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On New Mexico in Focus environmental issues have been a major priority of our coverage.

This week we're taking a look back at five years of Our Land here on New Mexico PBS.

Here's Laura Paskus.

Five years ago, New Mexico PBS launched a new project with the show Our Land.

We wanted to bring you coverage from across the state to show you places where environmental issues are coming to a head.

We've gone from remote canyons to the wall along the border with Mexico, visited the Gila river and explored the bosque right here in Albuquerque.

We also wanted to help all New Mexicans understand climate science policy, forest ecology, urban wildlife life, traditional knowledge and more.

Over the past five years, each episode of our land, whether it was a field piece or a studio interview, has been guided by a love of plates like each of you.

We love New Mexico to its landscapes and rivers and wildlife, its communities and cultures.

We have respect for the past, and despite the challenges we cover every week, there is indeed hope for the future.

To start this look back on five years of the show, we're going to talk about something that affects all New Mexicans.

How climate change is making our desert state more arid.

We start with the Rio Grande Day this month on our land.

We talk about the Rio Grande.

What's happening this year but into the future, as scientists learn more and more about what will happen to the river and its reservoirs and the rest of us who rely upon this water.

As temperatures keep rising and we keep having difficult conditions, the impacts of climate change don't just reflect one dry year or one bad season.

They intensify one another.

They build on one another.

We see this in our forest, our rivers all across the state.

One place where it's plain to see how warming plays out in our arid state.

Elephant Butte Reservoir in southern New Mexico.

It's sad to say that right now we're at about 9% capacity.

This this reservoir can hold over 2,200,000 acre feet of water.

And in my tenure with the district, I've seen it spill over the dam and I've seen it is lower than it is right now.

So it's an unfortunate thing.

But when you're in the West and droughts happen and we're in a megadrought right now.

Decade of drought.

Gary Esslinger started working here in 1978 for the Elephant Butte Irrigation District.

Today he's treasurer and manager responsible for bringing water to more than 90,000 acres of pecans, alfalfa, chili, onions and even cotton through hatch and down to the mercy of valley.

Last fall, the district told farmers not to expect much water from this reservoir on the Rio Grande Day.

They're anticipating that this could be the worst season in memory.

Most of the farmers in this valley are pretty familiar with where we're located right now, and they come up here and they can see the same thing.

So it's not news to them that we are short of surface water.

We've been short for, you know, going on 20 some odd years to survive.

Farmers have to adapt.

They pump groundwater or they fallow fields to use what water's available for higher value crops.

I'd hate to see it go.

I hate to see agriculture just diminish, especially here.

Because it's it's a great part of this valley from from here all the way down to to El Paso.

It flourishes and and you think about it, and it's got a great economic benefit to this entire state.

Like many dams across the west, Elephant Butte was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Dagmar Llewellyn is a hydrologist with the agency.

Now we do it in the more.

What Reclamation did from the.

Beginning and is charged with is taking what can be.

An inhospitable landscape for human activities and finding ways to make it.

So that we can thrive here.

Right.

That's what we did in the past by building dams.

That was the.

The action that we thought was needed at that time.

The agency has evolved, though.

And I believe that the programs.

That I work on.

Under the Secure Water Act are.

What enable us to do the same thing now.

Which is to try to find ways to take.

What's becoming more and.

More challenging and inhospitable landscape for a lot of human activities.

And find.

Ways to make them possible and to allow us to continue to thrive.

Here.

Our lives have certainly changed since the early 20th century, when Elephant Butte Dam was built and as we've pumped more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we've warmed the climate.

There is no new normal.

We talk about.

What is the flow of this river relative to the average, to the normal.

But the challenge of climate.

Change is that we're losing.

The whole concept of normal.

First centuries, farmers relied upon the Rio Grande as a snowmelt driven system.

The water you see here predominantly originates in the mountains of Colorado in northern New.

Mexico, and it.

Builds up.

Over the course of the winter as it.

Snows into a snowpack.

And that's the.

Primary place where we actually store our water.

Some moisture would seep into the forest, some would melt through the spring when farmers need it to sustain crops until the summer monsoons.

But as arid places like New Mexico warm, they also dry.

So think about how your hair dryer works, right?

Heat things up so that you get the moisture to go into the air.

It comes out of our soils.

It comes out of our tree roots.

It comes out.

And everything that uses.

Water, riparian systems, our crops.

Everything all the way down needs.

More.

Water.

Just because it's warmer, just because of the way your hair dryer works.

Esslinger is an optimist and his time here, he has seen droughts and floods and he has faith.

