One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet

During three decades of engagement in the environmental movement, Anuradha Rao, a conservation biologist whose cultural roots are in India, rarely encountered other people of color in the movement. While diversity among environmental activists is slowly improving, Rao’s book presents the stories of 20 indigenous and non-white people active in environmental causes. It is well-established that young people of diverse backgrounds yearn to see people in literature and the media who look like them and share their cultural backgrounds. This volume will hopefully inspire BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students as well as European-descended youth to learn more about and take up environmental causes.

The 20 subjects are almost equally distributed between male (9) and female (11). More than half of them live in the United States or Canada, but some of these have moved between countries or have parents who hailed from different lands. The non-North American subjects live in places as diverse as South Africa, New Zealand, Iran, Kenya, India and Ecuador. Religious faith and spirituality are important components of some of the subjects’ lives, and they find their environmental interests entwined with their faith. Nana Firman, who was born in Indonesia but now lives in California and works as an urban designer and Muslim outreach director, is quoted as stating, “Protecting and caring for the earth is part of my worship to my Creator.”

The biographies are grouped into six chapters: “Getting people involved”, “Defending lands and waters”, “Cleaning up the mess”, “Respecting wisdom”, “Saving the animals”, and “Showing a better way”. Each biography begins with a title, the subject’s name, environmental title, place of birth and current home, and their self-identification statement. For example:

Gathering Young Voices
Brandon Nguyen
Co-founder, Toronto Coalition of EcoSchools
Born in Toronto, Ontario; lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I see myself as a young Vietnamese-Canadian

Brandon, an advocate of environmental sustainability, is the youngest person profiled. Others include young adults and the oldest may be Dr. Clotilda Yakimchuk, a community activist from Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia who campaigned for more than ten years to get governments to clean up the Sydney tar sands that were making people ill. Her story is just one tale of perseverance.

The accounts are very diverse. Some activists work as scientists and conservationists and have fairly formal educational backgrounds. Others are self-taught. Some, like Rue Mapp from California, are more business-like as she founded Outdoor Afro that began as a blog and developed into a collective movement active in more than half of the states of the United States. The organization promotes outdoor and wilderness activities for African Americans and indeed anyone, but it grew from her realization that many barriers were keeping African Americans from enjoying the outdoors and the benefits of nature. One urban planner, Dominique Edwards, a self-described African-American woman from Michigan City, Indiana, caught the science bug when her vermicomposting project won an award when she was 12-years-old. Now her work focuses on food justice and reclamation of deindustrialized lands for urban agriculture and food security. Lucassie Arragutainaq, an Inuk environmentalist, was born in a tent in Nunavut and presently works as a manager with the Hunters and Trappers Association. His efforts have helped the Indigenous Cree and Inuit of Hudson Bay represent their knowledge to government and industrialists proposing developments in their arctic environment while also helping the local people understand the impact of the proposals. With better understanding of each other, the local people can be meaningful participants in the environmental assessment process.

Rao makes extensive use of direct quotations garnered from interviews. The subjects supplied many photographs that aptly illustrate their personal stories. New environmental terms are printed in bold and defined in a glossary. Some terms are also explained in the body of the text. The finished book will include an index and a fairly extensive list of online resources that supplement each section of the book.

The upbeat nature of the content is a very welcome feature. Most of the biographies end with the subjects’ thoughts on “What Can You Do?”. Suggestions can be very succinct as in Willi Nolan-Campbell’s advice to “Be the change. Find something in your community to do. Do it.” Sameer Muldeen, a former carnivore turned vegan, suggests, “Invite a friend to enjoy a vegan meal with you.” His biography includes additional tips in sidebar quotations. Lucassie Arragutainaq’s advice is a bit more philosophical: “Respect other people. Respect the wildlife. Respect the environment. Because those are the only two things we came from: environment and wildlife.”

Ken Wu, whose story is excerpted at the beginning of this review, has many practical suggestions for the reader.

Make sure your parents and school only buy paper that’s been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and wood products that are sourced from more sustainably managed forests. Organize a nature club where students can learn about animals and plants, write letters to government asking to protect them, learn about conservation and do nature walks.

One Earth will challenge assumptions while educating readers. Some biographies tend to ramble, but all readers, regardless of ethnic origin, religion and national origin will find some accounts that speak to them.