A recent New York Times article raises a question that’s plagued the outdoor recreation community for decades: “Why are our parks so white¹?” While people of color represent nearly 40% of the US population, they make up only 22% of National Park visitors and even less of Park Service staff.

Too often, this disparity is attributed to the myth that people of color are less interested in nature than whites (by the way, this assumption is easily disproven with a few minutes of internet research). Let’s be honest, this explanation is a cop out – it asks people of color to step up and visit parks instead of confronting the problems that are currently keeping them away.

Identifying these problems – let alone confronting – is challenging, as they’re rooted in this country’s systemic racism and the institutionalized racism of the National Parks. However, the New York Times article cites a number of examples that highlight the impacts of systemic racism in day-to-day life. For example, the article quotes Carla DeRise, a Black Seattle resident, who fears race-driven harassment or attack in the rural areas around parks and in isolated campsites. For DeRise, driving through the sweeping forested lands outside of Mount Rainier National Park will never be entirely comfortable or rejuvenating. As the rural inhabitants of these areas are typically white, her journey quickly becomes eerily reminiscent of landscapes that concealed murders and lynchings of Blacks. She’s not alone – this sentiment is mirrored in a number of other accounts from Black Americans traveling through predominantly white areas².

Access to public natural space is supposed to be a privilege for all US citizens, but it’s not. Since visiting natural spaces can be a moving, even transformative, experience, indirectly denying this right to some Americans is an injustice. And preventing people of color from forming connections with these environments only hurts the conservation movement – we need diverse input and participation in conservation efforts to create a sustainable and effective conservation system in the future.

The New York Times article asks the Park Service to be a leader in diversifying outdoor recreation by making the areas they manage accessible, inclusive, and safe for people of color. But there’s more to be done than wait for the National Park Service to effectively reach out to underrepresented racial groups, especially since NPS outreach efforts continue to target people who already visit the parks¹.

White environmentalists who aren’t employed by the Park Service need to reconsider our participation in the conservation movement. It’s easy to name this as the National Park Service’s problem to take the burden off our shoulders. But we have an opportunity, and responsibility, to help reshape US conservation strategies to reflect a diverse set of backgrounds and opinions. I hope we have the courage to take it, for practicing anti-racist conservation is the only way to sustainably and equitably maintain true public access to natural spaces.

There are many ways to do this. Drawing from Carolyn Finney’s work³ on African American participation in the environmental movement, here are three ways to begin practicing anti-racism in conjunction with conservation work:

• Confront the ways we, as individuals, perpetuate structural racism. Finney found that over 35% of Black Park Service employees felt that exclusionary practices were a key reason the organization was predominantly white. Meanwhile, nearly 80% of their white co-workers listed exclusionary practices as the least important issue or a non-issue. Again, this mindset of white racist denial extends beyond the Park Service. Being an environmentalist or being liberal doesn’t exempt us from perpetuating racism – this denial prevents us from actually addressing the inequalities present in the conservation movement. We must confront our personal biases to create effective multiracial leadership groups and confront day-to-day discrimination and silencing of people of color. This article by writer and activist Ted Glick or this article from Arielle Newton, the editor and chief of the blog Black Millennials, are good places to start understanding what day-to-day antiracism means for white people.
• Diversify Leadership in the Conservation Movement. A recent study shows that most conservation organizations employ less than 16% people of color. Since access to conserved land is supposedly a resource for all Americans, organizations making conservation decisions must reflect the diversity of this country. White environmentalists must work to make our environmental spaces and organizations more inclusive for people of color.
• Ask parks we visit for comprehensive histories. Many National parks present an idealized version of history that erases the violence towards people of color that has occurred, and continues to occur, on this land. For example, many parks in the South choose not to acknowledge slavery in tours. Failure to present slave history not only erases Black Americans’ presence, but also denies the violence towards Black Americans that occurred in those areas and ways that legacy persists today.

Of course, this list is far from comprehensive. Articles like “Why are Our Parks so White” are important to draw attention to the whiteness of outdoor recreation and the conservation movement, but at some point we need to respond. Conserving natural spaces should unify, not fracture, America – centering ourselves and our environmental work in antiracist practices will help us get there.

¹http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/diversify-our-national-parks.html?_r=1

²Ironically, this account was published in the New York Times 12 years ago – a reminder that this isn’t a new problem and it won’t have an easy fix.

³A supplementary bullet point: read Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney (2014). It’s a great book.