We have to trust mankind and trust our our future to those who will come in here and see new, innovative ways to to help deal with the situation, whether it's a drought situation or flood.

I mean, my God, if we had a flood event here and I've seen those I've seen Hatch under water, it's it's it's terrible.

It's just terrible.

A sight to see is.

Is this empty lake.

Elephant buttes low levels.

Don't just cause problems for farmers here under the Rio Grande des compacts until those levels come up.

And New Mexico can send the water it owes to downstream users.

We can't store water in some upstream reservoirs either, and these problems won't disappear any time soon.

And we have a river that's.

Highly variable in its flows, both within the year and between years.

And it's just going to get more variable.

So everything they call it intensification of the water cycle, everything is just happening.

More so the climate of the past that we all came to rely upon no longer offers a map for the future.

And the better we understand that accept that, the better we can know how to face that future for our land and New Mexico in focus.

I'm Laura us.

Over the past five years, we've covered groundwater wells dropping in the East Mountains, the Rio Grande drying.

And what a record low snowpack can mean not just during one season, but cumulatively over time.

And this 2018 interview, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck explains how warming affects the amount of water we have in the southwest.

Jonathan Overpeck has been studying climate change in the Southwest for decades and he says scientists are observing a shift in how droughts develop.

The most iconic drought in New Mexico recorded history was the 1950s drought and that was a drought that was marked by reduced precipitation and it was all about reduced precipitation.

What we're seeing now and the drought that's going on is that it's more due to temperature increase and less due to precipitation deficit.

And as we go into the future, that'll even get more and more so.

So the droughts will be really defined by hotness, by temperature, warm temperatures, and that just sucks.

The moisture out of the soil, sucks the moisture out of our rivers and leaves the droughts ever more devastating.

When overpeck talks about climate change in the southwestern united states, he's really talking about changes in water.

The amount of water that's available in streams and rivers as the region keeps warming.

And both the Colorado River and the Rio Grande.

The Southwest's two most important rivers warming means less water.

For the Colorado River is really important to seven states, including New Mexico.

And there's a diversion of Colorado River water that flows down the San Juan through the Rio Chama and into the Rio Grande.

And therefore, every glass of water you drink has a little bit of Colorado River water in it.

But really, New Mexicans should also be worried about the Rio Grande.

Its problems are pretty much the same as the Colorado River.

There is no doubt the planet is warming.

Worldwide temperature records over long periods of time tell us that.

So do tree ring.

And other records and models scientists developed over decades show what's happening and where we're headed?

Well, our models are well tested now, and a lot of people think that these models are so good at simulating the future, but they are really good at simulating some things like temperature.

And the reason we know that is because they all agree.

They agree with what's happening and Mother Nature.

And so what's observed and they agree with, you know, simple physics.

So we have a lot of confidence that the future will be more warming as long as we keep putting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere.

On the other hand, when it comes to precipitation, there's more uncertainty.

The models are a little more mixed.

There hasn't been a observed change in precipitation in the upper basin of the Colorado.

So the best bet is to go with no change in precipitation going into the future.

The biggest uncertainty is what humans will do, how much carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases will continue pumping into the atmosphere.

The more we emit, the more temperatures will rise.

Well, the news does sound bad.

We're going to lose our water supplies as we warm the planet.

Not all of them, but we'll have less and less water the more we allow this planet to warm.

And that sounds like pretty bad news.

The good news really is that we understand what's going on and we understand why it's going on very well.

We know that humans are causing the warming.

We know it's the burning of fossil fuels and the emissions of carbon dioxide that are the real culprit.

So that's really important because it gives us a chance to stop it if we wish.

And that's the kind of debate we need to have in society.

Do we really want to risk losing half the flows in our rivers or more?

And if we don't?

The good news is that we know how to slow down the losses just by slowing down our emissions of carbon dioxide.

There are also things we can do here in New Mexico and other states like Arizona, California and Nevada.

Water managers are storing water underground instead of in reservoirs where evaporation is a problem.

That way, when we do have good years like last year, we can bank that water underground and save it for when we need it.

At the Pueblo of Santa Ana.

Elders, young people, scientists are all learning from the past and looking toward the future.

And this.

So from our very first season back in 2017, we learned about habitat restoration and wildlife.

The Pueblo of Santa Ana sits next to the Rio Grande, north of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho.

For nearly 900 tribal members, the land is not only home but an important place that connects them to their ancestors.

The river has always been important to us culturally, for the public and for Santa Ana.

We have traditional dances.

So grandparents, parents, children this and they tie in with the ecological system as a whole for the reason why we're doing it.

