On a spring evening in early May, Eastern Sierra friends, community members, high school teachers, and local students gathered at Mammoth Mountain’s Parallax Restaurant to celebrate passionate engagement in community and the land, and this year’s Andrea Lawrence Award recipient, Marina Castellino.
Marina was chosen for the award for creating Experiencia Ambientalia, an international education program she founded at her home lake of Laguna Mar Chiquita in Argentina, that helps students learn about their local saline lakes, practice environmental stewardship, and connect with other saline lake communities across the Western Hemisphere.
Marina drew inspiration from her sister, a biologist who works with Wilson’s Phalaropes, small shorebirds that rely on several saline lakes through their incredible migration along the Pacific Flyway, including Laguna Mar Chiquita and Mono Lake.
In 2021, in response to declining habitat and increasing threats to Wilson’s Phalaropes, Marina, in partnership with Manomet and Fundación Líderes de Ansenuza, created the Experiencia Ambientalia program to promote conservation and sustainable development at Laguna Mar Chiquita by addressing the main threats facing the ecosystem through innovative, long-term solutions. Experiencia Ambientalia empowers young leaders of the region by providing training, stewardship opportunities, and the tools to design and implement projects with real impact on both the community and the ecosystem.
While the program was an immediate success in Argentina, Marina recognized that protecting the Wilson’s Phalarope meant protecting all the lakes along its migratory path. Her vision from the beginning was to have an Ambientalia chapter at every saline lake in the Western Hemisphere.
The Mono Lake Committee was the perfect fit for the program’s first expansion—when Marina brought her vision to Mono Lake she “set up a very shy little table at Chautauqua” and her program instantly resonated with our dreams of connecting with communities at Laguna Mar Chiquita. Together, and with support from local high school teacher Sarah Taylor, students, families, and community support, in 2023 the Committee launched Experience Ambientalia in the Eastern Sierra.
Marina’s acceptance speech was poignant: “This place holds a rare combination of passion, dedication, commitment, and love. You inspire me. You give me strength. From the beautiful family who made me one of their own, to the Mono Lake Committee staff, to the Rotary community, to generous supporters—this is an extraordinary community and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of it.”
“Mono Lake and Mar Chiquita now sit side by side in my heart. And while what I can offer may seem small, it comes with unwavering commitment: to care for both places, and to inspire future generations to love them as deeply as I do.”
Andrea Lawrence was an environmental leader, an Olympic double gold medalist, and a mother of five, who tirelessly pursued a principled vision of how ecological integrity, economy, and community can thrive in a way that preserves the vitality of each and enhances the whole. Thank you to the Lawrence family and Mammoth Mountain Ski Area for making the Andrea Lawrence Award Dinner possible.
This post was also published as an article in the Summer 2026 Mono Lake Newsletter. Top photo by Arya Degenhardt.