Projects of Resilience in the Southwest
Building Communities by Creating Special Places In this article I advocate for the social importance of architectural beauty and...
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By New Mexico Environmental Law Center Staff
For several years, the staff at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) has weighed in on what we see as the most pressing environmental justice issues for the coming year. This year we reflect on how now, more than ever, we must stop doing business as usual and address profound environmental justice challenges in a way that centers community health and wellbeing rather than financial profits. Because of the profound responsibility we have to our current and future generations, we must do everything in our power to make the right decisions that will safeguard Mother Earth, uphold environmental justice, and ensure our children and their grandchildren have a liveable future.
In December 2022, more than 250 people gathered at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, N.M. and online for the New Mexico Acequia Association’s (NMAA) annual meeting of mayordomos (acequia stewards), parciantes (water rights holders) and advocates for the 600-plus historic irrigation channels that make agriculture and traditional culture possible.
There was an early-morning procession of farmers, palas (shovels) in hand, from the Gallinas River. After the Bendición de las Aguas (Blessing of the Waters), where water from acequias across the state was put in a large ceramic pot, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, State Sen. Pete Campos, State Engineer Mike Hamman and State Auditor Joseph Maestas delivered remarks.
By Kimberly Smith
Nihi Ké’ Baa’ (NKB) is a collective of grassroots Diné organizers working to remediate our homelands and create a healthy, sustainable and viable future rooted in ancestral knowledge. Our mission is to build sustainable infrastructure while healing our land and bodies through reclaiming Indigenous autonomy and ancestral lifeways. Our goals focus on comprehensive healthful solutions to the intersecting problems of: climate change, poisoning of land and people by extractive industries and lack of healthy food access, shortage of housing and cultural hubs for traditional wisdom reclamation and ceremony, lack of infrastructure essential for mutual aid and healthy community networks...
Pilot project participants include 71 restaurants, 5 hotels, 19 small businesses, one shopping center and one museum that have become Certified Waterwise by the City.
Since 2018 the City’s Certified Waterwise pilot project saved 2.1 million gallons of water each year. Now a permanent program, it’s estimated that tens of millions more can be saved by Santa Fe businesses who choose to participate in the free water usage assessment.
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