Three Wins for Our Defiende Nuestra Tierra Program
This article first appeared in our Winter 2024 edition of Wild Works.
Partnerships pay off. This past year, our decades-long partnership with the Forest Service and continued relationship building with community members netted three wins for people and public lands: record numbers at our 3rd annual ¡Celebremos al Aire Libre!, a Forest Service Cultural Diversity Award and bilingual signs at 26 trailheads in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.
1) Along with the Forest Service and the City of Glenwood, this past September we hosted our annual ¡Celebremos al Aire Libre! as part of Latino Conservation Week. It is already being billed as the biggest Latino event in our region. The event is an opportunity for Latino communities to connect with our public lands and land managers via organized hikes and free river rafting trips down the Colorado River, the latter courtesy of Blue Sky Rafting, Blazing Adventures, Glenwood Adventure Company and Defiance Rafting. For many participants, it was their first time rafting! When people are able to visit and experience the beautiful public lands in our region, it increases the chances they will become engaged advocates and stewards of the land. It’s a win-win for everyone.
2) During ¡Celebremos al Aire Libre!, the Forest Service announced that Wilderness Workshop’s Defiende Nuestra Tierra program, the City of Glenwood Springs, the Aspen Institute and the White River National Forest were awarded the “Forest Service Cultural Diversity Award.” This national award recognizes one partner (or a group working together) who makes an outstanding difference on public lands. We are honored to have received it. At the heart of the work behind the award are the hundreds of community members who have not only spent time on public lands but provided insight, feedback and ideas for how to make public lands and their management more equitable and accessible.
3) Finally, thanks to a deep partnership between Wilderness Workshop’s Defiende Nuestra Tierra program and the Forest Service, bilingual signs are now installed at 26 trailheads in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. It has been quite a lift over the years, but given that 30% of the population from Aspen to Parachute is Latino, we think it is long overdue. Bilingual signs not only provide important user and safety information to Spanish speakers, but as Omar Sarabia, our former Defiende Nuestra Director reminds us, they create “a sense of belonging, that this place is mine, too.”
