Judy Ackerman Receives Audubon's Conservation Award

Judy paraphrases John Sproul's words as she accepts the award: "Every conservation victory is temporary."

Environmental and political activist, Judy Ackerman, received this year's Conservation Award from the El Paso/Trans-Pecos Audubon Society this past Saturday. The award was given during the Society's annual dinner which was held at Jaxon's on Airway. In announcing the award, the Audubon newsletter called Judy a "local human rights activist and conservationist" who was being presented the award "for her dedication and hard work to make El Paso a better place to live and more conservation-minded."

Often I hear understatements and appreciate them. However, Judy is nonpareil in her work to preserve natural open space and habitat in El Paso while, at the same time, speaking out for human justice.

Sunrise Hikers, Judy Ackerman and Tommy Young, enjoy the view from atop Ranger Peak after a climb up the Directissimo and Jackaloop Trails.

I cannot say when I first met Judy or her husband, Jamie. They were just always part of the "conservation/progressive milieu." She was there at Master Naturalists, the Native Plant Society, the Cactus and Rock Club, Celebration of Our Mountains meetings and events, and a regular among our Sunrise Hikers. I probably began using the term "usual suspects" to describe our conservation community because Judy's was the picture on that Most Wanted poster.

One of my earliest memories of Judy was her fight against the construction of the border wall being built along our precious river - especially where that wall cut off the Rio Bosque from the Rio Grande. It wasn't just a human rights issue that inspired Judy to sit down in front of God, bulldozers and the Texas Rangers, it was betrayal of an ecosystem, a fracture in the gene pool of species who belong as much to this land as we do. Her civil disobedience did not stop the billions of dollars wasted on a fence that people now just climb over. It did bring a whole bunch of us together and inspired us to care more deeply about the borderless Chihuahuan Desert in which we live and move and have our being. (Read more here and here.)

Judy's tireless work makes each annual Poppy Festival more successful than the last.

Judy is the expert about the preservation of Castner Range (map) as natural open space with the goal of eventually incorporating it into the largest North American urban park: the Franklin Mountains State Park. She was a major force in the preservation of Arroyo 41A - the Mountain to River Trail and for bringing together people who held contrasting opinions at FMWC-sponsored Stakeholder meetings. (The City of El Paso Department of Parks and Recreation just never seemed to be able or to desire to put together such meetings to help save that precious arroyo. Judy did it as a one-woman show.) She has worked hard with the petition drives to save the Scenic Transmountain Corridor. She is endlessly teaching others about the flora on our hikes and she is the guardian angel of the poppies that pop all over Castner Range in the spring. Some of us bushwhack from time to time - but she is quick to remind us of the environmental hazards our adventures might cause. A retired Sergeant Major, she once lectured each and every member of an entire platoon of soldiers for their taking an off-trail shortcut up an arroyo in the State Park.

Judy is often there at Open Space Advisory Board meetings, City Council and League of Women Voters - just to mention a few. She is always a willing volunteer at the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Association booth at numerous venues including Ardovino's Desert Crossing Farmers Market. She keeps us all informed in her emails about announcements, events, timely articles and more. She indeed serves to make our City a better place - and I've never heard her despair or complain.

I suggest that the local Audubon Chapter would do well to rename their annual award "the Judy Ackerman Conservation Award". Future recipients will proudly proclaim: "I won the Judy Ackerman!"