A sustainable future begins with all of us — our communities, our parks and the California landscapes we call home.
This Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating women making a real difference for California’s future whose work is helping parks welcome everyone and mean more for all.
Sustainability starts with access
For Parks California board chair Deanna Mackey, KPBS-San Diego general manager, it all starts with one word: inclusion.
“I believe one of the keys to sustainability is inclusion,” she says.
Deanna dedicates her time to Parks California because she believes in opening doors wide so more people can experience the beauty, history and meaning found in parks. When people connect with these places, that connection grows into care and care inspires stewardship for generations.
“We know people support what they value,” she explains. “If we don’t provide a path for all Californians to experience and understand parks, then not enough people will value them and support them.”
She believes access isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s the smart thing, too, for the long-term health of our public lands.
Board member Amy Dominguez-Arms, executive director of the MacFarlane Foundation, frames it as shared responsibility.
“I think a sustainable future is made possible by each of us taking responsibility for our role in determining the future of the planet,” she says.
For Amy, that responsibility lives in our everyday choices. Expanding access to parks and caring for natural places are direct ways we can act on it together.
For board secretary Rosie Clayburn Katri, member of the Yurok Tribe, sustainability starts even deeper — with our relationship to nature itself.
“A sustainable future … begins with rebuilding a fundamental connection to nature,” she says. “We often imagine nature as something apart from us, forgetting how deeply it shapes and supports our daily lives.”
Public lands give us clean air, water and the biodiversity that makes California special, and caring for them takes both awareness and respect.
Rosie also emphasizes tribal leadership: when sovereign tribal nations have a seat at the table, we benefit from generations of knowledge essential to restoring and sustaining healthy ecosystems.
Women leading change
Our board members see collaboration as one of the defining strengths of women’s leadership, especially when confronted with the realities of increasing environmental challenges.
Deanna describes a culture where women lift each other and step forward together.
“If one of us wins, we all win,” she says.
Amy highlights just a few of the women leaders who have shown the way by example — from Kate Williams at 1% for the Planet, to Shana Tarter, who co-created a wilderness medicine program at NOLS connecting health care professionals to nature, to her mother, a social worker who brought city youth into the woods to discover the outdoors.
“Women, and all people, can make a difference in so many ways,” Amy says.
Rosie points to Indigenous women as powerful leaders in this space.
“In Yurok Country, artesian springs are going dry for the first time ever and our forests are burning at an unprecedented rate,” she shares.
Tribal communities are helping to restore balance, rebuilding floodplains, bringing back prairies and reintroducing cultural fire practices that strengthen ecosystems and keep communities safe.
“Through healing our lands and waters, we are also healing our families from historical traumas,” she says.
All three know that sustaining this kind of leadership takes real investment. Deanna saw this firsthand as co-founder of Public Media Women in Leadership, where she spent a decade developing such a community.
“Women can have years of experience but still hesitate if they don’t see themselves as ‘expert’ enough,” she reflects. “Creating community and investing in leadership development helps women step forward and thrive.”
And the next generation? They’re already leading.
As a former Girl Scout troop leader, Deanna sees young women who aren’t waiting for change, they’re making it. They thrift instead of buying fast fashion and are driving demand for sustainable products, more inclusive health care and values-driven careers. These innovations are coming from a generation living with extreme weather in real time.
Art, healing and the power of place
Sustainability isn’t just about the environment, it’s about how we care for the people and the places where communities gather to remember, heal and find strength.
That belief comes to life in the work of ROSE South LA, a Parks California Arts in California Parks grantee.
In South Los Angeles, serial murderers killed dozens of women over decades. Many victims were dismissed by some in law enforcement — referred to as NHI, “No Humans Involved”. ROSE South LA was born from a community’s refusal to let those women be forgotten.
Through public art, remembrance and youth engagement at Martin Luther King, Jr. and Leimert parks, ROSE South LA brings people together to honor the lives of missing and murdered women, reclaiming their dignity. A monument where light shines through the names of victims anchors this work and being outdoors — surrounded by grass, trees and sunshine — helps ground grief and transform it into healing and hope.
“Art can express what we are not able to put into words,” says Margaret Prescod, project director, ROSE South LA. “It can be an outlet for deep-seated emotions and frustrations that have no other outlet.”
ROSE Youth Ambassadors are at the heart of this work. Many weren’t born when the murders began, but through the program, they’re learning the history and why it matters. They create art — posters, banners, puppets — and carry these stories forward through their networks, helping root victims’ stories in the new Historic South Los Angeles Black Cultural District.
When young women stand in the memorial space, ROSE South LA hopes they feel the love and care of the community and know that their lives matter.
“Public remembrance is a reminder that we can, as a community, come together to seek justice and uplift those considered the least of these — and in doing so, strengthen us all.”
Investing in the future we share
Sustainability is about where we put our energy, our resources and our focus.
“What we as a society support and invest in has the opportunity to take hold,” Amy says. “If we invest in clean energy, we improve the chances that our environment will thrive. If we fund opportunities for more people to access public lands, we increase the likelihood that people will care for them for generations to come.”
Rosie offers a perspective rooted in balance and reciprocity.
“It starts with not taking more than nature can give and using all of what we take,” she says. “But it’s also about actively enhancing nature’s abundance.”
Through traditional gathering and land management, ecosystems can stay stable and even grow stronger. And that balance extends to how we treat each other.
“Living in balance also means being kind to our neighbors and finding a way to reestablish harmony when we are harmed.”
At their best, California’s public lands are more than places to visit — they’re places to remember, to heal and to find each other.
Women’s History Month reminds us that a sustainable future grows from leadership, shared responsibility and everyday choices that add up to real change. At Parks California, we’re honored to support the women leading this work. We’re committed to making sure parks welcome everyone, now and for generations to come.