Maite Arce is the founder and CEO of Hispanic Access Foundation. She is an environmental movement leader working to connect Hispanic and Latino communities to the political power of Latinx communities. She lives in Purcellville, Virginia and her ancestral origins are of the Cochimi people of Baja peninsula and her Spanish roots. In this guest blog post to mark the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, she shares her motivations and the connections that infuse her passion for nature and community.

Keecha Harris and Associates, Inc (KHA), published the Closing the Gap report that quantifies the funding gap between white-led and BIPOC-led environmental nonprofits. In this Q&A with Green 2.0, KHA president Keecha Harris shares more about the initiative. KHA has worked extensively with Green 2.0 on producing the Transparency Report Card and most recently, the Tracking Diversity: The Green 2.0 Guide to Best Practices in Demographic Data Collection.

WE ACT for Environmental Justice was founded in 1988 to address the environmental racism impacting West Harlem. WE ACT remains connected to their Harlem roots, with more than 800 members supporting their mission to build healthier communities by ensuring that people of color and low-income participate meaningfully in the creation of just and equitable environmental policies and practices. WE ACT has grown to become a nationally recognized leader in the environmental and climate justice movements. It run programs throughout Northern Manhattan and advocate for policies at the city, state, and federal levels – having opened a Federal Policy Office in Washington, DC in 2012.

Angelo Villagomez, senior officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts, is the campaigns manager for Blue Nature Alliance, a global partnership that seeks to protect 18 million square kilometers of ocean in support of the global goal to protect at least 30 percent of nature by 2030. Villagomez, who identifies as Indigenous Chamorro, is a co-author on a recent scientific publication, Advancing Social Equity in and Through Marine Conservation, and in this guest blog post for Green 2.0, he writes about how including Indigenous peoples in conservation can lead to more durable outcomes.

Grace Edelen was a recent 2021 summer fellow at Green 2.0 and a graduate of Bellarmine University where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science with a minor in Anthropology. She completed her undergraduate research on the effects of climate change on medicinal plants, analyzing how this shift affects Indigenous communities in Ecuador. Grace is passionate about supporting Green 2.0’s mission of making environmental causes more inclusive and equitable.