The BAT is a broad coalition of local community organizations, environmental groups and concerned private citizens who have come together around the common goal of preserving and restoring the Bosque as a natural undeveloped open space for the benefit and enjoyment of all people and wildlife. Involved organizations include:
The following individuals and groups compose the steering committee of the Bosque Action Team:
Andrea Seranno
Conservation Organizer / Wyss Fellow, OLÉ
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Conservation efforts affect all New Mexicans, including those in an urban setting like Albuquerque. OLÉ approaches conservation issues by also looking at issues that intersect with healthy land, air and water: health, wages, education and worker injustice. Conservation is part of creating a healthy community and examining the intersections between issues affecting our community only strengthens our conservation efforts.
Peggy Norton
Retired teacher
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Recently retired after teaching high school math in Mountainair, NM for 14 years. Worked in accounting/office management for 22 years. Also did analytical chemistry and native plant propagation. BS degree from UNM in Biology/Botany and teaching credentials from UNM. Other active involvement in environmental issues includes preserving open space, including Anderson Fields in the 1990's; protesting the proposed biomass plant in Estancia; banning leg hold traps and killing contests. The bosque has always been a place of refuge and I want to have its natural state preserved.
Ian Mentken
Design & Communications / Founder, mim.fm
Ian has devoted his professional life to using design and technology to improve conditions on planet earth. He cut his design chops at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and soon-after founded his design firm, now called Cod and Cowboy Design, where he has used his design and communication skills to serve the arts and non-profit communities for over a decade.
Ian is also the founder and principal designer of mim.fm, an organization devoted to initiating and sustaining a paradigm shift from music as disposable non-essential commodity to music as a necessity for personal and social well-being. His contributions to the cause of preserving the Bosque include initiating and organizing the Big Bosque Benefit Bash, coordinating communications on behalf of the BAT and designing and maintaining this website.
Alex Limkin
Writer / Advocate / Iraq Veteran
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Most mornings Alex can be found walking the tranquil sandy trails of the Bosque with his son and dog. This ritual provides him much peace and solace. When he found out about the mayor's plan to develop the Bosque he felt compelled to get involved to protect its natural beauty.
Amongst his many actions, Alex wrote Mayor Berry vs. The Bosque (reprinted in our blog section), started the Rio Grand Bosque Facebook page, and launched an online petition to keep the Bosque natural.
Alex is an accomplished writer who has been a regular contributor to the New Mexico Compass and The Alibi. He is also developing a backcountry assistance and recovery group for at-risk veterans called DVR-6 and he blogs at warriorswithwesthusing.org.
Michael Jensen
Middle Rio Grande Projects Director, Amigos Bravos
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Amigos Bravos is a nationally recognized statewide river conservation organization guided by social justice principles and dedicated to preserving and restoring the ecological and cultural integrity of New Mexico’s rivers and watersheds.
We have a vision of New Mexico’s rivers and streams running so clear and clean that you can bend a knee to the water, cup your hands, and drink without fear. Realizing this vision – which was a reality in northern New Mexico only one lifetime ago – requires the wisdom, knowledge, and participation of all New Mexicans in the effort to address the social and political pressures poisoning our waters.
Amigos Bravos’ mission is to protect and restore the waters of New Mexico.
Gail Garber
Executive Director, Hawks Aloft, Inc
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Gail Garber has been the Executive Director of Hawks Aloft, Inc. since 1994. Hawks Aloft works to conserve indigenous wild birds through conservation education, avian research and cooperation with others. They conduct a variety of studies, notably a long-term study of the birds and vegetation communities of the Middle Rio Grande bosque. This study provides valuable information about avian abundance and species richness relative to vegetation communities and land management entities.
Camilla Feibelman
Chapter Director, Sierra Club - Rio Grande Chapter
(505) 715-7388
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Camilla Feibelman was recently named the Director of the Sierra Club - Rio Grande Chapter. Camilla works with volunteers throughout New Mexico and West Texas to protect special places like the Organ Mountains/Desert Peaks and Albuquerque’s Bosque and to help curb global warming and stimulate the economy through renewable energy. Camilla was most recently a field organizer for the Sierra Club in Puerto Rico. She began her work with the Sierra Club in 1999 has a paid intern in San Francisco. She later became the National Director of the Sierra Student Coalition, the student-arm of the Sierra Club. She then worked in the organization’s press office in Washington DC, helping environmental justice communities reach the media. She was also responsible for the Club’s Spanish-language media outreach and helped to develop the first nationally syndicated Spanish-language, weekly environmental column. She later worked to develop new relationships with Latino communities in the United States around environmental issues, helping to developing the Sierra Club’s first new chapter in ten years. Her work with the Puerto Rico Chapter has led her to live on the Island for the last eight years where she has worked in close concert with volunteer leaders and communities to protect the Northeast Ecological Corridor. Before working for the Sierra Club, Camilla spent a year living in the Peruvian Amazon, with a Fulbright scholarship to study the urbanization of the rainforest and its impacts on natural resource use. Camilla has a bachelors in Environmental Biology from Columbia University in New York. She was born and raised in New Mexico, the land of enchantment where she gained a love of the environment by attending Girl Scout camp in the Jemez Mountains each summer.
Richard Barish
Attorney
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Richard Barish is an attorney in private practice in Albuquerque. He is a long-time volunteer for the Sierra Club. He has been Bosque Issues Chair of the Central New Mexico Group of the Sierra Club for over 25 years and has been actively involved in efforts to restore the Rio Grande. He has been involved in open space issues and was a primary proponent of the quarter cent gross receipts tax for the acquisition of open space that Albuquerque voters passed in the 1990s. He has been involved in fair trade issues, serving on the national Sierra Club responsible trade program committee, and he served several stints as the Political Chair of Central Group.