For The Wild - ADA RECINOS on Corporate Destabilization and Local Resiliency in El Salvador ⧸109

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00:00:28.160 Okay.

00:00:29.540 How's the sound, March?

00:00:31.200 Can you hear me?

00:00:32.240 We could just say hello.

00:00:33.680 Hello.

00:00:35.020 Okay, good.

00:00:36.780 Cool.

00:00:37.640 So here we go.

00:00:39.020 So welcome to For the Wild podcast.

00:00:41.940 We are broadcasting live from the Heartwood Cafe in downtown Nevada City.

00:00:48.600 So we're speaking with Ada Racinos, and I'm going to read her incredible bio for all of us.

00:00:54.780 So Ada was born and raised in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from El Salvador.

00:00:59.700 She moved to Richmond after graduating from UCSC with a degree in global information and social enterprise studies.

00:01:06.640 Before joining Ecoviva as communications and outreach manager, she was the financial sustainability director for Prospera,

00:01:13.460 an organization that partners with entrepreneurial Latinas to build cooperatives.

00:01:18.600 She currently serves as a Richmond City Counselor and was appointed on September 5th, 2017,

00:01:25.240 after serving nearly two years as Human Rights and Human Relations Commissioner.

00:01:30.020 She is an alumna of Congressional Hunger Center Emerson Fellowship,

00:01:34.340 Hispanics in Philanthropy, Next Generation Latina Leadership, and NALCAB Collegio Programs.

00:01:42.120 Ada's work has centered on organizing immigrants, renters, and women to advocate for their rights

00:01:46.760 and progressive legislation. Her hobbies include playing extremely difficult sudoku,

00:01:51.920 trying new foods, and traveling. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.

00:01:56.440 I actually just finished up my term as a council member, so January 8th was my last day.

00:02:01.500 Okay, well that was very fresh then. Well, this is really wonderful to be sitting with you in

00:02:06.820 person. I don't usually have the joy of being able to be so close to the people I interview,

00:02:12.740 so this is a whole new experience and I'm really looking forward to diving into some

00:02:17.680 large topics that are spoken about so much today like immigration and migration and I also really

00:02:24.220 want to talk about your film so I'd really love to start the conversation around the relationship

00:02:30.040 between food sovereignty agroecology and climate justice and perhaps we can begin by giving some

00:02:36.300 context around El Salvador and food production. And if you want to also tie your film into this

00:02:43.100 conversation, I'd really love to hear about that as well. Absolutely. And so we can really start

00:02:48.360 with what has been big corporate agriculture in Central America since about the 20s or 30s.

00:02:54.660 The story is and has always been about U.S. imperialism and the oligarchies in El Salvador.

00:03:00.640 We used to be known as the 11 families that would run the country who basically owned all the means of production.

00:03:08.140 And that left a lot of Salvadoran citizens as the production.

00:03:12.680 So that meant that a lot of things like bananas, sugarcane, all of those products that were being exported were being all grown in Central South America, in several Caribbean countries.

00:03:26.900 And so that really left a devastation in the area long before the Civil War happened in the 80s and the 90s.

00:03:35.380 And so the story of our community members in Resilience at the Roots in the Bahia de Jiquilisco

00:03:41.120 is really a story of generational trauma and generational migration.

00:03:48.460 And so these families during the war that was between a guerrilla,

00:03:53.400 which was the leftist regime and the oligarchs that was funded by U.S. militant and military

00:04:00.160 trainers. A lot of them former border patrol agents, a lot of them former CIA agents who had

00:04:07.280 lethal training that they took to Central America really devastated a lot of communities that were

00:04:13.860 already impoverished and had little means to survive during that situation. And so we have

00:04:21.760 a mass migration that starts to happen. And our community members in La Bahia de Jiquilisco

00:04:26.700 decided to go to Panama. And so they left for Panama. When the peace accords were signed

00:04:31.680 after the war in the early 90s, they decided to migrate back. One of the issues is that

00:04:37.480 a lot of people lost their property during the Civil War. A lot of people who had, you

00:04:42.840 know, small farms, family farms, found that that was no longer their property when they

00:04:48.480 return. So these community members, some of them from different districts of El Salvador, couldn't

00:04:53.820 go back to where their home was from. And so they were placed in the Bahia de Jiquilisco, and that's

00:05:00.360 where they decided to build their communities. One of the challenges in the area has been the lack

00:05:06.620 of resilience to environmental disasters. And so when we talk about food sovereignty, it really is

00:05:13.180 about the issues that are caused by extreme kind of bouts of drought versus extreme bouts of

00:05:21.340 flooding and a lot of rain. And in a region that's traditionally known as the dry corridor

00:05:27.900 of the Northern Triangle, it's been more difficult to balance the production of people's food.

00:05:35.340 You know, we're talking large farmers who do sell their product and small family farms who

00:05:40.860 grow what they eat are being affected by the impacts of climate change. I think it's so

00:05:46.740 important how you're underscoring how deeply embedded the United States is in this whole

00:05:51.240 process. For example, in 2013, the United States offered El Salvador $277 million in aid through

00:05:59.580 the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which is a foreign aid agency. Under the conditions

00:06:05.300 that El Salvador implements specific economic and environmental policy reforms,

00:06:11.340 namely that genetically modified crops and pesticides be forced into the market,

00:06:17.580 citing that locally produced seeds were in violation of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement.

00:06:25.820 I mean, this is disgusting.

00:06:27.760 So, however, these threats didn't hinder El Salvador from banning glyphosate,

00:06:31.740 the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup in 2013. And ultimately, El Salvador prioritized using

00:06:38.360 native seeds and local seed programs over products produced by these multinational corporations.

00:06:45.000 So I'm curious if you can speak of the benefits of using native seeds. You know, how are they not

00:06:51.100 only better adapted to local conditions like droughts and floods, as you've been speaking

00:06:55.440 about, but will they perhaps be better suited for climate change in general? Yeah. One of the

00:07:01.840 really resilient things about this community is, as you said, is there was a larger push from the

00:07:07.820 top down to use Monsado and genetically modified seeds for their products. And this community

00:07:14.440 organized themselves together to say no. And I think it goes back to this idea that these folks

00:07:22.120 haven't been living here for that long they don't have the generational tie to the community but

00:07:27.260 because of the forced migration they feel as if they need to live in harmony with the land that

00:07:33.100 they're in now and that that that's of utmost importance and we know that when the seed is

00:07:39.340 natural to the area that it will adapt and more than anything the resources should not be put

00:07:46.220 towards forcing these communities to use a specific type of product to do their farming

00:07:50.900 but that these farmers themselves have the solutions they can work with the product modify

00:07:56.620 it and that's where the investment should go in supporting small farmers to do that themselves to

00:08:01.540 learn how to diversify agriculture to learn how to trade seeds among themselves in the different

00:08:07.600 regions based on some you know issues that are happening in one region that can kind of mirror

00:08:13.020 some of the situations in other regions and so really it is about claiming back a piece of the

00:08:19.380 land and the tie to the land and about how agriculture is a fundamental piece of their

00:08:25.720 livelihoods. And they don't want these products in their space. I mean, they have seen what that 0.99

00:08:31.940 type of product has done, the devastation that it's caused in other communities. And they want

00:08:37.120 to say, hard stop. We think we know what's best. And what's best is that you invest in us to

00:08:42.480 individually start, you know, mitigating these issues and adapting to climate change.

00:08:48.160 Well, I want to talk a little bit more about the transnational companies like Monsanto and DuPont.

00:08:55.420 In fact, 2016, Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta own 60% of the globe seeds and 64% of global

00:09:03.760 pesticide market. So maybe if we could just talk a little bit more about why these hybrid seeds

00:09:10.800 from Monsanto are so detrimental to the environment, to these communities. And how did Monsanto not

00:09:17.080 only impose upon, but also disempower the local farmer population across El Salvador? Of course,

00:09:22.540 you've been speaking about the resilience, but I want to just hear before they were resilient,

00:09:26.420 what was happening? You know, what were these multinational companies doing in these communities?

00:09:32.100 Yeah. You know, recently we talked about this with some of our community members.

00:09:35.480 when something that's not natural to the environment comes in it has a ripple effect

00:09:41.180 and so you have then pesticides coming in you have then a different type of seed that

00:09:46.380 we don't know how it's going to react with the environment and sometimes it does devastate and

00:09:51.000 cause some of the land that wasn't intended for that type of crop to start to kind of fall apart

00:09:57.580 and disintegrate and so more than anything it's about how you cycle in and really the issues with

00:10:04.000 big agriculture, which have always been not living in harmony with the land. It's trying to reap the

00:10:09.700 most that you can, put the most amount of product into the land, sometimes, you know, cutting down

00:10:15.420 native plants, cutting down trees, and not restoring it or giving the space or the environment a time

00:10:22.700 to come back. And so that means that these products that are considered more resilient might be

00:10:29.140 successful and they're now pricing out small farmers. And so you have the kind of chain link

00:10:35.920 effect where you start getting maybe a couple farmers to use the product. They're doing very

00:10:42.020 well. And now you've created this false idea of competition between that type of product and the

00:10:47.920 type of product that another farmer is growing. That might be a smaller product. It might, you

00:10:52.980 know, be natural. And so some of the product doesn't look as nice. And so then you've created

00:10:58.260 this competition and this dependency and possibly this level of inflation where that farmer,

00:11:04.620 you know, planted this many crops and he was able to harvest 90% of it when naturally you can maybe

00:11:10.240 get 50, 60% of that product. And so now you're devastating markets. So now you're making it very

00:11:16.820 expensive to continue to make this product. And then, you know, the genetically modified

00:11:21.880 product starts to look good. And so at that point, you're kind of making it a difficult choice when

00:11:28.840 it comes to people's livelihoods about which one they should choose. And so that was the idea behind

00:11:34.800 all of these folks organizing is they saw that story down the line. They said, if one or two of

00:11:40.460 us takes this route, eventually it will be all of us. And it won't be so much because it's a better

00:11:46.320 product, it will be forced. It will be because we have no choice. In order to succeed or thrive,

00:11:52.080 we're going to have to move in that direction. And so they kind of got together and organized

00:11:57.900 around that. Well, I think it's really fascinating to understand that when we talk about food,

00:12:04.780 sovereignty, and agroecology, we're talking about liberation from historically abusive systems

00:12:10.140 that create dependence to perpetuate subservience. Definitely. And you know, you don't bite the hand

00:12:16.300 that feeds you. But simultaneously, when we talk about the industrial food system that is propelled

00:12:21.160 by these transnational corporations, we're talking about a driving force and also global emissions,

00:12:26.380 which then, of course, is linked to climate change. So if we were to restore these practices

00:12:31.200 of small farmers, organic farmers, you know, farming that could potentially actually regenerate

00:12:37.060 soil nutrients and the pre-industrial levels of and offset significant percentages of global CO2

00:12:44.180 carbon emissions. I'm interested to hear what are these solutions that people are finding in what

00:12:50.820 you're talking about with restoring the land. Restoring the land is also restoring community.

00:12:56.040 It's also restoring the spirit of so many years of abuse, like we were talking at the beginning.

00:13:02.620 I mean, this is intergenerational traumas that are being lived out time and time again. And so

00:13:09.120 I'd really love to hear about how people are finding liberation through farming practices

00:13:16.680 that are traditional. And of course, I'm sure the youth are coming up with other methods as

00:13:23.500 we are going into climate change, and we can't solely rely on the past, but how organic small

00:13:29.540 farming is melding together the traditional ecological knowledge, but also moving towards

00:13:35.420 a future that we know is so much different than even 50 years ago, even 10 years ago at this

00:13:40.880 point? Yeah, more than anything, I think, you know, the region just went through a drought over the

00:13:46.640 summer last year. It was a prolonged drought, and what they knew is kind of an on-off rainy season

00:13:53.560 already. The Northern Triangle is known for this region called the Dry Corridor that does have

00:13:59.080 bouts of drought, but the rain does always come, and it usually comes around July or August, right

00:14:05.160 after kind of a dry patch. The rain didn't come last year. And so what you have is a bunch of

00:14:11.940 community members who had, you know, for all means, had tried to already be resilient to the face of

00:14:19.620 the possibility that that would happen. We do have a program around seed banks and diversifying

00:14:25.120 agriculture. The issue is that this continues to happen more and more often. And so then what we

00:14:31.560 need is a deeper investment from the government to look into alternative means for irrigation

00:14:37.600 and agriculture systems that they can start practicing or adapting to. Because they do have

00:14:43.320 different ways that they've done it in the past, these prolonged droughts and then kind of El

00:14:49.320 Nino-like symptoms where there's just flash flooding are making it extremely difficult for

00:14:54.320 them to adapt already. Because they're already putting in best practices around diversified

00:14:59.820 agriculture. But if these issues keep happening more and more often, they're almost left without

00:15:05.820 an option of where would we plant or where would we practice what we know are best practices to

00:15:11.600 to maintain ourselves as farmers. And so I think when it comes to the Ministry of the Environment,

00:15:18.020 I mean, that was one of the first calls from the farmers during the drought when they lost

00:15:22.720 several, I think, millions hectares of product, both what's known as maize corn and beans in

00:15:30.460 the region, which are food staples. And when that happens, you have that issue of, you know,

00:15:37.080 communities saying, we need help. And then international organizations saying, we'll give

00:15:42.480 you the beans, we'll give you the corn. That causes an issue, because then you do have a couple of

00:15:48.540 farmers who are able to save their crops, and now they're trying to sell in this inflated market

00:15:51.940 where there's outside product coming in.

00:15:55.040 And so that's the difficult balance.

00:15:57.800 One of the ideas kind of in the larger agriculture community

00:16:01.500 is to think about how El Salvador can start to insure farmers.

00:16:06.940 Because at the end of the day, it comes to livelihood

00:16:09.560 and how people can maintain their household economies.

00:16:13.220 And so if we're thinking about how are we preparing for the worst-case scenario

00:16:17.760 and trying to fund these farmers so that in case that that does happen there is some sort of

00:16:22.960 insurance when outside product comes in to make up and avoid people reaching the levels of hunger

00:16:29.220 that cause them to migrate, then there will be somewhere to fall back to. And so we're still

00:16:35.500 looking into that. It's a concept that's been thrown out by a couple of researchers and we're

00:16:40.900 really interested to see how it kind of manifests itself and if that would be applicable to this

00:16:46.380 community. These issues are so complex and I'm really glad that we're walking through them

00:16:53.160 because when you were talking about the the foreign aid I think back to Haiti and how

00:16:59.840 all of the the I think it was rice that was flown in destabilized it was forced destabilization of

00:17:07.220 the farmers who just were getting their rice crop in but then you get pushed this what we think

00:17:13.240 maybe in America, we think, oh, we're doing something good. We're sending rice to these

00:17:17.380 poor people. And then you and then you look a little deeper. You're like, oh, no, no. This is

00:17:22.000 actually very intentional. This is intentional destabilization to this country. And so I want

00:17:29.620 to start talking about migration and climate change, because I know pretty much anybody who

00:17:36.020 watches the news right now, it's on their mind. Trump's talking about the wall. You know, people

00:17:40.780 are talking about the border, but very little people are going back and actually talking about

00:17:46.380 what created this forced migration from these places. And so I just feel like what I want to

00:17:55.120 talk about is really overshadowed by mainstream media because the thing is people don't leave

00:18:00.100 their land if there's an abundance of food and water. They don't want to leave their land if

00:18:05.280 they have stability and they have their traditions. So people just don't wake up one

00:18:10.080 morning and decide to abandon what is providing for them. They don't want to just one day leave

00:18:13.760 their families and their land that they have deep connections to. So in the narratives of migration,

00:18:18.320 the border, and this geopolitical action, I want to make sure that we're having a dialogue that

00:18:23.060 comprehensively recognizes that this is what is happening to our planet. So we need to be able to

00:18:30.240 name the land that people are actually being forced to abandon. And we need to be able to

00:18:35.320 name the forest and the gulfs that have been destroyed by these extractive U.S. and Canadian

00:18:40.080 corporations. And I also feel like we need to be able to contextualize migration in terms of land

00:18:45.020 based issues in Central America and beyond. And they're facing this political instability and

00:18:51.860 resource extraction due to U.S. policy. So if you could just rewind us for a little bit. So, you

00:18:58.900 know, some of us who are listening are probably starting with the idea of the wall and then maybe

00:19:03.480 a little bit rewind. They're starting with the idea of the border, but I want to rewind further

00:19:07.980 and I want you to take us to this place where we're understanding why would people decide to

00:19:13.660 leave in the first place? What is happening to their land base that is forcing this destabilization

00:19:20.420 in their homeland? Yeah, and the story in Resilience of the Roots really kind of emphasizes

00:19:27.400 some of the issues that these communities, you know, not just in the Bahia de Jiqui musical,

00:19:31.780 but all across Central America, is you have the intervention of the U.S. government

00:19:40.260 that has backed right-wing dictatorships, right-wing military.

00:19:46.360 In El Salvador in particular, you have this war that happened in the 80s

00:19:50.440 where we're known for having child soldiers.

00:19:54.420 Entire generation of young boys who had to go out and fight amongst themselves.

00:19:58.620 You had thousands of people killed.

00:20:00.560 some in cities held hostage and completely massacred a complete massacre

00:20:06.140 in several towns you have this issue of what happens when a war is almost never

00:20:14.880 concluded so you have these young boys who have been trained in military who

00:20:20.840 find themselves after the war with a lack of economy nowhere to get an

00:20:25.700 education probably you know about about a decade of not being in school since

00:20:29.600 being maybe nine, ten. You have a lot of people who left. The people who could flee, who could

00:20:35.980 afford to flee, they left. And maybe they'll return because they have land, property, and they have

00:20:42.340 governmental friends who will vouch for them and kind of stabilize them back where they are.

00:20:47.740 But you have a lot of folks who left their towns. And one of the things that happens when you don't

00:20:53.500 have people in their communities anymore is you have things like what happened in the Bahia de

00:20:58.320 where the mangroves weren't being protected and big agriculture just came in and kind of cut them

00:21:04.020 down, or there wasn't anyone to take care of them or watch out for them. And so you have just a lot

00:21:12.720 of community members who, you know, lack of traditional economy, lack of knowledge about

00:21:18.760 the environmental damage that has been caused in the country during the war when no one was watching,

00:21:24.240 And then you have kind of a government that isn't ready to meet people where they're at.

00:21:34.580 And so you have a lot of young men who did migrate to the U.S.

00:21:39.500 A lot of them moved to Los Angeles and found themselves in gang culture.

00:21:43.620 They found themselves being bullied, not wanted in this country.

00:21:48.880 And so they decided to do what was most important for them, which is protect each other.

00:21:53.580 And that's where gang culture is rooted.

00:21:56.000 It really is about taking care of your community

00:21:59.160 to make sure that you're safe.

