New Mexico AG Established New Natural Resources and Environmental Equity Initiative

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas announced the establishment of an initiative to address representation inequities in environmental and natural resources policy and decision-making processes. In the first stage of the initiative, AG Balderas established an advisory council “comprising representatives for marginalized communities who have historically been ignored in policy and decision making in these areas,” and who are disproportionately harmed by the resulting state and federal policy decisions. This advisory council will make recommendations to guide the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General’s engagement with state and federal agencies, with the overarching goals of ensuring that historically marginalized communities are fully recognized and heard, and achieving “equity in conservation, environmental protection, and land and resource management and use.” Underlying the initiative is the understanding that “the future of conservation and environmental protection depends upon deconstruction of systemically racist policies that disproportionately ignore and outright harm Indigenous, Hispanic, Black, and other communities of color.”