Governor Montoya says protecting medicinal plants in culturally significant areas and wildlife is important for the tribe and that others in New Mexico can see the work they're doing when they visit the Pueblo for events or recreation.

I think a lot of people, no matter the ethnicity, people like to see the Bosque and it's in that state that it was.

The tribe has been working to restore the Bosque and the Rio Grande did for decades, but far from the riverbanks, there's even more work being done.

The tribe's natural resources department is restoring turkey populations, trying to help endangered fish and birds and tagging mountain lions and bears.

They've also worked on restoring healthy fire to the landscape and install water features for wildlife.

And in 2005, the Tribal Council created a wildlife conservation code.

This vision was created by tribal leaders for the benefit of everyone living at Santa Ana.

Part of the work is thinning out trees and returning lands to what they once were before colonization and livestock grazing.

It's pretty intense, this work, and you have to be out here in the winter and the hot summer cold.

It's just all noxious weeds are out here.

So we try to bring all the grasslands back to what it was back before we cut the trees and throw the slash down.

And it's not so hot when you put it on fire.

It brings back all the grasses.

I've been out in the outdoors and it's a good job for me and it's close to home.

I don't have to deal with traffic.

Most parts of Santa Ana Pueblo are off limits to non-tribal members unless invited and parts of the Pueblo 79,000 acres Pronghorn have been reintroduced after nearly 40 years of being missing from the area.

There used to be antelope up here on this on the mesa, this the Santa Ana mesa.

And there used to be antelope along Highway 550 was coming kind of this periphery herd that would come from the Rio Rancho area.

Bringing them back was something that the council requested.

The Santa Ana Pueblo Natural Resources Department worked with state and federal officials to gain permits and funding to bring in about 100 Pronghorn.

They started releasing the animals in 2009.

Not all survived.

Some were eaten by predators and a few died from the stress of being moved.

Others traveled beyond the borders of the Pueblo.

There are currently about 70 pronghorn on the Pueblo and the department is also following mountain lions and other predators that are outfitted with GPS collars.

We'll be able to look at what kind of impact do they have and how many animals are they killing on the pueblo and what species?

We're also looking for travel corridors.

Are these large carnivores moving on and off the pueblo?

And if so, where are they moving so that we can try to protect those areas and and provide connectivity for wildlife in this area?

I think they're off in that direction over there.

You want to.

Glenn Harper has worked for the tribe for nearly 20 years.

He says a changing climate and new challenges will test the groundwork that's already been laid for wildlife and people.

Tribal Council has been a leader and I think in the Rio Grande Valley and supporting restoration work on their land, knowing full well that there's pressures from the outside.

You know, Rio Rancho Bernalillo policy as just expanding communities.

Land use like mining, water issues with the lack of water.

And so they know full well that in order to maintain their their cultural identity, they have to protect their land.

Getting outside offers young people, everyone, a great learning experience as but many public lands, even right here in Albuquerque, are not accessible to everyone.

In 2021, we learned how young men of color are changing that.

During the pandemic, people flocked to public lands, places like parks and hiking trails.

So many of us wanted to be outside lead where it felt safe to hike, bike, be alone, or be with close friends and family.

Through walking or coffee.

If we think about there's so much national media right now about over usage of parks during COVID, but it makes me think that over usage by who?

Right.

Long term communities still don't have access and we're going to try to limit people's access to outdoor spaces.

For people without cars, there is no way to reach national parks, state parks or most of the state's hiking trails together.

Four Brothers has one project that helps young men in their families from underserved neighborhoods in Albuquerque, like the International District in West Gate, make it to the foothills of the San Dias in the back of the Rio Grande de.

When we were out in the Bosque for the first time, a couple at the beginning of the summer, when we organized our first hike, 90% of the youth organizers had never been to the Bosque.

And these are folks who lived their entire lives in Albuquerque.

I'm used to you know, concrete.

That's well, from from where I'm from.

When I look at the mountains and the and, you know, and I and I hear about the Bosque and stuff, they just sound like faraway places of somewhere like the Grand Canyon or something like that, a place that I shouldn't like, you know, I couldn't really get to.

I don't have the time to get to.

Over the summer, the young men started taking city busses to the foothills and the river and shooting videos to show other families how to do it, to take.

Transit and pick this.

Up or down the other way.

Put this right here.

You want your front tire to be the one that gets this on it, and you just make it like you can and you can put it in this on either one.

4138 3838.

One of the things today when we were thinking of doing a hike, we actually thought about first hiking through the petroglyphs and realized there actually isn't good public transit to most of the public sites of the Petroglyph National Monument.

