Celebrate Latino Conservation Week with Latino Outdoors

Por Christian La Mont

Latino Conservation Week: Disfrutando y Conservando Nuestra Tierra (LCW) is an initiative of the Hispanic Access Foundation and was created to support the Latinx community in getting into the outdoors and participating in activities to protect our natural resources. That’s the official overview. To me, LCW is a week-long celebration of conservation, cultura, and comunidad.

At Latino Outdoors (LO), it’s safe to say that we celebrate conservation, cultura, and comunidad every day of the year. That’s who we are. Our small but mighty staff works daily to connect youth and families to the outdoors, often leading with a reminder that conservation is a part of our culture—whether it’s preventing wasteful use and reusing materials (who amongst us hasn’t had the bag, the shirt, the food storage container that has been used and reused long beyond its original purpose). Conservation also runs in our veins and manifests in the act of maintaining and passing on a deep connection to nature and working the land, whether by choice or by necessity. We aren’t new to nature and the outdoors. Caring for the planet is part of who we are; it’s part of our values. In fact, last year the Pew Research Center released a study that stated that most Latinx people in U.S. say that global climate change is an important concern. We call that conservation cultura.

We also celebrate our culture every day at Latino Outdoors. Through our Yo Cuento storytelling program, we share stories from across Latinx experiences and proudly serve as a platform to share the outdoor experiences of others through our social media accounts and growing YouTube channel. Whether we celebrate that culture through blog posts, videos, music, podcasts, dance or other forms, storytelling is one of the ways we work to create a world where the outdoors is a place to share and celebrate stories, knowledge and culture while growing leadership and an active community of Latino outdoor users, mentors and stewards.

In addition to celebrating conservation and cultura every day, we also proudly engage in the work of building community and working within the many diverse Latinx communities across the country, each one with unique dialects, expressions, tastes, histories and heritage. With over 20 regions, ranging from Boston, Denver, Missoula, and Washington D.C. to Arkansas, San Antonio, Los Angeles and beyond, our volunteer leaders don’t just invite their communities on LO outings like hiking, kayaking, stewardship projects, bird watching or climbing, they also work within those communities to identify barriers and connect them to the local resources to help overcome them. Most of us are from intentionally marginalized communities, immigrant communities and front-line communities, so we don’t just plan a hike—we plan our hikes with lived experiences and a deep first-hand understanding of the urgent need to connect our communities to nature, breakdown barriers and fight for equitable access to the outdoors. Like many communities of color, the communities we collaborate with and are a part of live with the daily impacts of environmental injustice, of redlining practices, of social injustice, of generational traumas, with the impacts of racism, prejudice and intolerance.

Connecting children, families, early career professionals, students and individuals to nature isn’t just a matter of enjoying the view—though we do enjoy the view—it is a matter of physical and mental health and healing. It’s a matter of providing space within these open spaces where we can break into Spanish and English, share stories of abuelas and tíos y tías, comida y casa, stories of immigration and migration, stories that allow us to be ourselves, to celebrate ourselves and to know that we are part of a larger community. We also work in community with other organizations—the collaborations which allow us to reach a larger audience, to share our mission and vision and connect our people to opportunities and experiences they might miss out on otherwise. Latino Outdoors couldn’t do what we do without the strength of our relationships and the ties to the communities we’re a part of.

So, when I talk about celebrating conservation, cultura and comunidad, you could say it’s part of our DNA.

Still, there’s something incredible and unique about LCW. In the past few years, it has grown its nationwide presence with shout-outs and acknowledgments from National Geographic, the Department of Interior, California State Parks and Latinx policymakers like Senator Alex Padilla. With our partnership with the Hispanic Access Foundation, LCW2022 is planned to feature over 100 in-person activities throughout the week in collaboration with local community-based organizations, national brands, government agencies and nonprofits while, at the same time, LO will also be celebrating with videos, art, virtual panels and more. Thanks to the behind-the-scenes work of incredible organizers at the Hispanic Access Foundation and our team at LO, this year’s LCW promises to be an incredible week featuring panels, videos, events, an LCW photo contest, a sticker contest and our second annual LCW Achievement Awards.

Inspired by #BlackBirdersWeek, and in part by #NationalParkWeek, Latino Conservation Week has been celebrating with daily themes for three years. Themes and topics of focus this year will include #LCW2022KickOff, #RecreateResponsibly, #AguaEsVida, #AdvocacyAfuera, #ConservationCultura, #ComunidadYFamilia and #YoCuento. All are invited to join the celebration regardless of background or heritage, because as much as Latino Conservation Week is about nuestra gente, it’s also a celebration of the work we all do in the name of protecting our planet, being good stewards, opening doors of opportunity and establishing lifelong connections to nature and the outdoors—whether that’s a patch of grass in Brooklyn and Los Angeles or a vista view overlooking the Rocky Mountains.

