Look who’s reading La Jicarita (left to right): Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Amy Goodman and Ike DeVargas

Read La Jicarita @ lajicarita.wordpress.com

Listen to an interview with Kay Matthews, Eric Shultz and David Correia of La Jicarita on “Living on the Edge” Santa Fe’s 101.1FM KSFR

La Jicarita News began as a community-based newspaper in 1996 and was first published under the auspices of the Rio Pueblo/Rio Embudo Watershed Protection Coalition, an association of farmers and ranchers, Picuris Pueblo, and community groups. The paper received its own 501(c)(3) status in 1999 in order to extend coverage to include all the communities of northern New Mexico (lajicarita.org). The paper has been an advocate for sustainable, community-based employment, much of which utilizes public land resources. The paper has focused on contentious issues involving the management of land and water resources: loss of agricultural lands to infill and development; transfer of water out of agricultural use; loss of grasslands to forest encroachment; loss of biodiversity due to fire suppression; lack of access to forest resources; and the continuing decline in community stability due to lack of economic opportunity and attendant social problems. For more than fifteen years La Jicarita News was published by Kay Matthews and Mark Schiller with the help of scholars, writers, community activists, and local residents.

The December 2011 issue, however, was the last issue in this original format. Beginning in January of 2012, La Jicarita News moved online to become La Jicarita: An Online Magazine of Environmental Politics in New Mexico. In its new iteration, La Jicarita positions itself at the point where critical scholarship and community activism converge. So in addition to the reporting and writing on Northern New Mexico that La Jicarita is known for, the new version will address issues related to New Mexico politics, economics, natural resources, and culture. The new La Jicarita will continue the tradition of the old La Jicarita. It will continue to challenge dominant views of natural resource use and management in northern New Mexico. And, it will recruit new voices to the project, preserve the archive of La Jicarita writing and provide a larger platform for the analysis of critical issues.

Read the Manifesto for the new La Jicarita.