The second issue of ELPR Volume 33 was recently published full of fantastic articles. Check out our journal archives!
In her article, Bridging the Black-Green-White Divide: The Impact of Diversity in Environmental Nonprofit Organizations, Faith R. Rivers explores how the racial divide effects environmental groups.
Rivers delves into the subject by discussing how nonprofit environmental groups have influenced environmental policy making. She points to the tax-exempt status as a reason for the environmental movement’s success, yet she questions whether environmental groups’ are deserving of tax-exempt status since most groups fail to consider the viewpoints and considerations of different racial groups.
The main illustration of her point comes through the Briggs-DeLaine- Pearson bridge controversy. The bridge would connect two socio-economically challenged African-American communities in South Carolina. While there has been extensive lobbying by environmental groups to stop the bridge for fear it will ruin the underlying Lake Marion, none of the groups fighting the bridge have helped to protect the local African-American communities from the contamination of the former Bennet Mineral Company site. The Industrial Waste permits for the site were issued to the company without a hearing. While this site may potentially pollute the lake, environmental groups have only fought to shut down the operation, not to prevent future contamination of the lake. Environmental groups have poured resources into fighting improvements instead of protecting the people.
Rivers recommends that environmental groups be forced to consider a variety of viewpoints. While minorities are disproportionately affected by pollution, minorities have not had a voice in environmental policy. On most environmental groups’ director’s board there are no minority representatives. Rivers believes that in order to promote equality and reduce the disparate impacts on minority communities, environmental group boards should reflect the diversity of the community. She concludes that, “to the extent that minority and low-income individuals are underrepresented on environmental nonprofit board of directors…these groups will continues to lack the cultural competence, community, and legitimacy and accurate information to recognize and address environmental justice issues in a holistic and effective manner.”
This is an ongoing discussion. Rivers has spoken out in different forms, as have others. President Obama is in an interesting position as an African American leader and an advocate for the environment. How can the President help to bridge the divide?
Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr user TMeyer 88.