And this is so common.

Villatoro In the South Valley is the first urban wildlife refuge in the United States with a strong environmental justice component to its mission.

And yet there's no baseline public access, something many of us take for granted.

It's just not universal.

Most of us either need a vehicle or need our parents take us somewhere, and sometimes we don't feel comfortable riding the bus.

So it also allows for us to get some physical exercise and also help us with our mental health, even though it's not really talked about.

And more importantly, people are being left out right here and now.

It's way too hard.

And let me take a little break.

And young men of color don't always know if public spaces are safe for them or their families or what challenges they might face there.

Low income families are often told that things like the outdoors are a privilege or a luxury.

And the reality is.

Earlier today, we asked young people of color to think, what did the outdoors do for you?

Mental health, emotional health, physical exercise, time with my family not connected to technology.

And when I think of who who needs that the most, it's the young people and the families in the most impacted neighborhoods.

Oh, so nice.

You like it?

Ramirez says that young men of color from these neighborhoods feel like they don't have a right to public lands like they don't deserve that access so many just expect.

For his part, Grubbs has loved getting outside, and he has advice for other men in their families.

These are places for everybody.

If you don't think you should go there, go there, try it out and you'll probably enjoy it.

Young people keep telling us how scary the climate changed world is.

Many of them have even talked about how a lack of action on climate change has made them question the need to go to college, or it's made them feel like someday they won't have families of their own.

Demanding action at the University of New Mexico.

Students are calling for divestm And as you said last year, when I asked you about.

The reason why it's important for the U.N. foundation to divest from fossil fuels is because we understand that fossil fuels and the climate crisis are progressively ruining our lives, our planet, our beautiful world.

When you and I is actively investing in these companies, they are kind of in a way, killing us.

And it's important for us to divest, because if we want to have a future, then we can't be investing in fossil fuels.

And as an institution, the university is helping us get degrees, helping us get jobs, experience, mentorship.

And it seems kind of hypocritical for them to be pushing us to graduate and to find all these wonderful opportunities out in the world while they're actively destroying it for us.

Most of the universities here in the United States invest in fossil fuels.

Harvard actually accomplish should divest from fossil fuels.

So we took that as an inspiration and we're saying if they could do it, we can do it too.

So that's her goal.

Climate change is very important to me, I think, as an indigenous person.

I've witnessed like how the land and my people and my culture and my language are kind of tied together with it.

And so when my tribal people and my community experience the adverse effects of climate change, it is more direct.

It's more it's more intimate, it's more personal at this point.

Like it impacts the culture and the language and just like those ties together.

I know we can convince everyone to care about the world, or at least like, advocate like us.

But I just wanted them to understand why we're fighting for it.

And if they had a good life, like they had opportunity to study and work and, you know, like experience different things they should at least carry that or if iterations deserve the same.

President Stokes came up afterwards, like while we were talking.

She said, Is there anything I can help you with?

And so we were kind of asking her about divestment and climate action in general, and she said that divestment wasn't on their priority list, which I'm not surprised about, but that they were working on some kind of action plan.

Sustainability broadly, she said, it might not just be environmental stuff, so I have no idea what that means.

But she said they're hoping to have that ready by February.

We have continuously asked UNM.

We've had rallies and protests.

We delivered a letter, attended meetings and written resolutions.

And so being constantly ignored and pushed to the bottom of agendas, I think that's why we're here today and that's why we filed the complaint in general, is because we can no longer like, wait and sit around and just continue to be ignored and so I think that's the message of today, is that we're going to keep coming.

We're going to keep protesting and rallying.

Across the United States.

The land back movement is growing with more and more allies all the time.

That movement advocates for the transfer of decision making power over land to indigenous communities here in New Mexico.

As Julia Bernal with the Pueblo Action Alliance explains, there's also a water back movement.

So lots of people have heard about land back.

I'm interested in learning more about water back and what that means here in New Mexico.

Yeah, I mean, Land Back is a is a global movement.

And it's it's not about obtaining my property back.

It's not about being like this was our land and we're going to, you know, we need to have like the property to own the rights of it.

It's more about the resurgence of indigenous stewardship and management because we believe that, you know what we do and our perspective is beneficial for everyone and the same thing with water.

So when we were thinking about what water back meant to us, we thought about how tied land is to water and how important water is in Pueblo culture.

I mean, a lot of our ceremonies and songs and dances really do revolve around speaking to, you know, our water gods and asking for abundance and healthy watersheds and healthy communities.

That's very core to, you know, our ways of life and our and our world view.

