Event Recap: Leadership Workshop Introduces Climate Change Solutions Through Public Lands Management Lens
More than 30 students and community leaders gathered at Springs Preserve despite rain showers for HECHO’s second Public Lands and Climate Leadership workshop to build knowledge about how public lands management impacts climate change, and create awareness around the local impacts of climate change in the community.
Students from UNLV and the College of Southern Nevada attended the workshop presented in partnership with HECHO, The Wilderness Society, and Nevada State College’s Nepantla and Environmental & Resource Science Programs. Event presenters included HECHO Executive Director, Camilla Simon, Conservation Lands Foundation Senior Field Director, Jocelyn Torres, Nevada State Senator Mo Denis, and Energy and Climate Campaign Manager Juan Pérez Sáez of The Wilderness Society.
“This workshop was held to inform the community about our vast public lands that belong to all people in the nation, and also as a reminder that we have a say in their future,” HECHO Executive Director Camilla Simon said.
Workshops that educate communities on how their voice matters when it comes to public lands, as well as sharing the many ways that they can be used are important to highlight, especially for a state like Nevada, where 85% of the land acreage is public lands. Of that percentage, 68% is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Nevada.
The presentation provided information to participants about our nation’s public lands system, covering not only lands that are conserved or protected (such as national parks and national wildlife refuges), but also BLM lands that are open for development. These are lands that we can advocate for and participate in protecting. Workshop attendees also learned about the difference between naturally occurring greenhouse effects, and the type of human activity that enhances greenhouse gases. Local climate change impacts were also discussed, with a scientific study projecting that by 2050, the number of heat waves in Nevada would increase from 15, to 55 a year. Participants then considered the ways in which low income communities and communities of color are most impacted by climate change, with an increased cumulative exposure to multiple pollutants, and with the Latino community having higher rates of asthma.
“We were informing participants of the intersection that public lands and climate change have on our community, connecting the dots that public lands have to climate change and back to communities,” said Simon. “More than 95% of public lands are open to oil and gas development, fossil fuel production contributes to fossil fuel emissions. If public lands were a country in the United States, its emissions would rank 5th in the world.”
Workshop attendees also added the word querencia to their vocabularies—which means a love for the land and place-- and affirmed the ways that the concept of public lands exists in Hispanic culture through examples of acequias and land grants. Within such community water governance and land governance structures all benefit and share in the responsibility to take care of these valuable resources.
Sharing information from a 2018 Yale survey, presenters noted that only 14% of Americans think it’s too late to anything about global warming. To gauge participants’ perception at the Springs Preserve gathering, we asked our group of students and community leaders if they thought we are capable of changing to minimize the effects of global warming. Every attendee raised their hand in belief that we can change.
Rounding out the presentation, we provided participants with ways that they could get involved (see below), and had a community discussion about efforts currently underway and the work that needed to be done to address climate change and public lands management issues.
Next Steps and How to get involved:
Take the pledge from The Wilderness Society advocating for a net zero climate solution for public lands by 2030
Continue to connect to public lands and join CHISPA during Latino Conservation Week (July 18-26) and celebrate Nevada public lands day on Sept. 26, 2020.
Sign up for notifications about public comment periods the Bureau of Land Managerment opens every quarter to have your voices heard regarding public lands oil and gas lease sales.
Identify public lands that should have greater protections, and download a tool kit that Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter is building to organize around this mission
Join HECHO’s Advocacy Network, where you can find advocacy training, and speak out in support of local and national public lands policy initiatives