For my part, I’ll be spending Latino Conservation Week attending hikes highlighting the importance of national monuments and protecting public lands and remembering those childhood memories of my Papá, as a brand new immigrant from Mexico, taking my Hermano and me fishing in Colorado for the first time, or memories from more recent years of my Mamá and our recent experiences kayaking and exploring urban parks in Los Angeles where she summed up the work of conservation with a simple sentence and powerful reminder (as only familia and comunidad can remind d0): “es tu parque cuídalo.”

It’s your park, take care of it.

If you’d like to be a part of the Latino Conservation Week celebration, visit LatinoConservationWeek.com and follow the hashtag #LCW2022 or #LatinoConservationWeek on social media. Join us for this week of conservation, cultura, and comunidad. Nos vemos pronto.

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See the original article posted by Osprey by clicking here.

Christian La Mont is the Program Manager for LO’s storytelling and communications program, Yo Cuento.

Latino Outdoors works to inspire, connect and engage Latino communities in the outdoors and embrace cultura y familia as part of the outdoor narrative, ensuring our history, heritage and leadership are valued and represented. Check out our website!

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“I’m Meant to Help”

por Liam López-Wagner

I’m Meant to Help

I love being outdoors. 

I like to see butterflies. 

They are so cool; I like that monarchs and all butterflies have four wings that they use to fly.

I like to think of moths as the cousins of butterflies. 

So many come out at night – their long antennas are beautiful.

I want kids to know everyone can love butterflies.

I love the rainbow and I see it in the colors of different butterflies.

I like patterns and transformations and I see them in nature.

Being outdoors makes me feel happy. 

I love the outdoors.

My mission in life is to help save the monarchs.

I’m meant to help.

I want people to care more about every animal and insect in the world. 

I don’t like the earth getting sick. 

I don’t want the planet to hurt, we can help it and help people care more about everything that lives here. 


Liam López-Wagner, 7, is the founder of Amigos for Monarchs. Amigos for Monarchs advocates for the conservation of monarchs & all pollinators. It hosts an annual milkweed seed sharing program to inspire the planting of native milkweed. Learn more at www.amigosformonarchs.org.


I’m a Latina Trail Runner

por Candace Gonzales

My love for the outdoors comes from my parents and my family. When I was a child, my parents took me camping in the summer. We camped at a beautiful reservoir where I learned to swim and play in the water. My tios and primos camped with us along with our close family friends, and it was a wonderful way to grow up. My family would also spend countless hours in the summer in my grandfather’s garden picking peas and strawberries to eat straight off the vine. Not to mention in the fall when we would all gather at my grandparents’ house to roast and peel green chilies. Those memories I cherish, and I believe fostered in me a love for the outdoors.

Although being outdoors and being in nature was something that I was fortunate to be exposed to as a child, as a young adult, especially in my twenties, I got away from the outdoors. The busy city life called to me, and my goals became getting into my career and enjoying the city’s night scene—the partying, the friendships, and just living that fast city life. Late work nights, crazy weekends, and I did not make the outdoors a priority.

However, one priority I have always had is running. I have run most of my adult life. Thanks to my love for running, it’s what brought me back into the outdoors. In 2018, I stumbled upon trail running by signing up for a part road/trail race, the Turquoise Lake 20K in beautiful Leadville, Colorado. After that race, I knew that exploring trails and being in nature on trails was my new calling as a runner.

Of course, I answered this call and immediately started trail running on the local trails in the Denver metro area. I was addicted, and it was so much fun. Not to mention there is something very spiritual and healing about being in the outdoors. It has this way of allowing you to see all the beauty in the world. Although it was so beautiful to be out on the trail, one thing that stood out to me, especially in a community like Denver, where the Latinx population is the second-largest population, was the lack of diversity on the trails. I found this to be challenging. Challenging in the sense that when you are new to a sport, it can be intimidating, and when you don’t see anyone who looks like you enjoying it can feel a bit unwelcoming.

The outdoors should be welcoming to everyone. All humans should have the opportunity to experience the pure joy you get from running, hiking, or walking the trails with the sun shining on you and the mountains as views. The beauty of being outdoors and discovering nature is an experience all should have regardless of gender, class, race, age, sexuality, and nationality. For me, I recognize that I have a role in making the outdoors feel welcoming and that when I pull up to the trailhead rocking my Spanish music on full blast, that’s me saying I’m here, I’m Latina, I’m a trail runner, and I love the outdoors too. When other gente come to experience the trail, I want them to feel welcomed, and I want to help inspire younger generations to get outdoors and experience the outdoors.

That is why Latino Outdoors is such an important nonprofit and one that is close to my heart. The work that Latino Outdoors does to make the outdoors welcoming, from education, conservation, and just teaching people to love the outdoors, is so important. That is why this fall, I have chosen to use the sport I love (trail running) to help raise funds for Latino Outdoors. Just as I was fortunate to enjoy nature as a child, and I want our future generation to also be that fortunate. I believe Latino Outdoors is doing the grassroots work to make this happen. ¡Andale!


Candace Gonzales lives in Colorado’s front range. She is an avid trail runner who has complete various trail marathons, 30K trail runs, and 50K trail runs. She loves being outside and is a passionate supporter of Latino Outdoors.