Atencio%20Bio

ERNIE ATENCIO is a cultural anthropologist, conservationist, and writer with centuries-old roots in northern New Mexico. He runs Land & Culture Consulting from his home near Taos and previously spent nine years as executive director of the Taos Land Trust, where he developed many fruitful community partnerships. Growing up in inner-city Denver, Ernie discovered the larger world—and the land—through an Outward Bound “hoods-in-the-woods” program and has worked throughout the West ever since as a wilderness instructor, park ranger, environmental educator, journalist, and activist.

With a Masters degree in applied cultural anthropology and a lifelong interest in remote landscapes and traditional cultures, he has spent a lot of time exploring wild places and promoting the powerful connections between land and culture, healthy ecosystems and healthy communities. Ernie has done field research and written about sustainable development on the Tibetan Plateau, Havasupai oral history, Navajo forestry, cowboy culture, and Norteño resource stewardship. In 2006 he received a “Voice for the Land” award from The Wilderness Society and his many publications include Of Land and Culture: Environmental Justice and Public Lands Ranching in Northern New Mexico, published by The Quivira Coalition, La Vida Floresta: Ecology, Justice, and Community-Based Forestry in Northern New Mexico, published by the Northern New Mexico Group of the Sierra Club, and several features for High Country News.

Ernie lives near the Rio Grande Gorge north of Taos with his wife and teenage son and sees his grown daughter in New York City every chance he gets.