Rethinking the Mental Models of Our Relationships with Nature with Jose Gonzalez, Latino Outdoors and The Outdoorist Oath

This week’s guest is Jose Gonzalez, who is the founder of Latino Outdoors, co-founder of The Outdoorist Oath and the inaugural Equity Officer for the East Bay Regional Park District in California. 

Jose is an accomplished professional educator focused on Equity and Inclusion whose work brings together frameworks and practices in the environmental, outdoor and conservation fields. He uses a range of sources and mediums including illustration and memes to share his ideas and the science with others. 

If there is one theme for this episode, it’s about how we can challenge our existing mental models to rethink our relationship with nature. 

For some of us that might mean exploring other cultural worldviews where nature might exist as a familial relationship, rather than one of just resource and recreation. 

For others it might be simply considering the privilege of access and participation in spaces where our cultural makeup is the dominant one. 

And for all of us, it is a chance to embrace the example of biodiversity in nature and the more-than-human world as an example of the diversity in the outdoor community we want to create. 

Thanks so much to Jose for taking time to chat. His wisdom and humor is really appreciated in what can often be a tough and thorny subject area. Make sure to follow Jose on Instagram - link in our show notes - to get all of your new favorite nature-inspired puns and memes. Be on the look out for mentions of thriving meadows and a Thursday favorite - Olmos Friday. 

Links

• Jose Gonzalez on Instagram
• Jose Gonzalez Website
• Latino Outdoors
• The Outdoorist Oath
• 'Healing Severed Connections' by Jose on Medium
• 'Decolonize, Ecologize, Indigenize, Joyify' by Jose on Medium