Joni Stellar
Board Chair, Patagonia Area Resource Alliance
Patagonia, AZ
November 4th, 2025
Twenty-one Westies shuffle into the Patagonia Community United Methodist Church on a sunny Wednesday morning. Sunlight pours in through windows high on the wall to illuminate the tables adorned with colorful tablecloths we gather around. A large posterboard stands in front of us.Its title: “WE REFUSE TO BE A SACRIFICE ZONE!” Next to the posterboard is Joni Stellar with a cool, confident smile stretching across her face. Joni has a degree in Environmental Studies and a long history in environmental activism, including running the High Country Citizen’s Alliance in Crested Butte, Colorado and acting as the executive director of the Gunnison Ranch Land Conservation Legacy, among other roles.
Today, Joni is a Board Chair for the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA), an organization dedicated to protecting Patagonia’s complex and diverse ecosystems. These include an ancient watershed and a menagerie of endangered species all found within the Sky Islands, a unique eco-region characterized by isolated mountain ranges surrounded by vast deserts, allowing for a wide range of flora and fauna to exist. A reemerging threat to the biodiversity found here is copper mining in the Patagonia mountains. South32’s Hermosa Project is a new mine that will threaten the ecosystem. The copper industry has become increasingly profitable in recent years, and the Hermosa Project aims to capitalize on that.
Joni explains that mining activities will have devastating effects on the local ecological scene. The Hermosa Project’s continuous and widely unregulated pumping of groundwater in the Patagonia Mountains is rapidly draining the slow-recharging aquifer and has the potential to dry up natural springs that wildlife depend upon. She goes on to detail several other qualities of the Hermosa Project that impede the natural systems of the Patagonia region, such as the fact that the mine’s floodlights are allowed to be on 24/7 which can distract crucial nocturnal pollinators and disorient birds. This is especially important considering Patagonia is part of a critical migratory bird corridor.
For 14 years, PARA has advocated for these biodiverse ecosystems not only in a public education setting, but also in the courtroom. Joni and her compatriots are not afraid to take on anyone who may threaten their home. PARA acknowledges that copper is a crucial resource in today’s renewable energy economy and its demand cannot be ignored as necessary to transition away from fossil fuels. When posed with this dilemma, PARA suggests that we as a society should search for more ways to recycle, share, and repurpose copper rather than extracting it in a harmful manner from ecosystems with a wealth of biodiversity at stake.
Though their work is at times an uphill battle, Joni leaves us with a philosophy that has kept her motivated all these years - “despair can't root in something that's moving. So keeping active, keeping moving, even if it's just going out for a walk when you're feeling really bottomed out, is important…if you just trust that you're on the right path and you're doing the right work, trust that things will work out”
by Griffin Arnett