Public lands are a key component of our identity, and they weave a narrative of the diverse and complex history of our nation. These places, all of which are Indigenous ancestral lands, preserve our shared cultural heritage, provide places to recreate and connect with nature, spend time with family and our communities, and significantly contribute to industries, local economies, and millions of jobs and employment opportunities. Latinos have been an integral part of this shared history. However, our access to public lands, the equal representation of our cultural heritage, and our workforce contributions are not always acknowledged or represented.

All communities should have equitable access to nearby green space, the ability to reach it, and features that honor and welcome diverse languages, inclusive histories, and uses of parkland. Natural areas and natural resources should be managed inclusively and locally, reflecting the communities they serve, with co-stewardship by Indigenous and tribal nations. Given historical inequities, nature deprivation of communities of color, and the theft of lands belonging to Indigenous communities, the priority of nature protection and restoration efforts should be in communities of color, particularly in urban areas and those historically marginalized and on the frontlines of environmental injustice.

Why is this important to Latino communities?

Latino Access & Health

• The U.S. Latino/Hispanic population is 18.4% and is forecast to rise more than 30% by 2060.
• Latinos have the highest prevalence of adult physical inactivity (32%), followed by non-Hispanic Black (30%), non-Hispanic Indigenous (29%) and non-Hispanic white (23%).
• Latinos and other communities of color in the US are three times as likely to live somewhere that is “nature deprived” than white communities. This means there are far fewer parks, forests, streams, beaches, and other natural places near Black, Latino, and Asian communities. This “Nature Gap” has left a legacy of poorer health and COVID-19 severity, higher stress levels, worse educational outcomes, lack of recreation and business opportunities and greater vulnerability to extreme heat and flooding in these nature-deprived neighborhoods.
• Latinos are 21% more likely than whites to live in urban heat islands, or areas dominated by asphalt and concrete where parks, shade-providing trees, and other vegetation are lacking. Urban heat islands can produce breathing difficulties, exhaustion, heat cramps, heat stroke and even death.
• Areas within a 10-minute walk of a park can be as much as six degrees cooler than surrounding parkless areas. However, parks in majority non-white neighborhoods are half as large and serve nearly five times more people than parks in majority white neighborhoods. Also, parks serving majority low-income households are, on average, four times smaller and serve nearly four times more people than parks that serve majority high-income households.

Latino Cultural Heritage and History

• The U.S.Latino identity is composed of many narratives; there is not one dominant story that can completely tell the history and the contributions of Latinos, nor any particular community or culture, to the United States. For example, 20.3 million Hispanic Americans identify as multiracial.
• Too often our stories and contributions to this nation are not represented in the narrative that our public lands and designated historical sites portray. Thus, the protection of existing monuments and historical sites, such as Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in California and Casa Amadeo in New York, and the creation of new parks and monuments are an opportunity to expand our nation’s narrative to be inclusive of the histories and contributions of diverse Latino communities throughout the United States.
• Since 1906, when Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law and granted the executive office the authority to establish national monuments, 17 presidents – nine Republicans and eight Democrats – have used the law to protect our natural and cultural heritage. Opportunities to protect the heritage and open spaces treasured by people of color abound, from designation of the Castner Range National Monument in El Paso, TX, to Avi Kwa Ame in NV.

Latino Recreation

• Demographics are changing: The Latino population is the largest-growing minority population in the United States and is estimated to comprise 28% of the U.S. population by 2050. Latino participation in outdoor recreation is growing, and new outdoor participants are more likely to be nonwhite. The future of public lands and public health thus depends on engaging and welcoming our diverse youth.
• As the Latino population becomes larger and more complex, their outdoor recreation preferences and perceptions are also changing. When asked which types of outdoor recreation they participate in regularly, Latino voters said that 75% participate in hiking, running or walking, 44% said camping, 39% said picnicking, 32% said bird watching/viewing wildlife, 21% said mountain/trail biking, 26% said off-road riding/snowmobile, and 26% said boating/rafting/kayaking.
• Latinos are great users of public lands — 88% of Latino voters in the West have visited national public lands in the past year.
• Asked about what policymakers should place more emphasis on in upcoming decisions around public lands, 73% of Latino Western voters pointed to conservation efforts and recreational usage, prioritizing that over energy production.

Latino Jobs & Economy

• 70% of Latinos see public lands, such as national parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife areas as helping the economies in these states.
• 92% support addressing the backlog of infrastructure repairs, reducing risk of wildfires, and natural resource protection on national public lands such as National Parks by providing jobs and training to unemployed people.
• The outdoor recreation economy generated $887 billion in consumer spending and 7.6 million jobs in 2019.
• 79% of National Park Service employees are white, and 62% of all employees are male. Black employees comprise almost 7% of the NPS’s permanent full-time workforce, significantly less than the 13.4% of Black people in the national population. Hispanic and Latino employees also are underrepresented, making up 5.6% of the Park Service general workforce despite accounting for 18.5% of the population. Lack of racially-diverse representation is common across the U.S. conservation workforce.

Latino Public Opinion

• 87% of Latino voters in the West, and 89% in the Chesapeake region, support setting a national goal of conserving 30% of U.S. land, waters, and ocean by the year 2030 (known as 30x30).
• 84% of Latino voters in the West, and 89% in the Chesapeake, agree that we should create new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges and tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas for outdoor recreation.
• 75% of Latino voters in the West and Chesapeake region agree that we should strictly limit where and how new oil and gas development takes place on public lands.
  • 93% of Latino voters in the West support requiring oil and gas companies to use updated equipment and technology to prevent leaks of methane gas and other pollution into the air; 86% support requiring oil and gas companies, rather than federal and state governments, to pay for all of the clean-up and land restoration costs; and 68% support increasing the fees that oil and gas companies pay to have the opportunity to drill on national public lands.
• 82% of Latino voters in the West, and 90% in the Chesapeake, support directing funding to ensure adequate access to parks and natural areas for lower-income people and communities of color that have disproportionately lacked them.