In just two weeks, starting on Tuesday, Jan. 18, the GreenLatinos 2021-2022 Winter National Summit will virtually bring together hundreds of the top national Latino environmental and conservation champions from across the country for relationship building, development of partnerships and collaborations, education, and professional training. The summit will provide the tools necessary to understand, message and champion environmental issues and policies that impact Latino communities, while developing, encouraging, engaging, and supporting grassroots activists, constituencies, elected and appointed officials, and environmental leaders.
There will be three days of professional and social events: On January 18, 19 & 20, the summit will be live between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Pacific Time, followed by networking opportunities between 3:00pm and 4:00pm.
Friends of the Inyo’s Director of Communications and Philanthropy, Louis (Lou) Medina, has been invited to present at the summit on Culturally-Sensitive, Multilingual Engagement of Immigrants in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Process on Jan 19, from 1 to 1:50 p.m. Pacific Time.
Called the cornerstone of federal environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act is intended to empower local communities to protect themselves and their environment from dangerous, rushed or poorly planned federal projects. It was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on January 1, 1970. NEPA requires government agencies to engage in a review process intended to discover any significant environmental and public health impacts before a decision is made and construction begins. The public is invited to submit comments, but the submission of comments in languages other than English is not particularly encouraged or facilitated.
You can sign up for the Green Latinos 2021-2022 Winter National Summit via this link. There is a suggested attendance fee, but ability-to-pay options are also available. Closer to the summit, GreenLatinos will be providing you with an opportunity to sign up to attend any of the summit’s offerings, including breakout sessions, professional education workshops, afternoon social functions and networking, high-level administration and congressional speakers, Latino artists and more.
About GreenLatinos
GreenLatinos is a national nonprofit organization that convenes a broad coalition of Latino leaders committed to addressing national, regional and local environmental, natural resources and conservation issues that significantly affect the health and welfare of the Latino community in the United States.
GreenLatinos provides an inclusive table at which its members establish collaborative partnerships and networks to improve the environment; protect and promote conservation of land and other natural resources; amplify the voices of low-income and tribal communities; and train, mentor, and promote the current and future generations of Latino environmental leaders for the benefit of the Latino community and beyond.
About Friends of the Inyo
Friends of the Inyo (FOI) was originally founded in 1986 as an all-volunteer organization to comment on the Inyo National Forest planning process. Since then, FOI has evolved into a local environmental leader, working on a broad range of public land issues that impact Inyo and Mono Counties. Its mission is to protect and care for the public lands of the Eastern Sierra.
About Louis
Louis (or Lou) was born in El Salvador and came to the U.S. at age 10. A lover of languages with an M.A. in Applied Linguistics, he has lived in Japan, China, Spain, England, and traveled extensively overseas and in the U.S. He found a calling in charitable work in the early 2000s and, except for a stint as a reporter for The Bakersfield Californian from 2006 to 2009, has worked in the nonprofit sector since. He fell in love with California’s Eastern Sierra in Inyo and Mono Counties during a trip in the mid-twenty-teens and is pleased to be a part of Friends of the Inyo to help further its important mission, to protect and care for the public lands of the Eastern Sierra. As the first English-Spanish bilingual staff member of Friends of the Inyo, he contributes a monthly column to local Spanish weekly newspaper El Sol de la Sierra. Lou’s column usually publishes the first Thursday of every month and is called “Amigos de Nuestras Tierras” (“Friends of Our Lands”). He is a cat dad to Rescue and Groom (boys), and Buttonwillow (a girl).