Overview: Andrea Vidaurre, a co-founder of the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, has been recognized as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025 for her work in fighting environmental degradation caused by the logistics industry in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Vidaurre’s work has led to the advancement of health and environmental protections across California, including regulations on trucking, warehousing, and rail transport. She has called for stronger environmental protections, and for local elected officials to stop greenlighting mega-warehouse developments in working-class neighborhoods.
Aryana Noroozi
Just weeks before Earth Day, when this year’s TIME100 list was released, it featured world leaders, entertainers, and changemakers from every corner of the globe that make up TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025. Among them was Andrea Vidaurre, a name familiar to those associated with the environmental justice space in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Vidaurre, cofounder of the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, has spent years fighting against the region’s environmental degradation caused by the logistics industry.
Rooted in the ancestral lands of the Tongva, Serrano, Gabrielino, Cahuilla and Kizh peoples, the Inland Empire has become a headquarters for the goods movement system that serves the nation. Over 40 percent of goods from Asia enter through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and pass through this region. These goods are often stored in the Inland Empire’s billion-square-feet worth of warehouses and delivered via a half-million diesel trucks that transit the area daily.
Vidaurre, a longtime environmental justice advocate and IE native, has worked to expose how this system, while vital to U.S. commerce, comes at a high cost to local communities. These costs include some of the dirtiest air in the nation, disproportionately high asthma rates, and diminished life expectancy — especially in marginalized neighborhoods.
“Even though this system is important for moving goods across the U.S., it is built off the backs of underpaid workers and neighborhoods whose health is sacrificed,” she said following her recognition. “There is a way to have a goods movement system that is in balance with the Earth and stops the pattern of environmental racism. We are working on just that.”
Over the years, the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice has played a key role in advancing health and environmental protections across California, including regulations on trucking, warehousing, and rail transport. Their work represents a groundswell of community-led resistance — powered by residents who organize, create art, engage politically, and demand accountability.
The recognition by TIME, she emphasized, is not just personal. “This is a recognition for our collective work that has been built over decades,” she said, honoring the contributions of local residents, organizers, researchers, and allies across the environmental justice movement.
But this moment of celebration comes amid growing resistance from powerful interests. The Trump administration and Congress have made efforts to roll back key environmental regulations, prompting concern among advocates about the erosion of hard-won protections.
“The obstacles thrown at us are small compared to the bigger purpose we carry,” Vidaurre said. “Our fight is about more than the technology advancements — it’s justice for communities that have had to endure decades of targeting and sacrifice.”
Among the group’s current priorities are continued pressure on California regulatory bodies — such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board — to uphold and strengthen environmental protections. The group also supports state-level legislation like AB 914, which would limit warehouse sprawl and its health impacts.
She also called on local elected officials to stop greenlighting mega-warehouse developments in working-class neighborhoods already burdened by pollution. “Replacing these extractive economic systems with regenerative ones is the only way forward,” she said.
The People’s Collective continues to organize across the Inland Empire and nationally, through networks like the Moving Forward Network. In a final note of solidarity, the honoree connected her environmental justice work with global struggles for human rights: “It’s always going to be Free Palestine. We cannot truly address other issues – especially those of climate and environmental justice – if we do not have a free Palestine – that’s how interconnected our struggles are.”
As the Inland Empire earns global attention through this recognition, the hope is that policymakers and the public alike will take a closer look at the cost of next-day delivery — and the people on the frontlines demanding something better.
To learn more about what this moment means to Vidaurre and what lies ahead for the movement, Black Voice News (BVN) caught up with Andrea to reflect on the past year — from the highs of receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize to the mounting challenges posed by federal rollbacks. She spoke about the resilience of the Inland Empire community, how her organization is staying grounded, and what it takes to keep going in the face of burnout and resistance.
This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
BVN: You were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize last year — a major recognition of your years of organizing and community-based advocacy. One year later, how are you reflecting on that milestone, especially now that your work is facing renewed pushback at the federal level?
AV: It was an incredible honor that our work in the Inland Empire was recognized internationally. It is a true testament to the creativity, dedication and ambition that the community members in our region have to live in safe, thriving and pollution free communities. With the pushback from the federal level to go after the progress we have won in California around clean air, I reflect that it is more important than ever for local leadership to step up and represent their communities that have been calling for clean air through the opposition to warehouse and logistics growth.
BVN: Fighting environmental racism and organizing against powerful interests is deeply personal, often exhausting work — especially for frontline communities like those in the Inland Empire. How do you navigate burnout, both for yourself and within the movement, while continuing to build momentum?
AV: What keeps me going is that this is a collective effort by so many people in the region and outside of the region who are doing what is right – which is fighting for their loved one’s health and defending their environment. And when we might feel discouraged, there is a neighbor or friend that picks you up. Because the movement for clean air and an Inland Empire that meets everyone’s needs and not just those that profit off of it, is massive and growing every day. Read more about Vidaurre and PC4EJ’s work here and check out the TIME100 recipients here.