By Senator Dianne Feinstein on Huffington Post

This week is the third annual Latino Conservation Week, a chance for Latinos all across the country to demonstrate their passion for enjoying and protecting public lands. Few places is that passion more evident than here in California.

2016 marks the third annual Latino Conservation Week, an initiative of Hispanic Access Foundation (HAF) to harness the Latino community’s passion for the outdoors and spotlight its role in conservation.  It started with just 17 partners and 17 events.  Now, there are over 100 partners and events that are engaging Latino communities throughout the nation.

It's Latino Conservation Week, and groups across the nation are focused on access to public lands for Latino families. All this week, groups will be hosting events outdoors to promote recreation and the protection of natural resources. 

As #LatinoConservationWeek marches on, we share a reflection on summer at the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, written by Hispanic Access Foundation intern Michael Bonilla.

On Friday July 22nd, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation in Boston, Massachusetts visited the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections Department to learn about the history of Villa Victoria and Puerto Rican culture in Boston’s South End. Julián Huertas, a Designing the Parks intern for the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation through the Hispanic Access Foundation and the Latino Heritage Internship Program, planned and coordinated the event for Latino Conservation Week, which promotes civic engagement and education of Latinos in the United States about the outdoors, preservation, and conservation.

This Saturday marked the start of Latino Conservation Week, a week dedicated to building awareness among Latino communities of the beautiful public lands and outdoor experiences available to them, and the importance of conservation. It is also about reaffirming their connection to nature and the land.

New Mexico has a problem with natural gas waste. The recent NASA’s Four Corners methane report found that two of the most polluted energy-producing regions are located in the state. In fact, NASA found that a Delaware-sized methane cloud is hovering over the Four Corners region, that only 10 percent of the methane sources contribute half of all emissions and that leaking storage tanks and pipelines are the major culprits.

On National Public Lands Day this year (September 24), a group of 22 Latinos from El Nuevo Comienzo took their first trip to Afton Canyon in the new Mojave Trails National Monument.