In October 1999, The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in Washington D.C. and was sponsored by the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice. There were over 600 people of color, including indigenous communities, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, and various other ethnicities. The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was an impetus that changed environmental justice because it put people of color at the forefront. Those at the meeting made a new set of principles for environmental justice and new principles for "working together." Most of the white-led environmental initiatives focused on preservation and wildlife, yet it was ironic that those initiatives dismissed the idea of preserving black and brown communities.
Historically, the principle of mainstream conservation in white-led environmental initiatives has served as a justification for the ostracization of indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities. In the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both the resource conservation movement and the preservation movement focused on middle and upper-class white Americans. The preservation movement romanticized the aesthetic of wildlife and nature, emphasizing that being free in nature exudes the principles of the American Dream. The romanticization contributed to support for the creation of national parks and various reserves in the United States, which banned indigenous peoples from residing in the area. The forest reserves and water reserves were for utilitarian purposes that only bettered those already in a privileged position. The romanticization of nature for white Americans meant that marginalized communities were left with the realities of nature. The realities of nature included environmental issues like pollution that subjected Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Hispanic, indigenous, and other ethnic communities to chronic respiratory and health issues all throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was completely different from these white-led environmental initiatives because the summit demanded procedural justice rather than distributive justice. In other words, the people at the meeting believed that environmental justice should be guaranteed for minorities and marginalized communities, rather than installing environmental policies that have unambitious objectives of equality rather than equity.
The Summit was held after a series of movements surrounding water filtration and clean air were held throughout the country and the issue of ostracization was one of many focal points during the summit. The ostracization of minorities can be understood through environmental movements. Today there is a disparity between the local environmentalist movements, also known as grassroots movements, and what we might call environmental professionalism. The local environmentalist movements are focused on population growth, economic expansion, and the environmental injustices that plague communities. Environmental professionalism is commonly associated with the government, industrialization, and wealth and became popularized by Theodore Roosevelt. He was a puppeteer of the white-led environmentalist initiatives that heavily focused on conservation and preservation rather than people in nature. Roosevelt was able to turn the conservation reserves into economic commodities by ensuring the government had control of those areas and mandating that the state have more control in the name of preservation. The conservation movements were less to protect the earth and more to sell the idea that wildlife symbolized American freedom. Once Roosevelt was able to commercialize the environmentalist movement, the government could have control of public lands and make more money through lobbying.
In order to make capital, the government would establish environmental protection efforts for companies and managers that could produce capital and would deliberately avoid issuing protection efforts to low-income areas and cities where there were many minority communities. Roosevelt made it such that the state had the most influence over controlling environmental problems. The efforts of local environmentalist movements were not of interest to the government because they were not producing capital, unlike the conservation and preservation movements. We have only recently seen some efforts to support the local environmental movements through the Justice40 Initiative. The creation of the Interagency Working Group to prevent methane emissions, oil leaks, and other environmental problems and the distribution of 40% of the federal benefits to the marginalized communities are the first steps that help make the objectives of marginalized communities the objectives of the government. The Justice40 Initiative is being put into effect thirty years after the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, therefore this initiative alone is not able to suffice in achieving environmental justice.
The first principle that was declared at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit states that environmental justice should mean "affirm[ing] the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction." This principle follows closely with the idea of Kincentric Ecology and allows indigenous voices, which have been silenced since early colonialism, to be heard and redefine how we understand environmentalism and environmental justice. The Raramuri tribe coined the term “Iwfgara”. It's the idea of the total interconnectedness and integration of all life and contrasts the Eurocentric environmentalist belief. This includes the idea of mainstream conservation. Mainstream conservation supports the segregation of life and believes that humans should be separate from nature. Rather than supporting a system of interdependence, our current policies support a system of dominance over the earth. Even the non-government agencies that support local environmentalism suffer because their funding typically comes from private businesses whose interests are often in free-market environmentalism. Adopting the concept of Iwfgara would ensure that the integrity of environmentalism is held so that conservation, preservation, and environmental justice are all part of the United States agenda.
Environmental justice should mean "affirming the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction."
The indigenous principle states that the earth is not our God-given right and that it is our responsibility to take care of the earth. Some of the agricultural practices can include selective harvesting, optimization of land, and land management, and the practices aim to respect the reciprocal relationship of nature. Everything done in indigenous communities is intended to foster a symbiotic relationship rather than solely performing agricultural practices to support commercial interests. The first principle warns of "ecological destruction" that has already been realized through various major cities in the United States. To avoid such destruction, will require more listening and subsequently more action.
Ever since the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, indigenous peoples have made an effort to reclaim the Native Earth. There is a distinction between the current "white earth" , marked by environmental racism, versus the indigenous earth. In an article by Earth Island Journal in the spring of 2000, various indigenous voices contradicted the Eurocentric environmental movement. The article highlighted the idea that modern efforts should be focused on "recovering what we have lost and trying to preserve what we have." The traditional environmental movement focuses on the economic, legislative, and health implications; however, there should be a recognition of the environment's role in indigenous communities' religion and culture. All life is celebrated and mourned. The government has threatened the existence of Indigenous communities; therefore, trying to have a new attitude towards environmental justice is the key to mitigating the impending global problems. The indigenous principles are similar to the Gaia theory that was popularized by local environmentalism. The development of the Gaia Theory during the '70s aligned more closely with these indigenous principles. However, most of the efforts of the environmental movements were reversed under the Regan administration and were restructured to support industrial pursuits. The local efforts to combat environmental racism were limited to civilian activism and placed responsibility on minorities to try and get environmental justice for themselves, even though the state holds the most power over environmentalism. Today, there is still a lack of realization that interconnectedness is intrinsic to justice for all. The setbacks during the Regan administration allowed for the popularization of environmental professionalism in the legislature and is why both the Gaia theory and the indigenous principles have been dismissed and not respected by policymakers.
What we learn from the First People of Color's Summit and its first principle is that we should learn to appreciate what the earth means to indigenous cultures to advance communities. We should appreciate theories like Gaia, which suggest that all the earth systems are interconnected. We should appreciate the sacredness and uniqueness of us being on earth. Our current practices pertaining to the environment don't support Gaia theory nor the idea of protecting people in nature. We should adopt a new way of how we view the earth, and that should mean respecting the earth in the same ways that indigenous communities have respected the earth. To do this, we need to stop being passive about environmental justice. We need to mandate the government to learn the right approach to environmentalism.