And so, again, if we were to have a resurgence of that indigenous worldview and identity and how we manage land and water, it would be beneficial for everyone.

And also just that we need to shift the way we look at water, the water to us, the middle Rio Grande.

That's our our river mother.

That and so that is a reason why it's important for us to reassert that personhood, because if we asserted a personhood on our waterways, we'd probably treat her a lot differently.

You know, we'd probably have a lot more respect and acts of reciprocity rather than, you know, damming and allocating that and, you know, with excuse me, wasting it even.

And so water back is just really that same sort of concept as like what decolonization is.

I know that that's where it's been a little co-opted lately, but our definition has been, you know, a removal of Eurocentric occupations and ideals and a resurgence of indigenous identity, because that's the way this landscape needs to be managed.

And of course, you know, especially here in the southwest, you know, water security, water scarcity are real things.

And they're going to continue to be very real things.

And so if there is the opportunity for Pueblo people to reclaim their old management strategies, we may see the the health of the river look a lot better than what it does now.

So it sounds to me like I think sometimes when people hear land back or water back, they get like really defensive and think about it in terms of of of colonizing basically, like taking something, keeping it.

But it sounds to me like what you're talking about is something that's really different from that, that it's land back and water back is something that benefits lots of people, many people.

Everyone, maybe.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah.

You know, decolonizing is a very long process.

I mean, we've been in this period of colonization, you know, for like over 500 years now.

And so it's not about like going back in time, you know, it's not about like going back in time where there wasn't, like, technology or there wasn't, you know, these human advances.

But it was a time where the land was viewed as our earth mother.

The water was viewed as our water mother.

And we took what we needed and also gave back.

And so we're also navigating in a foreign language, you know, English.

And so in order for us to convey these decolonial thoughts in English is always something to that we have to navigate.

Land back has been water back have been to movements that seem to align with a lot of indigenous values but also upset non-Indigenous people too.

So there's then again now there's this need for a conversation around or even just creating spaces to really think deeply about what it means to decolonize and where still even, you know, in those conversations right now, like we don't have the answers now, there's a lot that needs to be undone and there's a lot that needs to be learned.

But, you know, the way that water is, it's it's it moves it, you know, and if it's stagnant, its quality gets really poor.

And so, you know, we view water as a very transformative process.

I mean, our river has been changing so much over, over millennia.

And we need to look at things in that perspective, too.

And also come to terms with the fact that we and I, we may never see we might never see that change, but at least, you know, we're trying to create space and again, deep thinking for what our futures could potentially look like, because at the end of the day, indigenous people, we have the inherent birthright to just enjoy our landscapes.

And that's the ultimate goal.

I think, and inviting other non-Indigenous people to also know like what it means for that enjoyment of the landscape.

Again, it's beneficial for everybody and not just humans, non nonhuman relatives as well.

Whether it's trying to nurture a healthy watershed or facing climate change.

These issues we cover are huge and they demand deep reflection.

Earlier this year, I wanted to know what theologian Larry Rasmussen had to say about climate activism and the role of faith.

On our show, we talk a lot about the science of climate change and cultural issues around climate change.

I wanted to talk with you today about where faith fits in to climate activism.

I mean, someone has said that faith is a citadel perched at the edge of despair.

And I think that that is the case when people are in really rough places, whether it's just for themselves personally or in their family or in their community, or whether it's a whole nation, even a planet.

First of all, I think faith is a kind way of saying yes to life in spite of everything.

I mean, we talk about it that way.

Faith is a kind of trust in things that we've not yet seen, that they are yet possible.

Mm hmm.

And your 2013 book, which I realized where you're in 2022 now, but you wrote in this book that as the world has changed, we must learn to sing a new song in a strange land.

Now.

What is this strange land?

And how do we sing a new song?

Yeah.

I'm good with different coffee.

The strange land is that we've changed the planet.

And what is not in that book, except to be mentioned at the very outset, is that we've actually moved into a different geological epoch.

I think it's massive that we have gone from the Holocene, which relied on a balanced climate into the Anthropocene epoch.

But we'll have to figure out a way to manage and adapt civilization if it survives under conditions of climate volatility rather than stability and climate unfriendly us rather than friendly us.

So saying learning to sing a strange, a new song in a strange land then requires certainly creativity adaptability, resilience, and probably sheer grit.

And it's going to be in the face of suffering on a scale that we have not seen as a result of natural disasters.

Your shared with me a letter that you wrote to your grandchildren about this coming transition.

And you wrote, If the tumultuous world hasn't stopped being beautiful, neither has love.

