico to yell “¡Tarzan y Chita!”, I ask myself now, what rock was I on top of? How did it form? Is the rock a silicate rock? I am hoping that the following information can help me find answers to some of these questions. Rocks not only may bring us together to build, play, or throw, but they hold vast history through their physical formation and decomposition. Rocks are made up of minerals and elements and/or a combination of elements.  Two elements make up more than 70 percent of the surface of earth, Oxygen (O) and Silicon (Si) (Skinner & Murk, 2011, p. 65). Silicate is the term for minerals that contain the silicate anion (SiO4)4- and are the most abundant of all minerals (Skinner & Murk, 2011, p. 65).

     Rocks have this amazing capacity to draw down CO2 by the process of silicate weathering. Weathering is the “decomposition and disintegration of rocks by chemical, physical, and biological processes” (Molina, n.d.).  Therefore, silicate weathering is the decomposition and disintegration of rock containing silicate anion (SiO4)4-. What occurs during the weathering is what makes this process magical. The release of Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) stored in silicate minerals are the connection between silicate weathering and CO2 sequestration (Hilley & Porder, 2008, p. 16859).  The release of Ca from silicate minerals creates a chemical reaction between Ca released and CO2 present in acid rain, which becomes calcium carbonate (CaCO3) (Jordan, personal communication, 2015). This conversion of Ca + CO2 = CaCO3 means that the calcium in the silicate rocks locks up CO2 leading to less CO2 in the atmosphere. By having less CO2 in the atmosphere, global temperature rise is limited, and we can keep enjoying mother earth in our recreational activities, keep admiring nature in many different ways, and keep sharing our stories in connection to our culture with the outdoors: truly conserving our cultura. As we enjoy hiking, teaching and learning while we are in interacting with mountains, I would encourage you all to remember that in the large mountain belts, series of parallel mountains, is where approximately 50% of the CO2 drawdown occurs (Hilley & Porder, 2008, p. 16855). This chemical reaction right underneath our feet is a magical interaction which leads us to learn more and be awed by mother earth.

      While reminiscing personal interactions with rocks back in Puerto Rico while reading Hilley & Porder’s article, I was able to see a magical processes that mother earth does. The chemical connection between Ca and CO2 to transform into CaCO3 leads to draw down of CO2 in the atmosphere. Drawing down CO2 helps with minimizing CO2 in the atmosphere, naturally mitigating  climate change. This process does take millions of years, which we may not even be able to study or experience. This is important for us to learn about how nature’s process to heal herself, however, there are more damages being done and we, as human, have to play a role in helping her out. By connecting to our roots, culture, and ways of interacting with nature, we are taking a closer step to help mother earth mitigate climate change. What makes silicate weathering magical is that it does take place while we interact with rocks whether we are building, playing, throwing, or admiring from our hikes. When you hold a rock, take a closer look and give thanks to the rock for being what it is and its part of the natural regulation process to drawdown CO2 from the atmosphere.

References

Hilley, G. & Porder, S. (2008). A framework for predicting global silicate weathering and CO2 drawdown rates over geologic time-scales. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 105(44): 16855-16859 (November 4, 2008).

Molina Garza, R. (n.d.). Lecture: Weathering. [PDF document].

Retrieved from: http://www.geociencias.unam.mx/~rmolina/documents/LECT2.pdf

Skinner, B.J. and Murck B.W. (2011). The Blue Planet: An Introduction to Earth System Science. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.

Bay Nature Co-Founders Honored at CGF Gala

On October 4, 2015, the Committee for Green Foothills honored Bay Nature co-founders David Loeb and Malcolm Margolin (publisher of Heyday Books) for their significant contributions to the Bay Area nature community, and donated a gift to the nonprofit Latino Outdoors in their honor.

“These publishing icons have challenged readers to see our landscape and our place in it with a fresh perspective. Though their work they have shaped and expanded the community of people who love and speak for nature.”
— Megan Medeiros, CGF Executive Director & Jeff Segall, CGF Board President

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