2024 Presentations
Thursday, September 26th
The Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Keynote Address
The Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Keynote Address honors the dedicated Gila River Festival volunteer Sonnie Sussillo who passed away in March 2021 while hiking in the Gila that she loved so much. Sonnie was a critical member of the Gila River Festival planning committee for many years. She moderated presentations, led and supported field trips, coordinated speakers, and stepped in to help wherever she could. Her photography and writing celebrated the Gila and the wonders of Nature, and she committed countless volunteer hours conducting inventory work and tracking wildlife in the Gila National Forest in an effort to protect the Gila River and its watershed for future generations.
The third annual Sonnie Sussillo Memorial Gila River Festival Keynote Address will be presented by Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr.
Keynote Presentation with Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr.
Thursday, Sept. 26th, 6:00 pm; Online and In-person at WNMU Light Hall; $10 suggested donation at the door.
AND Online on Zoom.
San Carlos Apache leader Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. will discuss his tireless work to prevent the desecration of Oak Flat, an Apache sacred site in what is now southeastern Arizona, from a mine operated by international mining giant Rio Tinto. What does defending your homeland look like, and how can we protect the places that we call home, whether in Oak Flat, the Gila, or elsewhere on this beautiful planet?
Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. is the founder and leader of Apache Stronghold and Director of Gaan Bike Goz aa where he advocates for indigenous religious and human rights. He has led the fight to protect the Apache sacred site of Oak Flat (Chi’chil Biłdagoteel) from a proposal to develop one of the world's largest copper mines. Wendsler is a former Peridot District Councilman and Tribal Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, which consists of nearly 17,000 tribal members on the San Carlos Apache Reservation.
Friday, September 27th
Community Voices: Blueprints for the Future of the Gila River
Panel Discussion with
Guadalupe Cano, Michael Darrow, Martha Cooper, Joe Saenz, Luke Koenig, Corina Castillo, and Ray Trejo
Moderated by Allyson Siwik
Friday, September 27th, 6:30pm; Online and in-person at WNMU Global Resource Center Auditorium.
Suggested donation $10 at the door.
And ONLINE on Zoom
Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion as we delve into the future of New Mexico's last wild river through the eyes of our community's diverse voices. Each speaker brings a unique perspective: Martha Cooper, Freshwater Director for The Nature Conservancy in New Mexico, will illuminate the challenges ahead for river protection amidst a changing climate. NM Wild’s Luke Koenig will share efforts to safeguard the Gila Wilderness and preserve the wildness of the Gila River for generations to come. Ray Trejo of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation will highlight the Gila River’s vital role in sustaining the ecology of the Gila region.
Adding invaluable Indigenous wisdom, Fort Sill Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache Tribal Historian Michael Darrow and Joe Saenz of the Chiricahua Apache Nation will share their perspectives on stewardship of the Gila watershed. Silver City Mayor Pro Tem Guadalupe Cano will address accessibility issues related to the Wilderness, ensuring inclusivity in conservation efforts. Corina Castillo of Gila Resources Information Project will passionately voice the aspirations of young people shaping the future of the Gila River.
Moderated by Allyson Siwik of Gila Resources Information Project, this promises to be an exciting conversation, inspiring future conservation initiatives and community engagement.
Guadalupe Cano
Guadalupe Cano is currently serving her fourth term as the District 4 Town Councilor in Silver City. She also serves as the Mayor Pro-Tem and is a Certified Municipal Official (CMO). She is also in her second term as Vice President of the board of Outdoor New Mexico. A native of Silver City, her love of the Gila began as a small child, when her late father introduced her to the art of fly-fishing. She uses her elected title to further any work to conserve and protect the Gila River and its surrounding forest. Her main interest lies in finding sustainable ways to make public lands more accessible, especially to those with mobility issues.
Michael Darrow
Michael Darrow is the ex-Secretary-Treasurer of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, and ha s been the designated Tribal Historian since 1986. He attended the University of Oklahoma, majoring in botany, and received an associate degree in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He has worked for the Tribe on Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act and on cultural and language preservation issues.