00:22:01.100 And this country has a really hard time

00:22:03.140 acknowledging that there is a reason 1.00

00:22:04.920 that communities of color and poor communities

00:22:07.860 find themselves in that type of culture.

00:22:10.540 So then you have the US that says,

00:22:13.800 you were here based on a promise that you would come

00:22:17.260 and you'd work and you'd prosper.

00:22:19.680 Now that you're a gang member, we don't want you.

00:22:22.200 And so you're sending back young men who've been in this country, many of whom don't speak Spanish anymore, don't know anything about El Salvador.

00:22:30.860 They go to El Salvador, and they're trying to figure out, okay, well, you sent us back to a place where there's no jobs.

00:22:37.380 You sent us back to a place where we don't know the language, we don't know the culture.

00:22:42.680 I mean, the gangs exploded.

00:22:44.800 And so you have deep poverty, deep violence.

00:22:48.120 The only way that these young men could make money was through extortion.

00:22:51.020 and so you have now this new era of we're out of a civil war but are we really if we're still

00:23:01.720 not having an opportunity we're not free of violence it's almost like the deepest aftermath

00:23:08.640 that could have happened was to continue the violence and so when you have communities in

00:23:15.120 rural areas who aren't able to feed themselves through their own means of

00:23:20.280 agriculture or farming, they move to the city. They move to the city to try to

00:23:26.860 make some money, find themselves now having to pay half to the local gang. And

00:23:32.100 then they say, I moved here for a better life, I'm still not able to feed my

00:23:37.080 family, what can I do? And the caravans really are a symptom and actually one of

00:23:44.360 the most ingenious solutions to this problem because the way that folks traditionally migrate

00:23:50.560 is with coyotes or with someone who kind of leads them on the path. They can charge upwards of,

00:23:57.880 you know, a couple thousands of dollars, $10,000 to $20,000 per person. And when that starts

00:24:05.120 to happen, people are getting in debt. They're moving here and they're still not able to

00:24:10.560 pay that off they're asking their families for loans so the caravan became a solution to say

00:24:16.280 we can't afford to do that but if we all come together we can look out for each other

00:24:21.060 on the way here we'll use that money to get started in our new life we'll use that money to

00:24:27.040 be able to have a place to stay when we get here and so you know having to do that journey which

00:24:34.440 I think got a little sensationalized as you know it's just people who are coming you know these

00:24:40.820 folks walk thousands of miles I would not do that unless I felt like I was going to die and this was

00:24:48.440 the only thing that was going to cause me to survive and I think that it's very unfortunate

00:24:53.620 that this country has forgotten that I mean people continue to say that it's you know the

00:24:59.380 the values of humanity, when you see people literally walking and telling you, I need this

00:25:06.480 because if not, I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to live. My kids are not going to make it.

00:25:10.760 And we instead just say, we're going to find every means possible to make it illegal to do

00:25:18.360 what you're doing, which is to try to survive. I mean, that leaves us with a little bit of

00:25:24.780 amnesia about what we've done and the reason that they're coming here. I do

00:25:31.320 firmly believe that folks are coming to the United States because they know

00:25:35.100 about everything that's been done to their country. They know that their kids

00:25:38.640 were trained by CIA military. They know about big agriculture and that a lot of

00:25:44.160 those companies are from the U.S. and so it is a little bit of reparations that

00:25:48.940 they're trying to seek out.

00:25:54.780 One day we'll all be gone

00:26:02.120 Lace up my boots and walk on

00:26:08.900 The world will not be a loose end

00:26:14.580 Snow will start falling again

00:26:20.860 Stories will linger and loom

00:26:41.540 Above all the quiet consumed

00:26:45.520 And our world will never take in

00:26:52.560 The question of time while we're frozen

00:26:58.060 I had no idea about the young boys that were trained to be violent, and the gangs,

00:27:08.120 and that makes so much sense.

00:27:10.240 And I had no idea that then they were shipped back, basically, to their country of origin.

00:27:15.520 with no cultural context language and then yeah what what are they supposed to do there and then

00:27:20.760 just the injection of violence then into El Salvador which is already struggling from all

00:27:25.860 these other issues I mean it's disgusting it's actually disgusting and we can't think that this

00:27:31.460 is an accident we can't be so naive to think that the higher-ups in this country don't know

00:27:37.500 what they're doing we can't believe that they don't understand the ripple effect of what this

00:27:41.740 would cause. So I'm so glad that you're telling us this, because we actually, and for the people

00:27:48.360 who are out there who want to care, who want to know about this, we need to know these things,

00:27:53.160 not just the headlines that we hear on the news or on Instagram or on Facebook, not just the

00:27:58.300 little blips, but actually how are these countries being destabilized in all these different ways.

00:28:03.700 And I even think about whether it's farm workers or that are brought in and then only to be

00:28:09.360 detained, even though they're brought in, America brings them in and then treats them like criminals

00:28:14.180 after. It's disposable. It's just completely treating humans disposably. But to get back to

00:28:21.280 the climate change talk as well, I know that Central America has been called ground zero for

00:28:26.160 climate change in the Americas, not only in terms of the drought that you've been talking about,

00:28:30.460 but also because it's in this itthmus that's heightening potential devastation from the

00:28:35.960 rising sea levels, extreme storms, mudslides, and flooding, like you had mentioned. And by 2080,

00:28:42.260 climate could cause and force as many as 6.7 million people to migrate from Mexico to the U.S.

00:28:49.840 And regardless of citizenship or nationality, we need to be rethinking about our borders 0.54

00:28:55.060 in an age of the Anthropocene, knowing that there will be climate refugees, as people call them.

00:29:02.160 So how is this fight to abolish ICE and climate policy interconnected?

00:29:06.780 And how is abolishing ICE not enough?

00:29:09.840 How could future immigration and climate policy look like

00:29:13.400 if we were actually to take into account what we know is coming?

00:29:17.220 And it's not just that we know.

00:29:18.840 They know.

00:29:19.780 They know what's coming.

00:29:21.200 They know what was coming long before we probably knew what was coming.

00:29:24.960 So what could a solution actually look like

00:29:27.860 when we're taking all these pieces into account,

00:29:30.000 when we're really looking at the interconnectivity?

00:29:32.820 Yeah, I think one of the most important things is we have to have

00:29:36.540 a presidential administration that admits climate change is real

00:29:39.620 and that the answers have to come now.

