Dear friends,
It’s been a difficult couple of days as SIA staff and I absorb the election results and what it means for the ecosystems and communities in the Sky Islands. And I’m sure you’re right there with us. I went back to my reflections shared in 2016 when Trump first won office, and I was six months into serving as Sky Island Alliance executive director. As I re-read my words, they still ring true today as we face this enormous, heart-breaking challenge again. However, it cuts deeper for me personally as a woman leader, absorbing what this election says about if and how our nation values women. It’s tough to be back here, facing the next four years. Yet I am finding comfort in our community — our wonderful staff, board, and supporters like you — who are so dedicated to this beautiful place. And surrounded by this community, I’m committed to fierce action with an open heart.
There is no doubt that Trump is a disaster for the Sky Island region, and this election will affect all our work. In the coming years, our approaches will need to respond to what happens with the new administration. But we’ll also need to lead in envisioning, protecting, and creating the type of world we want to live in. We are deeply committed to continuing to be a voice for the amazing animals, plants, springs, creeks, and mountains that are not able to speak for themselves and to treating our fellow humans and neighbors with respect and dignity.
I’m proud to be a part of Sky Island Alliance as we bring people together, connect them with nature, and build unity across borders to conserve our natural treasures. My work and life is enriched by our staff and board who bring such diverse lived experiences, and by the amazing people who live in and visit the Sky Islands. Diversity and inclusion are essential to Sky Island Alliance’s culture and mission. Our differences — in thought, style, culture, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and experience — make us stronger.
We continue to receive strong support from you for our cross-border work and engagement with young conservation leaders in Mexico and the U.S. You helped us launch our Border Wildlife Study to be a voice for science and local communities — a counter to the call for divisive walls. And you’ve supported our work to restore habitat and water sources that are sustaining wildlife as climate change brings extreme heat and drought to the Sky Islands. It will now become harder to do this work, just as it did in 2017. But with you by our side, we will forge ahead with new and creative approaches, growing this work across the region.
This was also a presidential election year in Mexico, where things look quite different, with the country’s first-ever woman elected president: Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist who successfully governed Mexico City. There are glimmers of hope for a renewed government commitment to action on climate change and to protecting and restoring the environment. In the coming years, we will carefully watch how this plays out and be ready to work with our many allies to protect and restore lands in Sonora.
Given the changes we face over the next four years, it’s vital that Sky Island Alliance put our energy and resources into the work that can do the most good in our corner of the world to keep wildlife and our communities thriving. We will be working together as a staff and board to ensure we are as strategic as possible as we defend the Sky Islands and restore its lands and waters.
Sky Island Alliance is here now as we face these coming years, and we will continue to be here, for the wildlife and wild places we love, for the borderlands communities that we work with, and for you, our supporters. We know you are ready to stand strong with us to do the hard work we need to over the next four years.
And finally, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of you for your good work and support to make this world a place we want to live in and to make space in this world for the diversity of life that so enriches our existence. I can’t think of a better group of people to be continuing this essential work with over the coming years.
P.S. If you’re looking for some good news, as I am, something to build on, there’s no shortage of it in our fall newsletter. Thank you for your part in making these developments possible over the past few months and for making our alliance strong. Onward.