Stopped being love.

Yeah.

In this world of huge uncertainty and transitions.

What.

What does love?

What does beauty matter?

You know, a lot.

I don't think we find our way except through the kind of relationships that are nurtured by love amidst this changing and changed planet and find our way without a sense of wonder.

Without a sense of being on a journey which is much greater than our little slice of time.

Speaking of faith, let's talk about temptation and resisting the temptation to give up or tune out.

Here's a short excerpt of a conversation with Professor Sara Ray, who wrote A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet.

You write about existential grief and how the root of it is the fear of loss or the terror of loneliness.

And you write that there are far more effective ways to address our existential grief than extinguishing ourselves under the weight of it all.

What are some of those ways?

Oh, they're so many times.

I think that the automatic kneejerk reaction to climate grief and to climate anxiety is action.

Right.

Okay, let's let's transformer anxiety into action.

And I think that that's really great.

And I don't I don't reject that.

I think that's an important thing.

We really need a lot of action.

But unfortunately, if people do not have the existential capacity for action because they're burned out, they're despairing, they're apathetic, they think that what they're going to do doesn't matter, which is the main thing.

The problem is too big and they're too small, that kind of thing.

If they believe that, they're they're not even likely.

Turns out psychologist show this really interesting experiment.

Psychologists have done a lot of research for the book that people are less likely to even try to solve the problem if they don't think that it can ever be solved and they can make no difference to it.

And so that is where the kind of core of the problem lies in my mind, not so much in what actions do we need to do?

They don't even can't even get to action then no matter no matter how we lay out the list of great things to do, they're not going to do it.

They can't even come to class, seem so depressed.

So there is a sense to me that there is something beneath even those actions that had to happen.

And then when I started to do a lot of the research on it, really, a lot of that is existential.

That's existential work that that wisdom, traditions, spiritual traditions, different types of community action or social movements have long had some knowledge about and been able to do, but that the climate movement so far hadn't really done a lot of that reckoning.

And I tried to turn some of the attention in the book to some of that interior work of reminding of ourselves, of our connection to each other, our connection to the more than human world.

And there is the it's the denial of those connections that's at the root of many of our problems.

And so the repair has to happen at that kind of existential level, as much as all of these other external actions.

Awesome.

But they're interconnected.

You can't really, you know, embolden a movement to take on the challenges as we need to without that kind of interior resilience and energy.

Yeah, along those lines, you write about how seeing ourselves as part of a collective and acting collectively versus try to do things individually is so important.

And it made me think of like Joanna Macy, Macy.

And she talks about group action and group work.

What are the benefits of this collective action, this group work, this relationship building?

Yeah, that's a that's a really great question.

Is there many facets to that?

So some people say that at the root, the root cause of our social crises are the same as the root cause of the climate change crisis, which is disconnection, lack of community and and many people, if you look at Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and you look at the sort of crisis of civil society, the crisis of community that's been sort of almost engineered by the ways that we've designed, you know, not just architecture and cities and and our automobiles and highways, but also we have, you know, sort of create a culture of individualism in American society that you're on your own and and go off and set free yourself, free from all of the fetters of your family and and others.

And there's a real fetish of that in American culture.

And there's a lot of benefits to that.

And I'm not denying entirely that there's some value to that, but it has had the unfortunate effect of making us think that we are alone in our actions, the planet.

So that's one way that it makes us, it disempowers us and how it helps us.

Not able to see makes us not able to see the ways that we our actions are in concert already with a huge community of people.

What Paul Hawken calls the blessed unrest or some groundswell.

Rebecca Solnit Beautifully writes about this.

And also it makes us not able to take take a break when we need to build on our resources.

Many people, young people in particular, feel like they need to sort of burn the midnight oil and not sleep in order to do the amount of work that's necessary because the problem is so urgent.

Right.

This urgency of the problem, this next ten years matter so much.

We often hear makes people feel like, okay, I'll I'll just work my tail off until the problem is solved and then I'll be able to maybe relax.

There's no time for rest and.

Individualism shows up also in activism, too, in a way that undermines our ability to keep engaged in these issues for the long term of our lives.

The problem is not going to be resolved in ten years.

It's going to be going on for the rest of our lives.

And so seeing ourselves in the collective is partly a meant, a sort of critical thinking tool to keep us.

Energized, right.

Let's focus on the fact that we are amplified in all these ways.

I do a network mapping exercise with my students sometimes where I help them see all the things that support them and that they support and ask them how can they enhance those supports.

And also, there's some really interesting neuroscience about this that there's sort of the mirror neurons that happens, the things that happens hormonally and chemically when we're actually in space with other people and when we're doing things with other people.

