Our upcoming workshop on Environmental Justice is of utmost importance and of critical timing to all of us who live in our beautiful state of New Mexico and to all social workers who live up to the high ethical standards of social and environmental justice. This will be a highly educational workshop on the nuclear issues of our state: issues from the past that have profoundly affected our indigenous people and lands, situations in the present as they exist now, and above all what possibilities are looming in our future!

The use of nuclear power is accompanied by serious dangers! It is important for the people who live in this state, and anywhere on our earth, to be very aware and knowledgeable of the effects of nuclear waste. This workshop will go into many aspects of the nuclear environment in NM.

Leona Morgan (Diné or “Navajo”) works as a community organizer and activist challenging nuclear colonialism, concentrating on environmental justice issues affecting indigenous peoples in the Southwest. Since 2007, she worked specifically on uranium mining issues and in recent years broadened that focus to all nuclear issues. She does much of her work through popular education and advocating for the protection of water, environment, human health, and cultural resources. In 2014, Morgan co-founded Diné No Nukes, an initiative to address impacts from all stages of the nuclear fuel chain with a specific focus on Diné Bikeyah (Traditional Diné Homelands). Also in 2014, Morgan co-founded the Radiation Monitoring Project which is a national collaboration to bring impacted communities the tools and knowledge to do citizen radiation monitoring. In 2016, she helped to launch the  Nuclear Issues Study Group, an Albuquerque-based endeavor working to “Protect New Mexico From All Things Nuclear” and the Haul No! campaign, challenging the transport of uranium ore through Western Navajo Nation.