Estrada, Torri
Torri Estrada
Torri Estrada has worked on solutions for climate change, environmental injustices, and social justice for over thirty years. He has worked in many organizational environments, including with nonprofits, community-based organizations, and public institutions. Estrada has worked at several organizations, including the Marin County Community Foundation, Urban Habitat, and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program. Estrada co-founded the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. He is currently the Executive Director and Policy Director at the Carbon Cycle Institute.
“A key social-change strategy is to fund community-based organizations.” Torri Estrada, 2005.
Shattuck, A, Silvestri, N., Estrada, T., and Giménez, EH. (2017). “Healthy Soils, Healthy Communities: Opportunities to Bridge Environmental Justice and Soil Carbon Sequestration,” Policy Brief #21, January 2017. Oakland, CA: Food First/ Institute for Food and Development Policy in partnership with the Carbon Cycle Institute and Silvestri Strategies.
Estrada, T., & Olson, M. (2001). About This Issue. https://www.reimaginerpe.org/files/1-40.pdf
Torri Estrada is the youngest of six children and was born on November 13, 1969, to Lionel and Harlean Estrada. Estrada grew up in Montclair, California, which made him keenly aware of altered landscapes, pollution, and the environment. It also influenced his career path.
Estrada’s interest in environmental justice was sparked when he took a class taught by Carl Anthony at the University of California, Berkeley. Estrada earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science Policy Management and Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992. While in college, Estrada volunteered in a student group that worked on environmental justice issues.
In 1995, Estrada decided to pursue graduate studies by enrolling in the master’s program at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. While there, he specialized in environmental justice.
Estrada’s first environmental justice job was while he was in college. From 1992 to 1995, he worked at Earthjustice as a research analyst. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Estrada worked in several positions, including as an environmental educator in Oakland, California, a diversity coordinator for the Environmental Careers Organization (ECO), and in 1997, he joined Urban Habitat as a Project Director managing the Brownfields and Community Revitalization Project.
In 2001, Estrada co-founded and served as Acting Director for the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. He stayed in that role until 2003, when he joined the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program. Also, from 2001 to 2003, Estrada was the Latino Issues Forum’s Senior Program Director for their Environment and Sustainability Program.
From 2003 to 2005, Estrada was a program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program. In this role, he managed the organization’s environmental justice and civil rights portfolios. In 2005, Estrada served as the Water Funders Alliance coordinator at the Environmental Grantmakers Association. The Water Funders Alliance is a funder working group that facilitates the exchange of information and experience among diverse funders concerned about fresh water and its connection to other critical issues.
In 2006, Estrada began working for the Marin Community Foundation as the Climate Change and Environment Program Director. He managed the Foundation’s environmental grantmaking program and climate change initiative. Estrada worked at the Marin Community Foundation until 2011. He also directed Environmental Justice Solutions, a nonprofit project with a mission to provide strategic research, technical assistance, and support to community-based social justice organizations and public sector agencies working on environmental justice and policy.
Estrada lectured at the university level on environmental justice, natural resource policy, and social equity as an adjunct professor at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley from 2007 to 2009.
He believes funding community-based organizations is a key social-change strategy. His grantmaking work supports environmental justice, reproductive rights, immigrant organizing, criminal justice, globalization and global justice, and media reform work.
Estrada considers his position with the Urban Habitat Program as the highlight of his career. In that position, he gained a tremendous amount of knowledge while working for an organization that was run by people of color.
In 2014, Torri Estrada became the Executive Director and Policy Director of the Carbon Cycle Institute, where he leads their climate justice and policy work.
Estrada’s mentors have been critical to his success. One of his mentors, Carl Anthony, has been a role model and a leader in the environmental and racial justice movements. He also credits a colleague with showing him the ropes of environmental consulting work.
Estrada is constantly seeking new mentors. In turn, he mentors others. For instance, he remains in contact with many students who participated in the environmental education program he ran. Further, as a graduate student at the University of Michigan, he led an environmental justice group. Through this group, he mentored undergraduates and trained them to do community-based work.
Through his many endeavors, Estrada has also had the opportunity to mentor many women of color. Estrada cites his role in mentoring emerging leaders as his most significant achievement. In addition to his work as a mentor, Estrada has been involved in a variety of programs related to
diversity. He advocated for people of color in his position as the diversity coordinator at ECO. He is also on the board of the Environmental Leadership Program headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut. This group is working on developing an anti-racism/discrimination curriculum.
He is also actively encouraging communities and organizations of color to build alliances together. Estrada urges individuals interested in the environmental field to recognize that it is a broad topic and can be integrated into the work of many issues and organizations. Environmental work can be found in many places that address social or racial justice.
Many people of color are doing environmental work in various nonprofit organizations. However, Estrada does warn that work in the mainstream environmental field may be lonely for people of color. He suggests building a network of individuals who can provide support and prioritizing staying in touch with them.
Environmental Leadership Program. n.d. Torri Estrada. Retrieved July 18, 2023 from https://elpnet.org/senior-fellows/id/37796.
Mesa Refuge. N.d. Torri Estrada. Retrieved July 18, 2023 from https://mesarefuge.org/people/torri-estrada/.
Torri Estrada. n.d. Home [LinkedIn Page]. LinkedIn. Retrieved July 18, 2023 from https://www.linkedin.com/in/torri-estrada-28bb374a/.
Taylor, Dorceta (Ed.). 2005. The Paths We Thread: Profiles of the Careers of Minority Environmental Professionals. Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative, University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment.