Environmental Justice Program
Marginalised communities – which are often racialized communities of the global majority, who experience higher rates of poverty and disenfranchisement- are disproportionately impacted by environmental destruction and climate change. While at the forefront of environmental protection, these communities are also often negatively impacted by the ‘solutions’ implemented to protect the environment or reverse damage.
Our Environmental Justice Programme supports projects that target the pressing issues of inequity around the uneven distribution of environmental burden, effects of climate change, and impacts of conservation initiatives, among other challenges. We nurture projects that seek to address racial justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, through dedicated support for changemakers from marginalized communities.
Project In/Visibility
Project In/Visibility challenges the status quo by bringing narrative-shifting stories from the grassroots to classrooms and workplaces in the conservation sector. It is a conduit between academia and NGOs, channeling the diverse and plural voices at the forefront of social and ecological justice.
We live in a world where power remains firmly entrenched in Eurocentric knowledge, and the university classroom is where this knowledge is consolidated. The erasure of different and plural voices from the university curricula presents a challenge for the future of conservation.
Diversities and Diasporas
Within our environmental justice efforts, the Diversities & Diasporas Program centers the importance of cultural and racial diversities to our work and our engagement with diaspora alongside changemakers around the world.
The Diversities & Diasporas Program launched an inaugural Fellowship in 2023 focused on storytelling through collaboration with PhiloXenia retreats that convene diverse authors to lead writing workshops united by themes such as community and personal transformation.
A program of GDF-US, the Fellowship was created to support writers of color and/or members of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities community. The Fellowship supports emerging writers in aims of amplifying voices that need to be heard, bridging barriers to accessing immersive writing workshops, global travel for cultural exchange, and opportunities for mentorship.
The Fellowship complements our work on environmental narratives through Project In/Visibility – an emerging platform gathering stories from across the conservation sector, especially from the margins, to offer students and young environmental practitioners access to a more nuanced understanding of conservation and social considerations of environmental issues.
Applications for the March 2023 Fellowship are available here.