00:29:42.700 And I think one of the most important things to highlight is,

00:29:45.440 you know, a country like the U.S. releases so many emissions

00:29:49.200 compared to such a tiny percentage that's done by Central American countries,

00:29:54.260 despite the fact that there's, you know, large agriculture or corporate agriculture.

00:29:57.780 and they're the ones who get to see the first-hand effects.

00:30:01.940 They've been seeing them for the past, I want to say probably over a decade.

00:30:05.980 Hurricane Mitch hit in 1998 and it devastated the region.

00:30:10.440 It was, you know, looking at pictures of Hurricane Mitch is very similar to what happened here at Hurricane Katrina.

00:30:16.540 Like these episodes are just more frequent and they will continue to be more frequent

00:30:21.260 because that's part of what makes climate change real to us

00:30:26.380 is we see it happening and when you see this mass exodus from Central America and you ask folks you

00:30:33.960 know why are you why are you leaving your home you're never going to hear the words because of

00:30:38.880 climate change you're going to hear the words I don't have anything to feed my kids I'm hungry

00:30:43.500 my crops haven't been growing for the past you know three seasons or you know I have to face a

00:30:50.240 lot of extortion you'll hear you know a plethora of reasons relating to their interactions with

00:30:55.680 other people. But the problem is that their interactions with the earth are what's causing

00:31:00.680 that giant exodus from the beginning, is you have a lot of people who are hungry, you have a lot of

00:31:06.160 people who have found that their way of life or their way of living with the earth is being

00:31:13.880 destroyed. And so around the programs that we do around the mangrove conservation and restoration

00:31:19.780 is that mangroves serve as a buffer for things like you mentioned,

00:31:24.580 like the mass floods, mudslides.

00:31:28.280 And so when that type of barrier is withered down,

00:31:33.440 these communities have less resilience.

00:31:36.260 And this community in particular,

00:31:38.120 and the Bahía de Jiquilisco,

00:31:39.800 has been very successful in restoring their mangroves

00:31:43.220 to create that buffer.

00:31:45.680 And so one of the most, I think, difficult things

00:31:47.860 when they're thinking about leaving

00:31:50.640 is everyone wants a home worth staying for,

00:31:55.100 and this community knows that even more so,

00:31:57.800 it's worth fighting for.

00:31:59.520 And I think that one of the things

00:32:01.280 that the government can do,

00:32:02.720 and even if the U.S. continues

00:32:04.160 to kind of have this patriarchal,

00:32:06.000 I need to help,

00:32:07.160 that's what they need to be investing in,

00:32:09.280 is how are you making climate resilience?

00:32:11.720 How are we taking things like the Green New Deal

00:32:14.880 that's becoming popular in the U.S.,

00:32:16.440 and how do we implement that

00:32:17.680 or provide the support or infrastructure for a country like El Salvador to do it.

00:32:22.380 Because the people, they know.

00:32:24.840 You ask, you know, well, what's going on with your farming?

00:32:27.640 It's climate change.

00:32:28.940 It's, you know, kind of our inability to survive on our own food

00:32:33.740 that we've been doing for a really long time.

00:32:37.280 And so for us, it really comes down to all the different layers of

00:32:41.280 If the U.S. is going to continue to try to kind of be this intervener,

00:32:48.540 we need the administration, the presidential administration, Congress,

00:32:52.700 to acknowledge that climate change is real,

00:32:55.300 and it is going to come to our doorstep last.

00:32:58.100 The U.S. will probably make it through a lot of these climate issues,

00:33:02.100 or at the very least, we'll continue to ignore them like we have Puerto Rico and Katrina.

00:33:06.640 but these countries like El Salvador, people are going to leave. There's going to be no one there 0.80

00:33:13.360 to protect them and the area where we work has the largest contiguous mangrove forests. Losing

00:33:21.100 something like that off this planet could be completely devastating. We don't know what that

00:33:26.060 would look like. So for us we're really supporting kind of this new generation of climate protectors.

00:33:32.580 that's what they're doing they're resisting leaving as for as long as they

00:33:38.320 can but we do take the stand that we understand why people leave and we

00:33:43.200 fully support the decision to do so and we are incredibly frustrated that the

00:33:47.260 narrative around and the strategy around the Department of Homeland Security and

00:33:51.400 ICE and Border Patrol has been to act as if there's an invasion happening mm-hmm

00:33:58.140 Yeah, I wanted to talk about this invasion, war on terror, a little bit more.

00:34:05.000 But I think what you're talking about with the United States intervening, we've been intervening for hundreds of years.

00:34:14.320 I don't see us stopping that intervention.

00:34:17.040 And perhaps that's not even at this point what's necessary to pull out completely of these countries that the U.S. government has come and destabilized.

00:34:26.400 and maybe it's not just about like okay well hands off now deal with it but actually supporting the

00:34:31.540 people on the ground of how to rebuild the ecosystems so that people can be taken care of

00:34:37.480 the land can be taken care of people can be taken care of so they don't need to flee they don't need

00:34:43.160 to be looking elsewhere for food they can actually sustain themselves like they have for time at

00:34:49.200 memorial in their lands and their territories and and I you know when you were talking about that

00:34:54.560 I'm like, wow, what would it look like to actually live in a country where the government was using economic power to actually allow people to survive and thrive in their own lands?

00:35:08.940 Very different format, obviously, than what we have now.

00:35:11.580 But because this country is built on slavery and built on cheap labor and built on this economic growth model, if that's going to continue, then, of course, this country is going to continue to destabilize other countries so that this country can continue making a profit and getting cheap goods.

00:35:31.600 That whole shift needs to happen.

00:35:34.560 And I think about this a lot.

00:35:35.860 Even when we go, oh, well, that's expensive.

00:35:38.480 It's like, that's expensive?

00:35:39.440 like think about everything it took to actually get that coconut oil on that organic co-op shelf

00:35:44.580 you know it's worth way more than what we pay for it but because of slavery and because the

00:35:50.100 destabilization of these other countries we're able to have this subsidized cost of living

00:35:55.300 yeah just thinking about localization organic farming actually supporting people rather than

00:36:02.520 just extracting from humans because it's just another form of natural resource extraction

00:36:07.720 extracting humans to do this work.

00:36:11.380 And I was reading that by 2050,

00:36:14.460 anywhere from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants

00:36:19.740 will either have to move within their country

00:36:21.820 or across international borders due to climate change.

00:36:25.240 But the other thing that's interesting is that environmental refugees

00:36:27.840 are not even currently covered by the 1951 Geneva Convention

00:36:31.460 relating to the status of refugees.

00:36:33.980 So I think there's a really big issue we need to look at.

00:36:37.720 I mean, up to a billion people are going to need to move by 2050.

00:36:41.960 That's right around the corner.

00:36:43.780 And there's not protections in place for these people.

00:36:47.980 So, you know, I really wonder, at this point, we're not equipped to act fast enough.

00:36:54.200 We're not equipped to even deal with this type of climate apartheid.

00:36:58.620 And I know you kind of already spoke about this to your last answer, so I don't want to ask you again.

00:37:02.720 but it's just something that I'm standing back going, holy, how are we equipped to do this?

00:37:08.220 But to talk about this war on terror, this idea of how we look at immigration in this country,

00:37:14.500 the mainstream media, I know in 2003, Pentagon commissioned a report titled

00:37:21.160 An Abrupt Climate Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.

00:37:26.840 And it reads, the United States and Australia are likely to build defensive fortresses around their countries because they have the resources and reserves to achieve self-sufficiency. 0.89

00:37:39.280 Borders will be strengthened around the United States to hold back unwanted, starving immigrants from the Caribbean islands, Mexico, and South America, end quote.

00:37:48.420 This is from a report, so they know this is happening.

00:37:51.600 So when we think of climate change, perhaps we don't immediately envision a world that

00:37:55.880 becomes highly militarized, but it's important to remember that Homeland Security is comprised

00:38:01.320 of 22 federal agencies and was created in direct response to 9-11.

00:38:06.180 So this country's disaster response operates within the framework of war on terror.

00:38:11.860 You know, what do you imagine the U.S. government's response to climate crisis is going to look

00:38:16.040 like in the near future?

00:38:17.920 Yeah, and you brought up a really good point at the beginning, which is what's unfortunate about kind of immigration and migration policy right now in the U.S. is they are moving towards a frame of value added.

00:38:31.560 So as you come as an individual or as a family unit, they want to analyze how much value you have to add to this country.

00:38:38.420 and that's shown by, you know, the presidential administration's recent policies to try to get

00:38:43.880 people to kind of buy their way in, which is something that historically has been happening

00:38:49.020 for a really long time. This country's immigration policies are based on wanting to get, you know,

00:38:55.360 white Europeans allowed into this country and saying, you know, Italians weren't white enough. 0.51

00:39:01.020 And so it's a history of trying to de-racialize immigration policy,

00:39:08.580 which is something that this country hasn't been able to do.

00:39:12.260 It's unsuccessful. 1.00

00:39:13.900 And as long as those who are seeking climate refuge continue to be black and brown, 1.00

00:39:19.460 this country is going to continue to do a very poor response. 1.00

00:39:24.520 It's going to continue to find itself stumbling over which congressperson is going to be the

00:39:31.840 champion for it.

00:39:33.700 And we'll continue to see that we're going to be late.

00:39:38.580 And when we're late, it becomes easy to use these excuses of, let's build this giant fortress.

00:39:46.600 The reason that this presidential administration was really able to say, we're going to shut 0.51

00:39:50.500 down the borders, asylum claims are all going to be dealt in Mexico, is because they have

00:39:56.400 power over Mexico.

00:39:58.040 They want to be able to say, you know, we see you guys as an ally.

00:40:02.260 They want to keep a good relationship with them.

00:40:04.580 And Mexico is eager to do that.

00:40:06.780 Mexico has a lot to gain from being an ally with the U.S. in regards to their economy

00:40:11.740 and their potential growth.

00:40:14.240 And so you have countries who are then kind of pitting against each other, you know, kind

00:40:19.020 of the little ants on the kind of farm here trying to fight over themselves to try to be

00:40:25.060 part of not us, right? You're going to support us. And so you've talked about how highly

00:40:32.180 militarized immigration is getting. It'll continue to get that way. I think we have like a couple

00:40:37.480 thousand border patrol. We're up to kind of 25,000 and continue to hire. And the issue continues to

00:40:46.900 be is what type of people are we hiring? In order to have a system that we believe is egalitarian

00:40:54.120 around maybe acknowledging that environmental refugees are going to happen, if the policy's

00:40:59.620 at the top and we say, you know, maybe the United Nations decides that they're going to add this

00:41:03.500 addendum to asylum seekers, as you can seek asylum under climate change kind of related issues,

00:41:09.400 you're going to have people who are implementing the policy based on prejudice. That's one of our

00:41:15.800 biggest issues right now is we have a lot of people who look at the caravan and their first

00:41:22.220 instinct is this is danger and that's the historical context of this country is to see

00:41:28.060 poor people and criminalize them because poor people don't have value added to this country 1.00

00:41:34.780 and it's very easy to say we're going to keep them in Mexico because Mexico is up and ready to say 1.00

00:41:41.580 yes. They have to. They're in a similar situation. And so we're going to continue to see highly 0.56

00:41:50.280 militarized around immigration. I believe that it's probably only going to get worse from here.

00:41:56.060 We really are seeing folks who are at the border who have kind of shown up in this mass caravan

00:42:02.000 as their last line of attempting to survive. And we really, you know, it seems like we're living

00:42:08.060 in this post-apocalyptic situation already.

00:42:11.260 I can only imagine that this stalemate

00:42:13.520 currently with the government

00:42:14.740 around funding for the border wall

00:42:16.840 is just going to get even, you know,

00:42:18.620 kind of like this bigger balloon.

00:42:21.020 And for some people, it might be easier to say

00:42:24.120 and deter and say the wall is necessary

00:42:27.400 because of this caravan.

00:42:29.580 And some people will fall back to that and say,

00:42:32.140 I agree, this is a crisis.

00:42:33.940 This is about our safety.

00:42:35.360 And I think that that narrative is tired.

00:42:39.160 I think that that's part of the problem as we continue to think about our national security,

00:42:45.160 about our safety.

00:42:47.360 Everyone's an invader if they're coming and they're not doing things the right way. 1.00

00:42:52.380 And I think when it comes to environmental refugees, we're not going to see people do 1.00

00:42:55.680 things the right way because it's out of desperation. 1.00

00:42:58.780 And it is a last resort.

