April 22: Earth Day & Environmental Justice

Finger print on white background with green plants growing from the print.

Since 1970, April 22^nd has been recognized as Earth Day, a day to learn about and show support for environmental conservation.

But what could Earth Day possibly have to do with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice?

Not everyone has access to healthy environments

Where people live, their physical environment, has a significant impact on their health and wellbeing. Everyone deserves access to a healthy environment – clean air, water, food, and communities. But research shows that some communities are more likely to experience, and be impacted by, unhealthy physical environments. In other words, people’s access to healthy environments is not equitable (not fair or inequitable):

People in lower income neighbourhoods and with higher concentrations of racialized people often have less access to green spaces, and are more likely to experience poor air quality, pollution, and environmental hazards.
Locally, our Municipal Climate Change Action Plan team have noted that as our climate becomes ‘hotter, wetter, and wilder’, people that experience lower incomes, pre-existing health conditions, and inadequate housing will be disproportionately impacted by changing conditions.
Some researchers and activists use the term ‘environmental poverty’ and ‘environmental racism’ to call attention to the ways that certain communities are disproportionately impacted by poor environmental conditions.

Truth, reconciliation & relationship to Earth

Reconciliation is about acknowledging, understanding, and working to rectify harms caused to Indigenous people and communities through the ongoing processes of colonization. But reconciliation is also about healing relationships with the Earth:

Indigenous worldviews center relationships with each other, and with other living beings. Many Indigenous languages refer to the land and water using animate language – as living beings rather than objects.
Indigenous worldviews involve respect, caring for, living off, and learning from, the land.
Pollution and changing climate disproportionately impact the health of people who live directly off the land, but also threaten fundamental cultural traditions and practices of Indigenous people.
The cultural traditions and practices of Indigenous people are protected under various forms of legislation, including Treaties, human rights legislation, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Moving towards environmental justice

Justice is about understanding and addressing the root causes of differences in opportunities for wellbeing. Environmental justice involves understanding why some communities have access to healthier environments than others and working to address the root causes of those inequities.

Municipally, a just approach means that when we are doing work related to the physical environment (i.e. waste management, transportation, parks, infrastructure, building, land use planning, zoning, climate change, etc.) we understand which communities have less access to healthy physical environments and why, and prioritize access to healthy physical environments for those communities.

For a variety of reasons, the perspectives of people from communities that experience inequities are not always well represented in mainstream engagement efforts. Doing outreach designed with and for communities that experience inequities can help us understand the unique situations, needs and priorities of these communities, support participation in decision making, and ensure that existing inequities are not made worse. The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice Team is a resource to support your engagement efforts.

Finally, supporting initiatives that promote healthy environments helps everyone in our community, but especially communities more likely to experience the impacts of unhealthy environments.