Lesly Caballero Garcia

Lesly Caballero Garcia came to LandPaths in August 2021 as a Senior Bilingual Education Field Specialist, working within the Rooting Youth in Nature initiative. She currently calls Southern Pomo and Mewuk (Coast Miwok) ancestral and present day land her home.

Lesly was born in Hidalgo, Mexico and grew up in Petaluma, California. She stands on the shoulders of strong, intelligent, hard working and caring mujeres in her family, most immediately being her mom and sisters. They are her motivation. Being outdoors has been a place where she has found healing and reconnection to her ancestors’ relationship to the land. She did not grow up doing “outdoorsy” activities. She saw her first redwood at the age of 18 and fell in love with the outdoors. She also realized that there were not a lot of people that looked like her represented in visitation, stewardship and enjoying the benefits of connecting to the outdoors due to inequities in access to these spaces, to social and environmental injustices and to systems of oppression. Thus began her career towards equity and justice in the outdoor field. From working with Latino Outdoors organizing bilingual family outings and creating affinity spaces for people of color in the outdoors to working with various nonprofits and land management agencies.

Lesly entered the field of environmental education to work towards creating opportunities for students to feel welcome and to see themselves represented in the outdoors. She is dedicated to creating outdoor experiences that honor the lived experiences of all youth through culturally relevant and inclusive environmental education. Most recently, Lesly worked for Nature Bridge Yosemite as an outdoor environmental science educator and equity and inclusion lead. She is looking forward to being back in Sonoma County and and working with the Latinx community she grew up in. Some things that bring her joy are spending time with her sisters, cooking, salsa dancing, and spending time en la naturaleza.