00:43:05.360 When everything breaks and falls apart

00:43:11.940 I look for a knife to pull me up

00:43:18.120 Not everyone knows the release of a blade

00:43:26.080 But I do

00:43:35.360 The need for a color to peeve at all

00:43:42.200 Fade out on thoughts

00:43:45.620 I feel too much

00:43:48.160 Some days it is the only touch

00:43:52.940 That soothes me

00:43:58.220 Red thread streaking 0.97

00:44:03.000 again hearing this idea that it's about national security so it's like okay you poor brown person 1.00

00:44:19.800 don't come to this country because we're afraid of you yet this country is the reason that they're 1.00

00:44:26.000 coming here anyways so it's this cycle it's the cycle we're creating it this country is creating 0.97

00:44:32.500 this issue to begin with and where do we as a country expect people to go you know but but

00:44:39.560 that's the thing is there's not actual care it doesn't matter because again people are disposable

00:44:47.340 and the militarization just hearing the numbers 25,000 and yeah of course and growing and yeah

00:44:56.760 and they're probably indoctrinated with hate and indoctrinated with fear and indoctrinated about

00:45:03.680 the enemy and the other. And I was, I think I was hearing about Trump talking to the president of

00:45:10.640 Mexico about economic prosperity and infrastructure and development. I'm like, oh, here we go again.

00:45:18.440 It's under the guise of helping Mexico now to do these mega resource extraction projects in some

00:45:24.300 of their last areas with any ecological sanity. And here we go again. I mean, it's the same thing. 0.55

00:45:30.860 Every time we see the United States going into a country saying that it's going to help them

00:45:35.400 develop economic stability. And we know, we know it's probably going to be contracted to

00:45:41.820 Americans for the jobs. We know it's probably not going to be the Mexican people that get the jobs, 0.94

00:45:46.420 that get the, get the contracts that are actually the people who have the wages that are living 0.92

00:45:51.000 wages. So again, it's like we need to look at these white horses, these savior acts that we

00:46:01.260 think that the United States is somehow protecting the countries, but also protecting the United

00:46:06.660 States, and really read through the lines. It's just unbelievable. So I want to ask one last

00:46:13.720 question about El Salvador, and then I want to close with a question around your film.

00:46:17.680 Back in 2017, El Salvador's legislature passed the world's first comprehensive ban on mining metal.

00:46:24.760 And that's really exciting. That's amazing.

00:46:27.840 And I imagine that this was influenced by the reality that El Salvador is considered one of the most water-stressed nations in Central America,

00:46:34.900 with approximately 70 to 90 percent of its surface waters polluted by heavy metals, chemicals, and waste.

00:46:41.620 You know, coupled with the land deforestation and the degradation and drought, El Salvador is expected to experience increased water stress, as, of course, is the rest of the world at this point.

00:46:54.060 But in fact, by 2030, global water demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40 percent.

00:47:01.080 So I'd like to talk about water management and land ownership and what are the risks for nations if water distribution falls into private hands?

00:47:11.620 Globally, what can we do to ensure democratization of land

00:47:16.560 and making sure that water doesn't continue to get more and more privatized?

00:47:22.320 This is a great question.

00:47:24.080 So yeah, this was a very historic win.

00:47:26.740 We're very fortunate that the folks that we work with in El Salvador were part of this fight

00:47:31.640 and have been doing it for a really long time, unfortunately.

00:47:35.400 You know, the systems and the powers that be in El Salvador consistently, you know, I think it is that patriarchal kind of U.S. relationship that assume that business is more efficient.

00:47:49.100 It can be in some ways, but essentially that's the main argument behind privatization of water is basically the government throwing their hands up in the air and saying we can't manage it as good as we think a business could.

00:48:05.400 And in the reversal, I would say, okay, maybe that's an okay argument.

00:48:10.980 Let's talk a little bit more about that.

00:48:12.780 But in the affirmative, where the government is already managing that, it's no.

00:48:17.200 It's figure out how to manage that resource.

00:48:19.640 It's figure out how did we get to 70% to 90% of groundwater is polluted.

00:48:26.120 And, you know, one of the things that our community members talk about is unaffordability.

00:48:32.700 Sure, you can privatize water if you say you're going to make it more efficient,

00:48:36.000 but the government always falls short in those promises.

00:48:39.360 I mean, it really mirrors what's happening in the U.S.

00:48:42.520 Actually, right now in Northern California with PG&E.

00:48:45.200 And we say that they're going to be more efficient.

00:48:47.520 We say that they're going to stand up and do it right.

00:48:51.100 But at the end of the day, the government's supposed to regulate it.

00:48:55.040 And that's where it continues to be problematic,

00:48:58.300 is the 70 to 90 percent at one point was 5 percent one point was 10 percent one point was 20 30

00:49:06.080 and the government let it slide it let these mining industries take advantage and ravage the

00:49:12.840 land and people are sick of it because they they cannot afford to add another expense into their

00:49:20.460 lives and when there's such a small quantity of water that will be readily available as we

00:49:28.200 kind of move forward, people who are wealthy in El Salvador will continue to find the resources

00:49:33.680 that they need. But when we're thinking about some of these rural communities, it will become

00:49:38.060 more and more difficult for them to access clean water. And those effects, again, directly to go

00:49:44.980 back to some of these kind of environmental refugees, you need water and food. Those are 1.00

00:49:51.120 the essentials for survival. And so for a lot of folks, this water stress, they're already feeling

00:49:58.280 it. There's some communities like where we work in the Bahia de Jiquilisco, where women still have

00:50:04.260 to walk a significant amount of ways to get some water and bring it back to their home. And if it's 1.00

00:50:10.160 not, you know, the mother in the household, it's the daughter. And so that time spent around getting

00:50:17.660 the water, bringing it to and from the community. It's time that is eliminated from them being in

00:50:22.340 school. When it comes to sanitation, it's a risk for young women as well. And so this fight 1.00

00:50:28.880 against the privatization of water and against mining is about so much deeper about what happens

00:50:35.460 in the household and its ability to prosper, at least attempt to prosper. And so when you add

00:50:41.420 these other layers of effects for folks, it really is about survival and about preserving

00:50:47.000 one of the last things that they have that isn't being corporatized and if they can avoid it for

00:50:55.040 as long as they can they will continue to do so. We could have an entire hour conversation just on

00:51:02.540 one of these questions that we've been in conversation around and especially water

00:51:09.360 privatization huge huge huge issue and like you said there will be some people who can find the

00:51:17.040 last resources but even in the United States the United States as a whole isn't going to be able

00:51:24.060 and not it's not going to be for everybody of course who who's going to find the water here

00:51:28.780 who's going to find the water in El Salvador and see these um repeats over and over and over again

00:51:35.960 So I really, I so appreciate your analysis and obviously the depth of your care, the depth of your commitment to these huge global issues.

