Latino Conservation Week opens at Arizona monument facing pressure from mining

Latino Conservation Week opened Saturday at Ironwood Forest National Monument in southern Arizona, where organizers framed the annual celebration as both a cultural gathering and a call to protect public lands. The event took place at a site just north of Tucson that has become a focal point in debates over mining, conservation and the future of federal land protections.

The kickoff drew attention to the role Latino communities play in stewardship of outdoor spaces and to the way those lands shape family traditions, recreation and environmental advocacy. Cassandra Becerra, Arizona state director for Mountain Mamas, said her own path into conservation was shaped by childhood memories of fishing, exploring the desert and spending time outdoors after arriving in the United States from Mexico as a young child.

Latino Conservation Week is a nationwide initiative created by the Hispanic Access Foundation. According to the National Park Service, the annual event began in 2014 and is intended to engage Latino communities in outdoor recreation and stewardship activities that support parks and natural resources.

A monument at the center of long-running land-use disputes

Ironwood Forest National Monument, designated in 2000, protects about 129,000 acres of Sonoran Desert habitat. Organizers chose it as the launch site in part because of its symbolic importance: the monument has long been viewed as a buffer against the expansion of existing mines and the development of new extraction projects nearby.

Just outside the monument is ASARCO’s Silver Bell mine, whose proposed expansion has faced opposition from conservation advocates and the protections tied to the monument. During the event, speakers warned that any effort to scale back protections at one national monument could have consequences for others facing similar pressure.

Rebecca Perez, the Arizona conservation manager for the Wilderness Society, said public lands belong to everyone and argued that industrializing protected places can cause lasting damage. Christine Flanagan, president of Friends of Ironwood Forest, also spoke about the need for visitors and nearby communities to see the land as shared public space.

Events tied to Latino Conservation Week are scheduled across Arizona and the country and include hikes, cleanups and educational sessions. Organizers said the week is designed to bring more people outdoors first and then deepen their involvement in defending the landscapes they use and value.

The Arizona kickoff came against a broader backdrop of federal land policy fights in the West, including recent moves by the Trump administration to reduce the size of two Utah national monuments. At Ironwood Forest, participants said those developments have only sharpened the urgency of building public support for conservation.