Paula Garcia is Executive Director of the New Mexico Acequia Association, which is a statewide, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting water and strengthening acequia agriculture. In her years of service to NMAA, acequias have built a movement around the principle that “el agua es vida – water is life” and have achieved major policy changes to protect rural, agricultural water rights. She is also a Mora County Commissioner and President of La Merced de Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora. Her views on land and water have been published and referenced in various publications and she has been a plenary speaker for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference and the National Water Resources Association. She has received various awards including most recently the 2010 Latina Leader Award for which she was nominated by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.