About Carmen

About Carmen

Carmen Gonzales is an environmental specialist, water matriarch, permaculture designer, poet, and musician who has been dedicated to helping communities develop resilience by remembering our sacred relationship with water. Carmen has worked in the Environmental Science field for over 20 years serving Tribes and rural communities and is inspired by the hope of watershed restoration through the lens of indigenous wisdom. Always an “edge walker,” Carmen has been working to find the balance between good science, traditional ecological knowledge, personal healing, and cultural evolution. Carmen is driven by the vision of supporting the work of revitalizing watersheds and communities through strengthening relationships that nourish land and life to serve as a model for change that can ripple out and benefit all beings everywhere.


"Water is Life. It’s a resource essential for survival, but for Indigenous cultures across the Americas, it is so much more. Water is a being filled with spirit and sentience who has generously shared her abundance with her children. 

For Diné and Mexican Water Specialist Carmen Gonzales, her life is water. As a permaculture designer, she works to restore systems through earth-centered solutions that strengthen the soil microbiology to maintain humidity and recharge water systems slowly over time. After living most of her life in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the water is slowly calling her back home to her roots in Navajo Nation."

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