***”We regret to inform you that due to key panelist Paula Garcia’s home and ranch being under mandatory evacuation orders because of the Calf Canyon Fire, the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates Forum on Centering Equity in Water Governance scheduled for Wednesday, April 27, 2022, at 6:00 p.m., has been postponed. It will be rescheduled at a later date.”***
Norm Gaume, President, Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates
The program, sponsored by the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates, will be followed by a Question & Answer Session.
PANELISTS:
Julia Bernal:
Julia (she/they) is from the Indigenous Nations of Sandia Pueblo and Yuchi and is the Director of the Pueblo Action Alliance. She is pursuing dual master’s degrees in Water Resources and Community and Regional Planning. She advocates for Water Back, Land Back, the rematriation of all stolen water resources and ancestral lands and the decommodification of all that is sacred. She serves on the Natural Resources Committee for the All Pueblo Council of Governors, and is a board member of the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates and NAVA Education Project.
Marcia Beauregard Fernandez:
Marcia is a water justice activist and small farmer in the Middle Rio Grande Valley raising beef cattle, chickens, two gardens and fruit trees. Marcia has an MA in education, is a retired teacher and proud mother and grandmother, and has been involved in community activism for almost 40 years with neighborhood associations on environmental and water justice issues. Of significance, Marcia has been a lead plaintiff/appellant/cross-appellant in the legal fight against the proposed Santolina development, tirelessly fighting to hold local government accountable in water planning and land development decisions. Marcia currently serves on the board of directors of CESSOS (Center for Social Sustainable System) and on the board of directors of the Middle Rio Grande Water Advocates; is a member of the South Valley Regional Association of Acequias, the NM Acequia Association, the Contra Santolina Working Group, the NM Environment Department Toxic Pollutants Working Group, the Rio Grande Basin Study Community Group, and the South Valley Coalition of Neighborhood Associations; and is president for life of the Foothill Neighborhood Association.
Paula Garcia:
Paula (she/her) is Executive Director of the New Mexico Acequia Association. During two decades of her service, acequias in New Mexico have built a movement around the principle that water is life, agua es vida. Through her leadership, acequias have strengthened community self-determination through local water governance, have enacted policy reforms protecting rural, agricultural water rights, and have fought for clean water to flow in our rivers. With the NMAA team, she has also established innovative youth and leadership development projects and farm apprenticeships that seek to strengthen the next generation of farmers and ranchers who are caretakers of water, land, livestock, and native and heirloom seeds.
HOW: Zoom. More information will follow with details and a Zoom link.