About
Welcome, I’m Bryan Parras, a Houston-based environmental justice strategist and media producer. For more than two decades, I’ve worked alongside frontline communities to protect land and life, challenge environmental racism, and build movements rooted in justice, resilience, and storytelling. Explore my portfolio to learn more about the campaigns I’ve led, the stories I’ve helped tell, and the partnerships I’ve built across the “Americas.”
Organizing is more than logistics, more than meetings and petitions. Organizing is the art of weaving people, story, and struggle into current political, social and cultural landscapes. Like music, organizing has rhythm, tempo, and tone. Like painting, it consists of layers, color and texture on the canvas of lived experience. Like ritual, organizing brings us together in moments of grief, resistance, and joy.
In the face of environmental injustice, art and organizing are inseparable. Communities on the frontlines have always used song, ceremony, images, body, and storytelling to survive and reimagine the world. To see organizing as art is to honor its creativity, its improvisation, and its power to transform. Every march is choreography. Every coalition is a living mural. Every campaign is a story unfolding across generations.
My work spans grassroots organizing, Indigenous rights advocacy, policy campaigns, and creative media — all grounded in the belief that those most impacted must lead the way. Whether I’m coordinating coalitions, producing films, or facilitating trainings, I strive to amplify community voices and drive systemic change.
Course of Life
Bryan Parras graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000 with a degree in Psychology and Philosophy. This interdisciplinary education offered Bryan a strong foundation in critical thinking, ethical analysis, and a nuanced understanding of human behavior. These skills were critical to his later work as a community organizer, media producer and policy advocate. During his time in Austin, exposure to the city’s comparatively clean environment made Bryan aware of the severe health impacts of industrial pollution he had experienced back home, a realization that would deeply influence his career trajectory.
Inspired by this new understanding and by the city’s active social justice culture, Bryan returned to Houston with broadened horizons and a determination to address and document environmental injustices. Following graduation, he briefly took up teaching, but soon transitioned into organizing, leveraging his academic background to facilitate coalition-building, empower affected communities, and shape the narrative around environmental justice. Over the years, he has enhanced his knowledge base through continuous engagement with legal, scientific, and Indigenous knowledge systems and methodologies.
ITC Storage Tank Fire blankets Houston skyline (March 2019) 
TPC Group Flare (Houston, 2006) 
Post Hurricane Ike (Bolivar Island, 2008) 
Post Hurricane Ike (Bolivar Island, 2008) 
Post Hurricane Ike (Bolivar Island, 2008) 
Post Hurricane Ike (Bolivar Island, 2008) 
Post Hurricane Ike (Bolivar Island, 2008) 
ITC Tank Fire (Deer Park, 2019) 
ITC Tank Fire (Deer Park, 2019) 
Cash for Clunkers Initiative leads to a surge of metal recycling facilities in low-income neighborhoods. (Port of Houston) 
TPC Group Flare (Houston, 2006)
Media Mentions
For more than two decades, Bryan Parras has been a steadfast voice for environmental justice, conducting toxic tours of Houston’s fenceline communities, confronting Big Oil at shareholder meetings, and amplifying frontline stories on national and international stages. From early 2000 mentions in the Houston Chronicle about Manchester’s refinery corridor to contributions on This American Life and Latino USA, and the explosive Guardian and Reuters coverage of BP protests in 2012, and The Independent and Financial Times coverage after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Bryan’s advocacy has consistently driven the narrative around pollution, equity, and community power. His photos have also appeared in Rolling Stone, Chemical & Engineering News, and many other publications across the county.
He’s not just in newspapers and magazines. You’ve seen his work in award-nominated documentaries, heard him on Democracy Now! during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and read his writing in Facing South demanding accountability on BP’s Deepwater Horizon anniversary and in Common Dreams calling for an end to Tar Sands development in Alberta, Canada. Major outlets like the Texas Tribune, Houston Public Media and Inside Climate News continue to tap his insights on refinery pollution and EPA reforms, while Houstonia Magazine, The Texas Observer and Sachamama have all honored him among the top voices shaping climate action today.
Click the Media Mentions button to explore an archive of Bryan’s media highlights: articles, interviews, podcasts, and videos that showcase how one organizer’s relentless storytelling has sparked real-world change.
“Climate Justice: The Time is Now, The Place is Here” (Photos by BEND Productions) 
Bryan Parras speaks about pollution and climate change in the Houston area at The Indigenous Peoples Forum: Climate Change in Houston, TX, on November 19, 2022. (Photo: Leanora Benkato/Houston Chronicle) 
Bryan Parras, Co-Founder of Texas Environmental Justice 
Yudith Azareth, Sophie and Clement Guerra, Bryan Parras, and Casey Camp-Horinek at the San Franciso Green Film Festival screening of The Condor and The Eagle Documentary. (Castro Theatre, September 13, 2018) 
Bryan Parras, Yudith Azareth and Clement Guerra speak about The Condor and The Eagle Documentary at the Human/Progress Festival in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2018. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) 
Bryan Parras with advocacy group Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.) addresses the Houston City Council on December 17, 2014. (Photo: Florian Martin/Houston Public Media) 
Bryan Parras, far left, with his father, second from right, at the Healthy Manchester Festival on July 19, 2013. (Photo: Elizabeth Brossa/The Nation)
Awards
Bryan Parras has been recognized nationally for his leadership in environmental justice, climate action, and the defense of cultural and intellectual freedom. Click the button below to see how Bryan has been recognized and celebrated for 25 years of grassroots leadership, creative resistance, and environmental justice advocacy.
Get in Touch
Inquiries, collaboration ideas, and opportunities to build stronger movements for environmental justice are welcome. Reach out to connect and explore how we can work together to create equitable change.
