Niria Alicia Garcia | |
|---|---|
 Niria Alicia Garcia in 2016 at the COP22 UN climate talks. | |
| Born | b. 1993 Oregon |
| Occupation(s) | environmental activist, human rights advocate, educator |
| Organization | Run4Salmon |
| Awards | UNEP Young Champion of the Earth 2020 |
Niria Alicia Garcia (born 1993) is a Xicana environmental activist, human rights advocate, and educator. She is an organizer involved with indigenous-led species restoration efforts in California's Sacramento River watershed.
Niria Alicia Garcia was born in Oregon to a family of migrant farmworkers. [1] Her mother is from Michoacán, Mexico, and migrated to the United States in her twenties, living in California before settling in Oregon's Rogue Valley. [2] [3]
Garcia graduated from the University of Oregon with degrees in environmental studies, Latin American studies, and nonprofit administration. [4] As an undergraduate she participated in a study abroad program in Salvador, Brazil, doing field work with favela residents and community leaders. There she witnessed the impact of grassroots campaigns agitating for greater investment in marginalized communities and found role models in their women leaders. This experience inspired her to pursue a career in human rights advocacy and social justice activism. [5]
Garcia went on to study for a masters degree in human rights at Columbia University. [6]
Garcia was one of the organizers of the People's Climate Movement "Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice" demonstration at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. As part of that action, she and other climate activists interrupted Governor Jerry Brown as he came onstage to give a speech. [7] They voiced demands for an end to new oil and gas drilling contracts in California, and asked Brown to account for the contradiction between his reputation as a political leader on climate issues and his continued support for fossil fuel projects. [8] Garcia was removed from the hall by security, along with two other women. [7]
Garcia has spoken publicly about the effects of climate change in her own life. During the disastrous 2020 fire season, she had to evacuate her home when it was threatened by the Almeda Fire in Oregon, and her father's home was destroyed. [9] [3] She was one of the organizers of a bilingual commemorative community event on the first anniversary of the fire, which displaced thousands of local residents. [10]
In 2019 Garcia attended COP25 as the leader of a delegation of indigenous youth affiliated with the advocacy group SustainUS. [11] Other social justice organizations with whom she has worked include Earthjustice, Our Children's Trust, Honor the Earth, Greenaction, Rustic Pathways, Women's Earth Alliance and No More Deaths. [1] [4]
Garcia is one of the lead organizers of Run4Salmon, a prayer journey led by the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and their Chief Caleen Sisk. Since 2016, Run4Salmon has sponsored a yearly journey along the migratory path of the Chinook salmon, from high-elevation spawning grounds in the freshwater McCloud River to the coastal waters of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. Participants travel the 300-mile-long route over the course of two weeks, raising awareness about the health of California's waterways biodiversity and the endangered status of the salmon, a keystone species. Along the way they host events that advocate for ecosystem restoration and celebrate indigenous lifeways. [6]
Garcia began a virtual reality film project about these issues and the Run4Salmon journey in 2020 after receiving funding from the United Nations. The educational film aims to make the beauty and the fragility of the McCloud River ecosystem more accessible and immediate to those who can't experience it in person. [12]
The Run4Salmon helps spread awareness about the Winnemem Wintu Tribe's project to reintroduce winter-run Chinook salmon to the McCloud River, using genetically descended stock that had been shipped to the Rakaia River in New Zealand in the 1940s. [12] [6] The winter-run Chinook is nearly extinct after being cut off from its upstream spawning grounds by the construction of the Shasta Dam. [13] The effort is being undertaken in coordination with the Ngai Tahu Maori, the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [12] [14]
Garcia received the 2019 Emerging Leader award from environmental organization GreenLatinos. She was honored as one of the North American Association for Environmental Education's EE 30 Under 30. [6] She was a member of the Women's Earth Alliance 2019 Grassroots Accelerator for Women Environmental Leaders. [4]
The United Nations Environment Programme named Garcia one of its Young Champions of the Earth in 2020. As part of that award, she received $10,000 in funding for her work in indigenous-led conservation as well as access to specialized training. [15]
Bioneers, under its parent foundation, Collective Heritage Institute, is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization based in New Mexico and California. Founded in 1990 their philosophy recognizes and cultivates the value and wisdom of the natural world, emphasizing that responses to problems must be in harmony with the design of natural systems. Official Programs include Moonrise Women's Leadership, Restorative Food Systems, Indigeneity ), Education for Action, and the award-winning Dreaming New Mexico community resilience program.
