Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th generation New Mexican, is the kind of politician that gives us hope in this chaotic historical moment.
Washington Conservation Action Education Fund is thrilled that she is a featured speaker at our annual gala, Cascade, in Seattle on May 2.
A longtime fighter for racial, economic and environmental justice, Haaland finished her term as Secretary of the Interior in January. In mid-February, she announced that she was running for governor of New Mexico.
“When I saw the email that Secretary Haaland was going to speak at our gala, I almost fell off my chair. We are honored to host her at our annual gala,” says WCA’s CEO Alyssa Macy. “Haaland has done so much to improve conditions for this nation’s Indigenous peoples, respecting our sacred places, lifting up our stories, including us in the management of federal lands that are part of our ancestral homes, and so much more. She’s also been tireless in her support of conservation and climate progress.”
Haaland’s record makes it clear that she’s not the type of person to back down if things seem challenging. She doesn’t bend the knee to bullies. She doesn’t shrink away from difficult histories and issues.
Haaland grew up in a military family, attending 13 public schools before graduating from high school in Albuquerque. As a single parent, she volunteered at her child’s school to afford early childhood education. She struggled to make ends meet, sometimes relying on food stamps and living paycheck to paycheck.
After earning bachelor’s and law degrees at University of New Mexico, she ran a small business producing and canning salsa, as well as serving as a Tribal administrator and later directing the business operations of the second largest Tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico. She was the first Native American chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party and then went on to serve in Congress.
Haaland gave up her congressional seat to serve at the Department of the Interior. There, she delivered big wins in conservation and made historic progress toward addressing the wrongs against Tribes and Indigenous peoples in the United States. During her tenure, she crisscrossed the country’s landscapes, holding listening sessions with Tribal and Indigenous leaders, local officials, stewards of national parks and public lands.
She played a leading role in establishing the “America the Beautiful” Initiative, a conservation effort to improve access to nature for all Americans, addressing climate change and protecting 30 percent of United States lands and waters by 2030. During her tenure, the department moved more than 25 million acres of public lands into protected status.
Under her leadership, Interior oversaw the long-called-for overhaul of the management of 250 million acres under the control of the Bureau of Land Management. Haaland moved to protect from development spaces sacred to Native peoples. She channeled more conservation investments to Tribal nations than any other Interior Secretary in history.
At the same time, Haaland took steps to help the department confront its racist and colonial past, and to begin the process of healing. She created a project to investigate the history of Indian boarding schools, in which children were forced to attend academies designed to extinguish their Native culture. She also held a multi-year “Road to Healing” tour, to give survivors of this oppressive system a chance to tell their stories. At the same time, the department connected survivors with trauma support services.
Haaland also established a Missing and Murdered Unit with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to coordinate investigations of missing and murdered Indigenous women. She restarted the White House Tribal Nations Summits, started by President Clinton but discontinued in the first Trump Administration. She dramatically increased the involvement of Tribes in the management of the ancestral lands they have stewarded from time immemorial. In 2023, Interior increased the number of co-stewardship agreements with Tribes from 20 to more than 200.
“Secretary Haaland has dedicated her life and her career to respect for people and for the earth that sustains us,” Macy says. “She’s a person who seeks to reflect, to heal, to include, to restore, to encourage. She fights fiercely for a better world in which all people, and all our plant and animal relatives, are nurtured. She’s just the kind of person we need to speak to the challenges ahead.”
Register for CASCADE, Building Power, Moving Mountains — on Friday, May 2, 2025, at 6 p.m. at The King Street Ballroom in Seattle.
Your donation ensures a sustainable future.
