Hope is walking into an environmental retreat and feeling relaxed. You know that you are not the only one. The only Black face in the room. The retreat was organised by diverse people for diverse people who are leaders in the environmental sector. It was a privilege to be included among them.
As I start the New Year, I remember that feeling of joy, that feeling of hope. And that leads me to thinking about what hope looks like in the environmental sector, from a Black perspective. For me it looks like reparations.
Reparations for the sins of slavery are back in the news. The last Royal tour of the Caribbean was a disaster and had to be abandoned. The new British Royals were stuck in the old paradigm of empire. They thought that the Black people should be crowding the streets, cheering and waving the flag as they passed by. The crowds were there. Their cheers were for reparations.
The Portuguese president has apologised for that country's role in the Atlantic Slave Trade. In Britain The Guardian newspaper is running a series of articles on how the profits from cotton made its founders and investors rich. The raw cotton was grown by enslaved people in the USA, shipped and manufactured in Manchester, the newspaper's home city. Apologies are a start. The Guardian is going beyond that. It has launched scholarships for Black journalists at all stages of their careers. In other words, it is clearing a path for them by acknowledging and removing the systemic racism barriers in journalism.
Will the environmental sector embrace reparations? Or will it continue to bury its head in the sand by insisting that nature is free, neutral and open to anyone?
In another decade it will be the 200th anniversary to the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire on August 1, 1834. Canada was part of that empire. How do we ensure that eco-reparations are part of that landmark anniversary?
Eco-reparations means restoring and reconnecting the Black relationship to nature. What this looks like on the ground depends on the country. For instance, under slavery, some 90 per cent of Haiti and Barbados were clear cut to grow sugarcane. This means only tatters of forests are left on the islands. Eco-reparations could mean replanting the tropical rainforests that once covered the islands. The rest of the Caribbean is a variation on the Barbados story.
The illegal bird trade continues to push Caribbean birds on a one way flight into extinction. Eco-reparations could mean supporting conservation efforts that are led by the local community for the community. Currently many of the conservation experts are from the USA and Canada, and seem unwilling to talk about how racism shapes the sector. In other words, rich White experts are coming to poor Black countries to tell them what to do, without acknowledging that the countries are poor in the first place due to their exploitation by White people. And that the continuing loss of biodiversity in the Caribbean is driven by the demands from rich White countries.
In the Canadian context, eco-reparations means to hire, promote and support Black and Indigenous people in the environmental sector. These groups face the brunt of environmental problems but are massively under-represented in the sector, from the field to the boardroom. They encounter the white wall that is the default in the sector.
The white wall shows up in farming too. In Canada farm ownership is as white as snow; and farm labourers are Black and brown. This is no accident. Eco-reparations means creating access so that Black and Indigenous people can own farms. This way they are able to grow food that is culturally relevant to their communities.
In the cities, eco-reparations means planting more city trees in the areas where Black and Indigenous people live. Racial inequality is mirrored in tree inequality. In other words, the Blacker the area the fewer the trees. The communities don't get the benefits of trees in their neighbourhood, such as shade, clean air, beauty and a place to meet up and relax from the hot sun.
Eco-reparations in cities also affect city parks. Currently Black and Indigenous neighbourhoods have either fewer and smaller parks, or the ones that are there are dirty and poorly maintained. Upgrading the parks is one step. There should also be community programming, by local people for local people, as a standard part of the park services.
Outdoor recreation is a key pathway into caring for nature. The pandemic reminded us that humans are part of nature and need nature in order to thrive. Eco-reparations means supporting the grassroots organizations that are doing the heavy lifting of reconnecting Black people to nature. These organizations are the ones taking Black people snowshoeing, camping or hiking. Black people are showing up, we are interested in nature. We feel safe when we see other Black people as the staff, managers and leaders on outdoor recreation trips.
So, a blessed start to the New Year. And let's make hope and eco-reparations part of the plans for the environmental sector. A change has to come.
© Jacqueline L. Scott. You can support the blog here.
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