The Klamath River flows 257 miles (414 km) through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second largest river in California after the Sacramento River. It drains an extensive watershed of almost 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2) that stretches from the arid country of south-central Oregon to the temperate rainforest of the Pacific coast. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath begins in the high desert and flows toward the mountains – carving its way through the rugged Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains before reaching the sea. The upper basin, today used for farming and ranching, once contained vast freshwater marshes that provided habitat for abundant wildlife, including millions of migratory birds. Most of the lower basin remains wild, with much of it designated wilderness. The watershed is known for this peculiar geography, and the Klamath has been called "a river upside down" by National Geographic magazine.
The Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun. There are four major groups that make up the Wintu people. There northern Wintun (Wintu) and the Central Wintun (Namlaki) are most common. Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu language is part of the Penutian language family but there are different dialects. Before the European colonization, different Wintun communities interacted with each other but were more inclined to communicate with others tribes to the east and west.
The McCloud River is a 77.1-mile (124.1 km) long river that flows east of and parallel to the upper Sacramento River, in Siskiyou County and Shasta County in northern California in the United States. Protected under California's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1972), it drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range, including part of Mount Shasta. It is a tributary of the Pit River, which in turn flows into the Sacramento River. The three rivers join in Shasta Lake, formed by Shasta Dam north of Redding.
The Trinity River is a major river in northwestern California in the United States and is the principal tributary of the Klamath River. The Trinity flows for 165 miles (266 km) through the Klamath Mountains and Coast Ranges, with a watershed area of nearly 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2) in Trinity and Humboldt Counties. Designated a National Wild and Scenic River, along most of its course the Trinity flows swiftly through tight canyons and mountain meadows.
The Winnemem Wintu are a Native American band of the Wintu tribe originally located along the lower McCloud River, above Shasta Dam near Redding, California.
The coho salmon is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name kizhuch (кижуч).
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established Champions of the Earth in 2005 as an annual awards programme to recognize outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society.
Alice Di Micele is a folk musician and environmental singer and songwriter from Ashland, Oregon.
Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht, also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.
Elizabeth Woody is an American Navajo/Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama artist, author, and educator. In March 2016, she was the first Native American to be named poet laureate of Oregon by Governor Kate Brown.
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a coalition of indigenous, grassroots environmental justice activists, primarily based in the United States. Group members have represented Native American concerns at international events such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2016). IEN organizes an annual conference to discuss proposed goals and projects for the coming year; each year the conference is held in a different indigenous nation. The network emphasizes environmental protection as a form of spiritual activism. IEN received attention in the news as a major organizer of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Nina Simons is a co-founder & co-CEO of Bioneers, and an organizer of women's leadership retreats and trainings. Her book Nature, Culture & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership (2018) received the 2018 Nautilus Gold Award in the "Women" category and Silver Award in the "Social Change & Social Justice: category.
Tom B.K. Goldtooth is a Native American environmental, climate, and economic justice activist, speaker, film producer, and Indigenous rights leader. He is active in local, national and international levels as an advocate for building healthy and sustainable Indigenous communities based upon the foundation of Indigenous traditional knowledge. Goldtooth has served as executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) since 1996 after serving as a member of the IEN National Council since 1992.
Leila Salazar-López has served as the executive director of the non-profit Amazon Watch since 2015. As Amazon Watch's Executive Director, Salazar-López leads the organization in its efforts to protect and defend the bio-cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest by partnering with indigenous peoples to protect their rights and territories.
Melissa K. Nelson is Anishinaabe/Métis/Norwegian and an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. An Indigenous scholar and activist, she has been part of various activist groups that focus on Indigenous food sovereignty such as The Cultural Conservancy and Bioneers.
Mily Treviño-Sauceda is an American writer, trade unionist and leader of the National Alliance of Farmworker Women, a nonprofit organization advocating for the safety and rights of women laborers in agriculture. She is celebrated as a founder of the women's farmworker movement in the United States. She was recognized twice by People magazine in 2006, and in 2018, Treviño-Sauceda was co-awarded the Smithsonian Institution's American Ingenuity Award for Social Progress.
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