Maceo is an ecologist, educator, author, and father who seeks out ways to better treat each other and the Earth. We can learn a great deal from cultural history and from Mother Earth herself.
After finishing his doctoral degree in water ecology and science education, he began working as a restoration ecologist and planner which has allowed him to work with and in communities across the U.S. southwest and overseas. For over two decades, Maceo has co-created, implemented, and collaborated on award-winning community-based ecological restoration and hands-on cultural education projects. He has sat on various advisory boards and study groups on sustainability, water conservation, and environmental education. He teaches a university class on watershed and community restoration planning and implementation.
His work has been featured in Progressive Media Project, Indian Country Today, Green Fire Times, and other publications, and is the author of Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are, which will be published in 2026 by North Atlantic Books. This book emerges from his work with restoration over the past two decades.
Born next to the ocean, in San Francisco, CA, to a working-class family steeped in the social justice, anti-colonial, and internationalist humanism, Maceo was raised to be proud of my mixed Cuban/Taíno and Chicano/Mestizo heritage. More importantly, he was raised to see his humanity as connected to the beautiful galaxy we call humanity. Presently he lives with his family in the arid southwest, another kind of ocean, where he is busy shaping and being shaped by the land in a good way.
