Latina Energy in the Southwest
Darrell Knuffke
Our Thanksgiving traditions notwithstanding, the early European history of the United States has a good deal more to do with the Spanish than with the English. The city of Santa Fe, for example, predates the Jamestown settlement, and the Hispanic presence in the U.S. is second only to that of Native Americans.
Those connections to the land—500 years for Hispanic communities, millennia for Native Americans—are much on the minds of Deanna Archuleta, director of The Wilderness Society’s new Southwest office in Albuquerque. One of her challenges, she says, is to “change the face of conservation in the Southwest.”
The new office was created when The Wilderness Society split its Four Corners Region in two. The Central Rockies office will continue to cover Colorado and Utah from Denver; the new Southwest Region will cover Arizona and New Mexico from Albuquerque. Archuleta is now seeking two staff members, with one to be based in Arizona.
“The new office reflects The Wilderness Society’s priorities in New Mexico and Arizona,” said Jerry Greenberg, vice president of regional conservation. “In recent years and partly due to our work there, even from a distance, land conservation campaigns have accelerated in both states.” He said that the focus will be the group’s well-established range of public lands issues: wilderness, parks and wildlife refuges; fire and forest management; and the growth and protection of national monuments within the National Landscape Conservation System.
If the work is typical, Archuleta is decidedly not. A Latina and New Mexico native with a background in radio and television, she won a four-year term on the Bernalillo County Commission in 2004. That credential is likely to be very helpful to her as local elected officials play an increasingly active role in public land management decisions.
Archuleta is actually the second Latina to carry The Wilderness Society flag in New Mexico. In 2005 Neri Holguin came to The Wilderness Society and worked alongside Arturo Sandoval, a consultant in Albuquerque who has helped the organization in its outreach to traditional Hispanic communities. Holguin developed important relationships those two years and assisted Archuleta in launching the regional office before leaving to pursue work in the political arena.
Both women are quick to make the point that Hispanics are as varied in their feelings toward the land as members of other groups: some care deeply, others not so much. But there is, in New Mexico and Arizona, one essential difference: time in place—a very long time.
“Hispanics’ affection for the land is bound up in the family,” notes Holguin. “The land is like a part of the family—an elder—and it holds our stories and memories. And perhaps uniquely among Hispanics, that sense of place nurtures a sense of self and is closely tied to it. That means that the language we use is necessarily different.” Sandoval says that requires a “new vernacular,” one that embraces Hispanics’ deep love of place.
As a woman of color, Archuleta stands out in a mostly-Anglo wilderness movement. “If you want to reach out to a group of people, it is smart to have someone who understands their deep-rooted sense of place,” she says. “It comes down to building trust. The impetus to protect what is best is strong in Hispanics, particularly around fast-growing places like Las Cruces in the far southern part of the state. People are acutely aware that the world is changing quickly. Like all of us, they want their special places to endure. Our job is to help them know that working together we can make that happen.”
Holguin has been instrumental in building support for wilderness in Doña Ana County, of which Las Cruces is the largest city. A citizens’ proposal would protect over 300,000 acres of wilderness as well as see that a National Conservation Area (NCA) is established for the area near and around Las Cruces’ fast-growing east mesa. The 100,000-acre NCA would protect the well known Organ Mountains, the Doña Ana Mountains, and Tortugas Mountain.
Lupe Dominguez-Flores is a resident of the small village of Tortugas near Las Cruces. Tortugas Mountain plays a central role in the community’s spiritual life. Every year in mid-December, residents walk up the mountain as part of their celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Explosive residential development threatens the integrity of the mountain; the NCA would protect it.
Flores is enthusiastic about The Wilderness Society’s role in that protection. “My parents didn’t leave me wealth,” she said; “they left me a strong love of Tortugas Pueblo and Tortugas Mountain. We do the same things there today that our great, great grandparents did.”
Wilderness supporters have worked out agreements with important sportsmen’s organizations, secured a supportive resolution from the Las Cruces City Council, and met with the Catholic Archbishop of Las Cruces. He wrote a pastoral letter urging wilderness protection.
Another major effort involves protection for Otero Mesa, a 1.2 million-acre swath of mostly untracked country in south-central New Mexico. Citizens have documented wilderness suitability on over 520,000 acres of the mesa. Unfortunately, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has its own ideas for the wildlife-rich place: it would open 95 percent of it to oil and gas leasing. Governor Bill Richardson (D) has weighed in in Otero’s defense, proposing a 640,000-acre National Conservation Area to conserve the best of it, and Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) recently asked the BLM to halt drilling until the U.S. Geological Survey finishes studying the aquifer under Otero Mesa.
Archuleta is working in the north-central part of the state to protect an area called Sabinoso (“place of cedar;” cedar is a common western name for juniper) as wilderness. Lying 40 miles east of Las Vegas, NM, Sabinoso is a wild, pinyon-juniper-covered complex of mesas and canyons cut by the Canadian River and administered by the BLM. Congressman Tom Udall (D-NM) has introduced legislation to establish a 20,000-acre wilderness area, and the bill is strongly supported by local governments.
Udall introduced the bill not long after the state legislature passed a resolution urging the congressional delegation to protect Sabinoso. State Representative Thomas Garcia (D) sponsored the resolution. He notes that across the country, Hispanics—“the majority minority”—are making great strides, occupying more and more positions of influence. So he’s not surprised at all by the selection of Archuleta to lead The Wilderness Society in the Southwest, and he thinks her heritage will help. “We have a proud tradition of Hispanic leadership in New Mexico,” he said. “This will help engage the next generation of conservationists. It’s important to have people who understand the traditions and the culture—who speak the language. I don’t mean literally speaking Spanish; I mean speaking from a first-hand knowledge of shared traditions and experiences.”
Archuleta is racing to get her hands around the astonishing range of land protection initiatives. One ties advocacy in the two states neatly together: protection for the Sky Island Region. The region enfolds 40 mountainous areas that together operate as “stepping stones” in a range that reaches from Central America to Alaska. This vital wildlife corridor enables jaguars to move back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. In New Mexico, the Peloncillos, the Animas, and the Big Hatchets anchor the Sky Island Region, and all include potential wilderness areas. In Arizona, a critical area is the Tumacacori Highlands in the Coronado National Forest. Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) has introduced a bill to protect 83,300 acres of the highlands as wilderness.
Archuleta insists that protecting land is ultimately a matter of relationships—between conservation advocates and local citizens and between those citizens and wilderness. The latter relationship, she argues, is best built by getting people into wilderness. She said she’s been pleasantly surprised at how many people in traditional Hispanic communities are familiar with and care about the places she’s trying to protect. But not all are. And for many, wilderness is a new idea. Those are the people she is most eager to reach.
“A picture may be worth a thousand words,” she said, “but a thousand paces into a wild place? That’s worth more than all the pictures!”
Darrell Knuffke, who writes from Nageezi, New Mexico, is a former Colorado journalist, U.S. Senate aide, and Wilderness Society vice president.
