André Sanchez
Advisory Board Member & Volunteer Leader for Latino Outdoors, Community Engagement & Conservation Policy Manager for CalWild
Pronouns: He/his
Nominated by Debbie Franco (2022)
Born and raised in the Central Valley of California, André is an environmental and community advocate. He is involved at several levels with Latino Outdoors, a largely volunteer powered Latine-led organization that connects and engages leaders and community members in the outdoor, conservation, and nature movement. André is also the Community Engagement & Conservation Policy Manager for the statewide-focused environmental nonprofit, CalWild, where he engages, informs, and organizes communities to protect “public lands and waters”, as well as advocates on issues relating to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Access. As part of his demonstrated leadership and commitment to “public lands” issues, André currently holds a secretarial appointment position to the Bureau of Land Management’s Central CA Resource Advisory Council where he helps balance decisions that serve the interests of all “public land” users.
Beyond the aforementioned leadership roles, André also has current ties to Tuleyome (a conservation nonprofit focused on protecting and restoring the natural landscapes in the Northern Inner California Coast Range), Yosemite Gateway Prescribed Burn Cooperative (a group made up of landowners, community members, community-based organizations, and agency partners working together to conduct prescribed burns throughout Mariposa and Madera Counties), and has previous ties to Indigenous Oaxaca Cooperativa (a group of Oaxacan community leaders working to build solidarity among the Indigenous diaspora across Central & Southern California).
André’s professional background originally lies in wildlife, restoration, and conservation, having worked on different natural resource programs and projects, including conducting aquatic restoration in Yosemite National Park (the most influential place visited during his childhood), monitoring trout populations in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, and performing coastal climate change monitoring in the San Francisco Bay Area.