00:51:48.320 And I want to end this conversation, although I don't want to end it, but I want to close it on the note of your film.

00:51:56.220 And here we're in Nevada City at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival.

00:51:59.740 and I know you've already spoken about so much

00:52:03.020 and we may have been touching on some of the themes

00:52:05.600 that you have covered in your film

00:52:08.280 but maybe something that we haven't spoken about thus far

00:52:11.780 that you're representing here with the messaging.

00:52:15.520 Absolutely.

00:52:17.000 And Resilience at the Roots,

00:52:18.860 directed by Jake Rantner and co-produced with us,

00:52:21.820 really shows the characters of this story.

00:52:26.480 Water privatization, fighting against mining,

00:52:29.200 diversifying agriculture, there are people who fought for those things to

00:52:33.820 happen. And Resilience at the Roots shows all of those community members who

00:52:39.200 stood up, ran for office, decided to start organizations, decided to bother the

00:52:45.400 government until they got funding, decided to protect endangered sea

00:52:49.840 turtles when there was no funding to do so. All of these folks have put their

00:52:55.480 lives, their souls, their families on the line to stand up against repression and the government

00:53:01.480 taking advantage of that. And they have decided to build a community that's not only resilient,

00:53:08.200 but capable of being innovative. And I think that, especially around the mangrove conservation

00:53:13.240 and restoration program, these communities have been able to restore such a natural resource

00:53:20.440 that other communities are looking to them, like Puerto Rico, some communities in Mexico,

00:53:24.760 who want to know how they've been so successful and so really our leaders are at the heart of the

00:53:30.680 work that we do and all of this is possible because these folks have decided to invest in

00:53:36.600 themselves and they have a community who is willing to fight and i think that in the times

00:53:42.520 that we're seeing right now at least in our communities here in the u.s it can feel so easy

00:53:47.960 to throw our hands up in the air and say it's all really too hard but i think that when you see a

00:53:54.440 film like this and you see a community stand up in this way, it's very invigorating and inspiring

00:54:00.200 to think that there's so much that is in our hands to change. It doesn't matter if you're here in the

00:54:05.760 U.S. or in El Salvador, there's such an opportunity and a possibility to create impact. If you just

00:54:11.820 find your voice, if you're not, you know, the person who wants to be out in front speaking and

00:54:16.160 being the leader, be the advocate. Give them what you want, the policies you want implemented.

00:54:22.340 And so I'm truly inspired by the folks in this film,

00:54:24.820 and I hope that everyone who catches it will feel the same way.

00:54:28.160 Thank you for bringing up that insecure voice

00:54:32.640 that I'm sure comes up for a lot of people,

00:54:35.600 probably many of the people who will be listening to this podcast.

00:54:38.000 It's too big. It's too hard. I don't know what to do.

00:54:41.200 I don't have the skills.

00:54:42.940 All the things that we tell ourselves to not get involved,

00:54:47.180 to not get engaged.

00:54:48.160 And then when you see stories about people who are up against all the odds, you know, total David and Goliath stories, whether it's climate change, U.S. imperialism, colonization, failing crops, droughts, floods, all these things.

00:55:02.840 And when you see those people on the front lines who have next to nothing and they're fighting, they're using everything, all of their vital energy and they're making impact, they're making a difference.

00:55:12.200 then for those of us who are in the United States and relatively comfortable or extremely comfortable

00:55:17.160 we can look to them as the leaders and say okay we have to slap ourselves in the faces put some

00:55:25.560 cold water on our you know wake ourselves up and say this isn't okay we can't fall into our own

00:55:32.380 pity parties that's right and so I think stories like this are mandatory for those of us who are

00:55:39.600 awake enough to know that we have to do something but maybe are kind of stuck in that how why where

00:55:47.240 why it's like find your passion get involved and look to the leaders that are on the front lines

00:55:52.300 on the ground who are holding the solutions and is there a way to see resilience at the roots

00:55:59.300 online or in another festival coming up you know how can people learn more find out more about this

00:56:05.360 work for for all the people who are going to be listening for the wild podcast that aren't

00:56:09.120 here in person? Yeah, we're going to be screening it at the Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival

00:56:16.080 in Washington. People can also send me an email, find me at ecoviva.org, and we'll bring the

00:56:22.160 screening to you. We want people to have the discussion, watch the video, be inspired,

00:56:28.140 and also get a little bit of anger in their gut and try to do something about all of the issues

00:56:32.000 that are happening. I think that it's very important that we all try to get inspired and

00:56:36.400 involved as much as possible, especially around the water rights. We have a presidential election

00:56:42.140 happening in El Salvador in a couple of weeks, and so a lot of things could change. A lot of the

00:56:46.740 progress that we've done could be halted or altered, so the work continues. And yeah, people

00:56:52.560 can just go to our website at goviva.org and find more information about us and track us down, and

00:56:57.200 we'll bring the screening to you. Okay, well thank you all so much for those of you at the Heartwood

00:57:02.340 Cafe in downtown Nevada City at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. This has been an incredible

00:57:07.500 morning. So this has been so amazing to sit with you in person. Thank you so much for your time,

00:57:14.160 your work, your commitment, your dedication, and it's been extremely inspiring.

00:57:32.340 Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:57:55.020 I'm Ayanna Young.

00:57:57.100 The music you heard today was from Dirty Birds and Mita Ros.

00:58:00.660 I'd like to thank our podcast production team, our co-producer and editor Andrew Storrs, our co-producer and writer Francesca Glaspell, our music coordinator Carter Lou McElroy, communications director Aaron Wise, and our co-managing directors Melanie Younger and Mara Joy.

00:58:18.600 If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, please do so on ForTheWild.World and rate us on iTunes as it really helps spread the messages. Thanks.

00:58:30.660 I've been too long away from this wild open sky

00:58:36.720 On the concrete trails of wine

00:58:38.860 Through the canyons dark and white

00:58:41.640 The sounds of people talking

00:58:44.480 Words of blue and gray

00:58:47.820 Smells of doors and windows

00:58:51.000 Closed against the day

For The Wild - February 27, 2019

ADA RECINOS on Corporate Destabilization and Local Resiliency in El Salvador ⧸109

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