And I find it's really fascinating that there's things that happen, like if you did an MRI, if you could take a picture of people's brains when they're with people versus when they're on Zoom or when they're on Zoom, when they're versus when they're alone.

Just the sheer act of being with people, doing something collectively enhances all of the good feels that we might need to have chemically in our body.

So there's some some really cool stuff that happens there.

Just even just the neuroscience of it is really important.

Connecting and community is so important.

So is learning from the past and ensuring there's not just something left but bounty for future generations.

Project Fatherhood isn't just about one garden, one school, or even one community.

It connects farmers.

Today to past generations.

Lorenzo Candelaria is a farmer in the South Valley and a mentor for the project.

I tell all of the people that come join me to do this, maybe that we plant many plants here on this farm, but we harvest only one day.

And that one thing is consciousness, the ability to understand our connection to this mother that we call Earth.

And I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have kids living here.

But farming doesn't just happen on a 300 year old farm along in Asia.

It can thrive in empty lots, like at Van Buren, Middle School off Louisiana Boulevard.

Travis McKenzie is one of the co-founders of Feed the Hood and a teacher at Van Buren.

Schools have the potential to grow so much food for our students and for our families and ultimately for our communities.

We just have to start thinking about our landscapes, like edible landscapes.

How can we create a landscape into something edible?

About ten years ago, McKenzie and Rodrigo Rodriguez started the program.

Its roots were an effort to convert lands into gardens and also to reach young people.

McKenzie says his philosophy is centered on togetherness.

People so and harvest together and they eat together.

And as interns, students do real work and get paid for their time.

It changes the lot because usually at the beginning of summer I was just lying inside watching YouTube on my phone.

So I wasn't really doing nothing.

And then my friend, he he told me about his job.

So it was a really good change.

Cleaning up the aisles and like harvesting the harvesting the stuff is not that hard, but like digging holes or like the compost is kind of hard.

Teaching the kids about compost and really it's carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water.

And those four elements create earth and we try to stack it like enchilada style.

Last year we got five wheelbarrows full of compost to put back in our garden.

Not far from the airport.

Project Fatherhood has created a garden from an empty lot.

Stephanie Olivas is wrapping up her time as a food course service member.

With Swap for that one right there.

This is the Ilsa and Ray Gardenia community garden.

It's our ninth growing season.

Previously, it was an emergency landing strip.

All this land you see is city aviation apartment land.

And so we work with them.

And many of our local representative is to use this particular plot for growing food.

When Project Feed the Hood first started working this land, they had to haul out trash needles, concrete.

It's not a neighborhood known over the decades for its gardens or public spaces.

Despite the city golf course across the street, it's dense with apartments, most of which are low income housing.

Food access is definitely an issue.

Here we are.

The technical term is a food desert.

We don't like to use that term because deserts are thriving ecosystems and thriving communities.

What has been created?

This lack of food access, as we see, is an intentional, systematic problem that has been created.

And so the need for for fresh, nutritious foods is here, especially organic, affordable.

You know, the community garden in its free with that lack of access to fresh foods, we see an increase in other dietary related diseases.

Feed the Hood Volunteers and interns transformed the space, compacted dirt to raised beds and planted rows.

They added a shade structure and they plan to eventually add an agroecology center.

Growing local leaders like Lucero Velasquez as they grow food.

We came out here to project Feed the Hood and we started weeding and I really didn't really know what gardening was about.

I didn't know a lot of plants and how to distinguish the leaves from the weeds.

But she's learned and now sees her work as part of a broader effort to improve her community.

So you guys can see in here, too, there's a bunch of ladybugs.

I first have a connection with the plant and that and getting my fingers in the dirt.

I feel connected and I say, Plant, you are me, I am you.

I'm just helping you grow taller, helping you be fruitful.

And in turn, it's just a reflection for for the way that I want to grow.

And if my community is there picking out the weeds and and clearing a path for me so that I can flourish, I'm going to want to do that here in the garden, too, and help in the little ways that I can.

She says gardening is also healing for people who are dealing with violence in their community.

The Feed the Hood internship is now named after the Naldo Yanez race.

He was a Feed the Hood intern who was killed in Albuquerque in 2017.

Just because you're a part of a farming internship doesn't mean it's going to remove the violence from your community.

But we can start working together to do it.

Yeah, we're planting seeds.

Yeah, we're planting the garden.

But ultimately, we're planting ourself.

We're planting and we're growing along with these crops.

So every season, we'll learn something.

