{"id":368668,"date":"2018-07-09T13:59:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T12:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-can-environmental-groups-diversify\/"},"modified":"2018-07-09T13:59:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T12:59:52","slug":"how-can-environmental-groups-diversify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-can-environmental-groups-diversify\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can Environmental Groups Diversify?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure class=\"featured-media wp-caption\"><img width=\"760\" height=\"378\" class=\"attachment-large size-large to4-lazy-load wp-post-image\" alt=\"Courtesy of Joy Asico \/ Ocean Conservancy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_Main-760x378.jpg 760w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_Main-760x378-200x99.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_Main-760x378-400x199.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" data-src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_Main-760x378.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-credit\">Courtesy of Joy Asico \/ Ocean Conservancy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\"><span class=\"postDate\">May 15, 2018 \u2014 <\/span>Eddie Love was the lone African American in a cohort of 90 wildlife management students at Auburn University and one of the three people of color at his U.S. Forest Service internship in the western Great Plains region of the U.S. Still, he was surprised by the lack of diversity in the marine non-governmental organization community when he accepted a <a href=\"https:\/\/rayconservationfellows.org\/program-overview\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\" onclick=\"javascript:window.open('https:\/\/rayconservationfellows.org\/program-overview'); return false;\">Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Marine Conservation Diversity Fellowship<\/a>, part of a program designed to attract people of color to work on ocean issues.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ensia.com\/republished.php?title=U.S.%20environmental%20groups%20are%20largely%20white.%20Here%E2%80%99s%20what%20some%20are%20%E2%80%94%20and%20some%20aren%E2%80%99t%20%E2%80%94%20doing%20about%20it.\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Concerned that colleagues might not appreciate his background, culture or upbringing, he was pleasantly surprised that co-workers at two of the conservation non-profits behind the fellowship, <a href=\"https:\/\/oceanconservancy.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\" onclick=\"javascript:window.open('https:\/\/oceanconservancy.org\/'); return false;\">Ocean Conservancy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rare.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\" onclick=\"javascript:window.open('https:\/\/www.rare.org\/'); return false;\">Rare<\/a>, welcomed him with open arms. They were more eager to address race and other inequities than he had anticipated. Following the fellowship, Love accepted a job to work on initiatives aiming at protecting marine mammals as well as efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion\u00ad at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oceanfdn.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\" onclick=\"javascript:window.open('https:\/\/www.oceanfdn.org\/'); return false;\">Ocean Foundation<\/a>. He says he surprised himself by ending up in the marine field. \u201cIt never would have crossed my mind,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_246682\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 260px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_inlineNew.jpg\" alt=\"Ocean Foundation program associate Eddie Love is one of relatively few people of color who staff U.S. environmental organizations.\" width=\"250\" height=\"371\" class=\"size-full wp-image-246682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_inlineNew.jpg 250w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Feature_Diversity_inlineNew-200x297.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ocean Foundation program associate Eddie Love is one of relatively few people of color who staff U.S. environmental organizations.<\/figcaption><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-credit\">Courtesy of Marja Diaz \/ Ocean Conservancy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">And that\u2019s the problem: There are still relatively few connections between communities of color and the environmental sector. The ongoing lack of ethnic diversity on environmental organization boards and staff suggests that, overall, talk of increasing diversity has not turned into widespread action. There are signs, however, that some organizations are taking fundamental steps to seek out people with valuable, yet underrepresented perspectives and skills \u2014 and ensure a welcoming environment once they arrive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\"><b>Serious Disconnect<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The lack of diversity in U.S. environmental non-profit organizations has been well chronicled in&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/how-can-environmental-groups-diversify\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy of Joy Asico \/ Ocean Conservancy May 15, 2018 \u2014 Eddie Love was the lone African American in a cohort of 90 wildlife management students at Auburn University and one of the three people of color at his U.S. Forest Service internship in the western Great Plains region of the U.S. Still, he was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":368669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}