Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš (she/her)
Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš is an award-winning global ocean justice leader committed to reimagining power, policy and leadership in climate justice.
Marce is the founder of Azul, the first U.S. organization dedicated to elevating Latinx voices in ocean justice. Through her work with Azul, Marce has led campaigns with community and for community building power and securing victories at all levels of government and policy. Azul leads the field as an innovative movement and global network of Latine leaders committed to galvanizing the climate justice field to boldly push for policies that serve the people.
Marce’s work has helped activate Latinos throughout the Americas to protect the ocean and coasts and led to a track record of transformative advocacy and policy victories; including a landmark victory against Poseidon’s $1.4 billion desalination plant proposal in Huntington Beach, securing statewide bans on shark fins sales and single-use plastics and the Biden-Harris White House incorporating ocean justice into its first-ever federal policy priorities to advance environmental justice.
Marce’s leadership inspires action through community, care and joy. Through campaigns, research and advocacy, she has helped create space for more Latine leaders to see themselves as integral players in the collective fight for ocean conservation. Azul proudly hosts the Rising Leaders Initiative, an expansive multigenerational program dedicated to centering Latinx in ocean conservation advocacy.
Marce is the lead organizer of the Azul National Poll, the first ever multilingual poll assessing Latino communities viewpoints on ocean protection, voter priorities and policy solutions. She is the principal author of The Verde Paper, a white paper on Latino Environmental Leadership considered a blueprint for diversity in the environmental movement. Marce is a co-founder of the Ocean Justice Forum; helped establish the Coastal Justice Lab, a world class law center at the University of California-Irvine and is a lead convener of Upwell, the flagship gathering of diverse leaders in ocean conservation.
Marce’s commitment to centering impacted communities in global climate justice solutions-building sparked Azul’s collaboration with the United Nations Environmental Programme on the landmark report Neglected: Environmental Justice Impacts of Plastic Pollution and Coastal Justice: Lessons from the Frontlines, published in the George Washington Journal of Environmental and Energy Law. Marce has also contributed to How Plastic Changed the World, a children’s textbook and curriculum. She designed innovative campaigns to center community connection to ocean justice producing En El Mar, a campaign featuring musicians of color from across the globe to honor the vibrance, complexity and vitality of Latinx heritage with songs representing a geographically diverse range of Latin American cultures, including Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
Marce works to reimagine environmental conservation policies to place care for people at the center and transforms justice-driven ocean policies locally and internationally. Her expert testimony has informed Congressional committees, helped incorporate environmental justice into existing civil rights laws and continuously centers care for people in the policy process. Marce currently serves as the Vice Chair of the California State Coastal Conservancy.
Marce’s commitment to environmental justice comes from the trenches of lived experiences, witnessing first-hand the need to transform business as usual in the commercial fishing industry to ensure the health and safety of the ocean that sustains us and of the people in proximity to environmental injustices in their coastal and inland communities.
A native of Tijuana, Mexico; Marce now makes the California coast home with her family.