Martha Cooper
Martha Cooper provides strategic direction for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in New Mexico’s freshwater conservation priorities, works closely with TNC’s Colorado River Program and collaborates with partners. In Southwest New Mexico, Martha manages restoration, monitoring and stewardship projects with partners on the Gila and Mimbres River Preserves and in their watersheds. An ongoing priority for New Mexico is to protect the natural flows of the Gila River through science and policy.
Corina Castillo
Born and raised in the Mining District, Corina Castillo has a special connection to the Gila and the surrounding area. She went to school in Arizona and graduated with a degree in Health Sciences from Arizona State University. She is the Development and Communications Specialist with Gila Resources Information Project. She hopes the work she does with GRIP encourages local representation from Hispanics and those from the Mining District in matters of conservation.
Joe Saenz
Joe Saenz is of Chihe´ne (Warm Springs Apache) ancestry and is part of the Red Paint Tribal Council. Joe is also the owner and operator of Wolf Horse Outfitters, and member of the Mountain Horse Singers.
Luke Koenig
Luke Koenig is the grassroots organizer for New Mexico Wild. He seeks to connect people to the wild landscape right in our backyard and elevate community voices as we aim to better protect it. When he’s not working (and sometimes while he is), he’s off exploring the Gila Wilderness, usually with his backpacking gear, fly rod, or a rope. He’s proud to call Silver City home.
Ray Trejo
Ray Trejo, an avid sportsman and lifelong educator, is southern New Mexico outreach coordinator for the NM Wildlife Federation. He is a past federation president and grew up hunting and fishing in southwestern New Mexico. Trejo has worked with several statewide sportsmen’s groups to promote public access, equitable tag reform and sound wildlife management practices. He was instrumental in helping to create the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument.
Allyson Siwik
Since 2003, Allyson has served as the executive director of the Gila Resources Information Project. She is also the director of the Gila Conservation Coalition that works to protect the free flow of the Gila River and co-founder of the Gila River Festival. She has over 30 years of experience in environmental protection, conservation. She has worked extensively with local communities in the borderlands to resolve environmental problems, including binational air quality management, mining environmental impacts, water quality and water supply concerns, and community-wide initiatives on climate change and sustainability.
Saturday, September 28th
Photo: Levi Novey/USFWS
Will Large Spotted Cats Again Stalk the Canyons of the Gila? with Michael J. Robinson
Saturday, Sept. 28th, 1:00 pm; In-person at the Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St.; $10 suggested donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
Jaguars are the third-largest cat species in the world and they evolved in North America eons ago before expanding their distribution to Central and South America. Jaguars lived in the United States until people killed them off for their beautiful pelts and to eliminate a threat to livestock. At present, just two male jaguars born in Mexico are known to live in the wild in the U.S., in southeastern Arizona’s sky island mountain ranges. Like previous jaguar populations in the U.S. that disappeared long ago, the semi-isolated jaguar population in northwestern Mexico is highly imperiled and in part by its low genetic diversity. Reintroduction of jaguars to the best remaining habitat in the U.S. – the Gila National Forest – would begin the process of jaguar recovery on the continent where these remarkable felids originated, and would also provide a genetic lifeline to jaguars in northwestern Mexico to which the future U.S. jaguar population could be connected.
Michael J. Robinson is a senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity and author of Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West (University Press of Colorado). Robinson is also the primary author of the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition-for-rulemaking to reintroduce jaguars to the Gila National Forest.
Whitewater Canyon looking east into the Gila Wilderness.
Protecting the Western Slope of the Gila Bioregion with Stanley King, Mike Hasson, and Leia Barnett
Saturday September 28th, 2:15 pm. In-person at the Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St.; $10 suggested donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
Protecting all the watersheds that flow from the western slope of the Gila Bioregion is crucial to any conservation effort made for this unique and profoundly important landscape. These watersheds comprise a critical mass of the riparian habitat to be found in the Southwest. They support a broad spectrum of wildlife, including multiple threatened and endangered species of flora and fauna. Stanley King and Mike Hasson of Mogollon Concerned Citizens and Leia Barnett of Wild Earth Guardians will review the watersheds and the threats to them, the essential factors that make them invaluable, and what the conservation community and other concerned citizens can do to protect their future.
In 1969, Stanley King graduated with a BSEE degree from the University of Washington. He spent 10 years working the corporate world of America from Silicon Valley rocket science to implementing environmental reports for Nuclear Power Generation. He retreated to the Gila Wilderness in 1979 to get back to nature and felt a very connected calling to the largest road-less and wilderness area in the continental US. His calling on the western slope of the Gila, one of the most pristine areas left on planet earth, is to be a custodian of this environment and protect it from reckless pollution and abuse.
Mike Hasson is a 22-year resident of Glenwood. The last 20 plus years of his career was spent as Technical Director for a company providing solutions for eliminating aquatic invasive species from being transported in ship’s ballast water. He is a husband, gardener, woodworker, and aspiring luthier.
Leia Barnett was born and raised in the foothills and arroyos of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. She is thrilled to bring her love and deep reverence for the high desert country of the Southwest to the Greater Gila campaign as the Greater Gila New Mexico Advocate. Leia graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico’s cultural anthropology program, where she focused on the ways the more-than-human world can be reimagined through anthropological theory and practice. When she’s not endeavoring to understand the complexities of a successful conservation campaign, Leia can be found mountain-side or river-side, praising the feathered and four-legged ones, and planning her next epic snack.
Untrammeled: MCC's Pursuit of the Wilderness Ideal
Saturday, September 28, 3:30 pm, Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St., $10 suggested donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
When a Canadian silver mining company started exploratory drilling on the western slope of the Mogollon Mountains, local residents, their NGO allies, and the Treaty-based Chiricahua people who still reside on Nde Benah – all unite to seek Federal protections for the land they hold sacred.
As a Diné filmmaker, Tony Estrada creates his own original docs & feature films on social causes & environmental issues to raise the spiritual awareness of global audiences – inspiring them to make a pro-active change within their own communities. As a production company, Wild Horse Films serves non-profit programs/projects dealing with climate justice, environmental justice or social justice issues to raise awareness of their cause, call to action, and enlist potential allies, stakeholders, and financial supporters in moving their program goal forward.
Sunday, September 29th
How to Love the River with Sharman Apt Russell, Phil Connors, and Mónica Ortiz Uribe
Sunday, September 29, 9:00 am - 10:30 am, Silver City Museum, 312 West Broadway. $10 suggested donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. This session will not be offered online.
In the closing event of the festival, we gather devotees of the Gila River for an informal conversation about what loving a river means, and how to think about the future of the Gila watershed in a time of global crisis. Sharman Apt Russell and Philip Connors will join moderator Mónica Ortiz Uribe in sharing stories, visions, hopes, fears, and dreams of the wild Gila River in the 100th anniversary year of the wilderness that gives birth to it.
Sharman Apt Russell has published some dozen books translated into nine languages. Her Diary Of A Citizen Scientist won the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. Her most recent nonfiction book is What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs (Columbia University Press, 2024). Sharman teaches in the MFA program of Antioch University in Los Angeles and is a professor emeritus at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. For more information go to www.sharmanaptrussell.com
Phillip Connors left his job at the Wall Street Journal in New York City to embrace his new profession as a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness and as a writer and essayist dealing with environmental and wilderness issues. A Song for the River is his third book, after Fire Season, winner of the prestigious Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and All the Wrong Places, a memoir of his brother’s life and death. Phil spends the fire season as a lookout in the Gila National Forest and for the rest of the year he lives in southwestern New Mexico with his wife, Mónica.
Mónica Ortiz Uribe is a binational reporter based on America's southern doorstep. She’s co-host of @iHeartRadio Forgotten: The Women of Juárez.