Loving Our Changing Homelands, Reprise

Our world is changing. Quickly. The impacts of climate change are ramping up every day. But just because our forests and rivers and communities are changing doesn’t mean we don’t love them. That’s in part why New Mexico in Focus will rebroadcast an Our Land special from this summer, “Loving Our Changing Homelands.” 

This show is a special one to me, and it includes conversations with Paula Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Acequia Assocation; Phoebe Suina (Pueblo of Cochiti), hydrologist and owner of High Water Mark; Theresa Pasqual, director of the Tribal Historic Preservation Office at the Pueblo of Acoma; Aaron Lowden, Indigenous Seed Keepers Network Program Coordinator, Pueblo of Acoma; and Sister Joan Brown, executive director of New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light.

You can watch the show on the PBS app or stream it online anytime! 

And you might be interested in a new study published in Nature about the relationship between the mental health impacts of climate change and collective climate action. 

News you shouldn’t miss:

• “Mediation starts in Rio Grande legal fight among New Mexico, Texas and Colorado” (Danielle Prokop, Source NM)

• “Construction work at Nichols Reservoir continues” (Carina Julig, Santa Fe New Mexican)

• “Suit seeks to block a portion of Ute Lake pipeline” (Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal)

• “In New Mexico, Democrats Strike an Oil and Gas Gusher: ‘Money Buys Access’” (Jerry Redfern, Capital & Main)

• “New Mexico reports more than $2B in revenue for the third year in a row” (Danielle Prokop, Source NM)

• “20 New Mexico agencies, from health to energy, seek up to $445M for Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire” (Patrick Lohmann, Source NM)

• “Santa Fe County cites ‘urgent’ need for volunteer firefighters as wildfire risk rises” (Nicholas Gilmore, Santa Fe New Mexican)

• “Santa Fe County Commission approves letter urging national monument status for Caja del Rio” (Cormac Dodd, Santa Fe New Mexican)

• “Community irrigators celebrate $15M federal investment in acequias” (Alice Fordham, KUNM)

• “How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe” (Sharon Lerner, ProPublica)

• “Hayoołkááł (a New Dawn): Diné College Students Envision AI Through a Lens of Diné Epistemologies” (Brie Jontry, Tribal College Journal)

If you don’t already subscribe to Daniel Rothberg’s “Western Water Note” newsletter, you should sign up right now — and read his recent analysis of the annual Colorado River gathering. 

Last month, I shared my conversation with Arturo Sandoval, founding director of the Center of Southwest Culture. On our website and Instagram accounts, I highlighted the phrase, “Don’t Agonize. Organize.” My colleague here at NMPBS, Andrea Quijada, pointed me toward Florynce Kennedy, who she credited with the motto. And if you Google around, you’ll see that it’s a phrase that various politicians, organizations, and movements have repeated for decades. Certainly, it helps keep me steady right now, as President-Elect Donald Trump is announcing appointees and discussing his administration’s plans for everyone from undocumented immigrants to U.S. citizens to members of Congress who investigated the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

On a personal note, you may have heard on KUNM that I’m moving on from NMPBS. After eight seasons of Our Land, it’s time for me to do something different — but in the meantime, there are some segments coming up in December and January that I hope you’ll enjoy! 

And lastly, I’m reading Linda Hogan’s 1990 novel, Mean Spirit, and it’s both hard to put down — and devastatingly hard to read. I highly recommend it.

P.S. If a friend forwarded you this message, sign up here to receive the newsletter yourself. You can also read recent newsletters online. And if you miss us throughout the week, follow Our Land on Instagram.