Every season, every year you might want to do something.

Maybe you won't get to it, maybe you will.

Maybe it'll do good.

But that's a part of it.

It teaches you, man, you can put in a lot of hard work and sometimes bad stuff happens.

Sometimes you get a hailstorm, sometimes somebody vandalize you.

But it's really like a teachable moment that we can just keep planting, you know?

Yeah, we roll with it, you know, we all care.

Yeah.

It's a bummer.

It's sad.

That's grieve.

But then let's go.

Let's, let's keep planting.

Let's do the next thing.

Let's keep going.

That resilience that, you know, resistance that are part of our people culture forever, you know, that we're here to resist we're here to reclaim our food systems, to reclaim our spaces, our community spaces and really help the next generation think about that and kind of move us into the future.

Looking back on five years of the show, we also remember to have a little fun with.

Ever since I was a kid, I was just always fascinated with carnival traveling circus, sideshow freak show folklore and the entire history.

And during the Great Depression, it was the only way people could.

A lot of people could make money and be in show time unless you're wealthy on the radio or something like that.

And it gave a lot of people a lot of opportunity just to be fed and employed and people who would be out casted a chance to shine.

And it just just the whole a static of it I just thought was so cool.

And I've always thought that and some even through getting my biology degree and traveling and trying to do environmental activism, I always just gravitated towards it.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, right.

The best.

I'll break the fast and I'm a Rio Grande silver medal.

I'm stranded on the bank of the Rio because the mines are just too much water.

Those Rio Grande silver medals are endangered species waning, slow moving back channels in the bars to make our babies.

And that doesn't happen anymore because the river, the planet Mars that you humans are using, how much water, how fast you last water.

Oh, the conservation carnival is a science circus.

We bring the boss to the public to teach about environmental education.

We teach.

We celebrate the Bosque ecosystem and we teach water conservation as well through circus arts and performing arts.

Okay, we've been taking people out into the woods and having them interact with characters from the ecosystem.

So we have a, well, a cottonwood tree porcupine.

And I don't want to say all the names because it's supposed to be surprised when you're out there.

Oh, we're still grass.

You have been around since the dinosaurs, my friends.

Your album of all of us.

Abuela here.

Oh.

Oh, good.

What a beautiful day in the Bosque.

What a beautiful day in the Bosque.

And actually, I have a friend here where our product for free.

Oh, dear.

Oh, oh, dear.

Hello, Bradley.

I love you.

I love this.

I love you.

I was sleeping.

You know, I preferred to nap during most of the day.

You see, here is a porcupine, my friend.

She is a husky, my being.

She sleeps online during the day.

She and she live on as cottonwood trees.

And you eat us too, don't you guys don't check fruit.

And it's true.

I don't know if you've ever tried it, but this is delicious.

This is camp, you know, and it grows right under the bark of the tree.

And we porcupines just to chew on the cambium.

It's delicious.

We have very sharp teeth.

You see, this is my Uncle Peter and he's no longer with us.

May you rest in peace, Peter.

And you can see his long teeth.

We're cutting through that bark and and getting to the candy.

And that's where we get our nutrients, you see.

And yes, we also feel very safe up in the cottonwood tree, as I talked about that instead of the eating us part.

Oh, you're safe, don't we?

Yes, we are.

Very good climbers.

You know, we like to climb high up in the trees.

So we are saved from the predators.

When we have a, well, a cottonwood tree out, kids will ask, does it hurt when a woodpecker pecks you?

So they actually, like, really dove in that she is a creature here.

That's always really cool because they're they're not questioning that someone's in costume or anything.

They're actually interacting and looking at trees differently again and realizing they're part of a system right.

And building out this man has been a cure and a lot of ways for my kind and anxiety, my depression about it, and creating and finding a community that reacts and wants to be a part of it and perform or just calm.

It's been really soothing because, yeah, it is daunting, it's heavy.

So if you can be silly with it in any sort of way, why not be healing any sort of way?

If we can spend some time at events or just getting together for these bask theaters and celebrate what we have, instead of keep talking about how it was and how we need to change it and and just say like, Hey, I like that tree.

You are like, Wow, I love drinking water.

It helps.

It really does.

And I speak I speak from personal experience with that because I was diagnosed with climate anxiety pretty, pretty heavily.

And this is my therapy for it.

So I'm inviting anyone who can be goofy and be a carnie to bring some levity.

Yeah.

Laura has been the driving force behind our environmental coverage since the inception of our land.

To see all of the segments for the past five years, visit the PBS video app on your smart device and search our land funding for New Mexico and focus provided by viewers like you.