SANTA FE, N.M.—With banners stating, “Water is Our First Environment” and “Honor the Breath of Life” suspended above the rotunda of the Roundhouse, Indigenous women, youth and artists gathered to stand in solidarity and raise awareness about the climate crisis.

The focus on the environment was the theme of Indigenous Women’s Day, which was held for the fifth time at the New Mexico Capitol. The day started with a prayer walk to the Roundhouse, as the Capitol building is known locally, followed by a reading of the proclamation that declared Saturday as Indigenous Women’s Day, remarks and dance and musical performances.

“When we return to the land, we heal,” Emileah Misty Rain Flower Lujan from Taos Pueblo, one of the 19 pueblos in the state, said on Saturday. Lujan did a hoop dance in which the dancer uses multiple hoops to make formations of animals and plants while continuously dancing and keeping time to music.

For Julia Bernal, executive director of Pueblo Action Alliance, industries removing minerals and other resources from the environment adversely impacts the health and nature of communities. The Albuquerque-based alliance, one of the event’s sponsors, focuses on climate and environmental justice, with staff members coming from various pueblo communities.

Extraction activities have a role in the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives and the practice of removing massive quantities of natural resources for profit perpetuates the climate crisis, said Bernal, who is from Sandia Pueblo and Yuchi.

Resource extraction is also connected to issues surrounding immigration and birthright citizenship, she explained, as both are the results of colonization, which strips the indigeneity of people on either side of the border.

“Water, land and air protection is a movement led by Indigenous women,” Bernal said. The gathering at the Capitol “shows and displays the intersections of that work.”

Among the topics the alliance has focused on is oil and gas developments in the northwest part of the state, particularly near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an area sacred to pueblo people.

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In recent years, the alliance has seen a push to develop a state economy around hydrogen, promoted as a zero-emissions energy source, Bernal said, but its development raises concerns about the amount of water used in production of the gas.

The alliance remains opposed to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s “Strategic Water Supply” proposal, in which she sought a $500 million investment to allow the state to buy treated oil and gas wastewater and use it for hydrogen production. Time ran out for the bill when the legislative session ended in February 2024. An updated version of the proposal, House Bill 137, cleared its first legislative hurdle on Tuesday, according to the governor’s office.

Jolene Tsinnijinnie, from the Pueblo of Santo Domingo and Navajo, criticized President Donald Trump’s roll back of environmental regulations, including those put in place by former President Joe Biden, which could increase operations like hydraulic fracturing and contamination from its wastewater.

“This push to restore greatness fails and endangers the land we live on,” Tsinnijinnie said. “Allowing corporations to bypass regulations and exploit natural resources indiscriminately harms our environment and communities.”

Women and two-spirit relatives were once respected as mothers and leaders in Indigenous communities, but that esteem changed as new principles were introduced to communities, she said.

“It is time to restart our sacred relationship with the land and honor our matriarchal societies,” Tsinnijinnie said.

Honor Our Pueblo Existence, also known as H.O.P.E., is a nonprofit organization based in Santa Clara Pueblo focused on environmental health issues, cultural preservation and reclamation projects. Part of the nonprofit’s work is raising awareness about public health issues caused by Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is situated on the ancestral homelands of pueblo people in northern New Mexico.

“Allowing corporations to bypass regulations and exploit natural resources indiscriminately harms our environment and communities.”

H.O.P.E. founder Marian Naranjo became involved in environmental justice while working as an outreach director to build communication between pueblo communities and the laboratory. This included asking pueblo members for their opinions about the laboratory’s location on ancestral lands.

In her remarks, she emphasized the importance of government-to-government dialogue between tribes, states and federal authorities.

Naranjo, who is from Santa Clara Pueblo, said she prayed that a pueblo government would “make substantial comments with teeth” on an environmental impact statement regarding the Los Alamos laboratory.

She said it took 12 years before Santa Clara Pueblo submitted such a comment in 2008 that expressed concerns about the laboratory’s operations impacting soil, air, water and cultural resources.

“That was a step for tribes,” Naranjo said.

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State Sen. Linda Lopez started Indigenous Women’s Day five years ago to recognize women from pueblos and tribes in New Mexico. There is a different theme each year.

“It helps to unify and also shows that there’s still collaboration going forward as we try to work on some of these issues,” state Sen. Shannon Pinto said. “This year’s theme, I think, really speaks to a lot of what’s going on. It’s one of those foundational blocks too, that we need to address when we talk about the land, the water, and the air, especially for our people.”

Pinto, who is a member of the Navajo Nation, represents District 3 in the state Senate.

The district comprises 15 chapters on the Navajo Nation, part of the Ute Mountain Ute tribal land and a portion of the Gallup community. Native Americans make up approximately 71 percent of the adult population in the district, according to data from the New Mexico Legislature.

Pinto said water quality and scarcity are critical issues to her constituents. Another is remediating abandoned uranium mine sites in New Mexico.

Lawmakers announced on Feb. 7 plans to use $50 million from the general fund for the New Mexico Environment Department’s clean up of abandoned uranium mines across the state.

The legacy of uranium mining and milling started in World War II to help the national defense effort. Although there are no active mining or milling operations today, communities continue to struggle with radioactive materials and waste left behind by the federal government and private industries.

There are 261 uranium mine sites on federal, tribal, state and private lands, according to the state environment department. About 50 of these sites do not have a party responsible for cleanup or are not part of existing regulatory programs.

The funding requests are in House Bill 333 and Senate Bill 260. Both were introduced last week and are now assigned to committees.

Pinto hopes this will start turning wheels to address cleanups of sites contaminated by the uranium industry.

“Once those bills start moving, then we turn it into action. And that’s where we need to be on a lot of these issues,” she said. “We’ve talked about it. Now, we need to culminate it and make sure we have action happening.”

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