A few weeks ago, I met Jamie Hoyte in the Boston ADS Ventures office, where he is a part-time advisor for the public policy consulting firm. Hoyte is retired now, after a long career of practicing and teaching environmental policy. He’s best known for leading the Boston Harbor Clean Up as the Secretary of Environmental Affairs in the 80’s, so I got in touch with him to hear about his experience with conservation projects during that time.
I quickly learned that Hoyte’s experience with Boston land management and conservation extends well beyond his ’83-’87 tenure. Speaking with Hoyte, he toured me through the complex human channels of the conservation movement that he’s spent his life navigating. Sharp recollections of the network of people he’s been part of draws me into the day-to-day reality of this world: key moments, successes, and shortcomings.
“I didn’t always see myself as an environmentalist,” Hoyte admits to me. Early on, he worked for the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), the projects he was involved with weren’t considered environmental projects at the time. He explains that, “in broad terms, in the 70s when you talked about environmental activism you didn’t think about concerns like pollution, sewage treatment, necessarily, or sanitation.” One of Hoyte’s first tasks was working to settle a claim from low-income communities of color near the airport suffering from intense noise pollution from airplane traffic, a problem that had previously been ignored by Massport. Now, as he looks back on projects like that, which link quality of life with quality of the environment, Hoyte describes this work as the early roots of his interest in conservation.
Hoyte’s work diversifying Massport, which was predominantly white, was also a defining part of his time there. The organization was under new leadership, and Hoyte joked that under his supervisor’s predecessor, affirmative action meant hiring anyone that wasn’t a white Irish man who played football at Boston College. This observation isn’t far from the truth, though, and even after a long career in predominantly white spaces Hoyte still describes reshaping “changing the complexion” of Massport as some of his most challenging and important work.
Hoyte’s work at Massport earned him a leadership position in the Dukakis administration as the Secretary of Environmental Affairs. He didn’t feel truly inspired by explicitly environmental work, though, until hearing Martin Rosen, the president and CEO of the Trust for Public Land, speak at the New England Environmental Conference towards the end of his tenure. Hoyte’s excitement shines through as he remembers Rosen’s speech: “what [Rosen] did, this stands out in my mind, is he looked out into the audience, and other than me sitting on the stage and a couple of folks from Africa, there was no one else of color in the whole room. Marty made note of that.” This was in the mid 80’s, and it was uncommon for environmentalists to acknowledge the overwhelming whiteness of the movement the way Rosen did. Hoyte explains that Rosen proceeded by asking the 400 activists gathered there, many of whom were from major environmental organizations like the Sierra Club or the World Wildlife Organization, “how many of your organizations are doing work in urban areas? “Nobody raised their hands,” Hoyte recalls. “So I’m looking at him thinking ‘this guy’s a genius.’”
Rosen challenged attendees to reframe the way they thought about conservation to include urban land. “Until that point in my time as secretary,” Hoyte admits to me, “I’m ashamed to say it, there was very little attention by my agencies to urban conservation issues.” Thinking about urban conservation opened his eyes to what – and who – the environmental movement was missing. This realization inspired Hoyte to draw on his experiences diversifying Massport and work to make the environmental movement more inclusive for people of color. Hoyte and some of his peers founded the Environmental Diversity Forum, which sought to bring more people of color into environmental discussions and provide support to organizations working to improve quality of life in urban communities of color. These organizations didn’t always define themselves as environmentally oriented, but they were improving quality of life in their communities. The Environmental Diversity Forum recognized this as environmental work, though this type of activism wouldn’t be popularly understood as environmentalism until the Environmental Justice movement grew throughout the 90s.
Urban conservation work looks different than the negotiations that go on at the national level for large conservation projects like national parks. It’s more localized and more centered around the people impacted: primarily inner city communities. Hoyte looked back on the negotiations to get all stakeholders in agreement over the Boston Harbor clean up with a tone of nostalgic humor, but it was clear that this work was far from trivial. Making progress with conservation requires people like Hoyte balancing conflicting interests at stakeholder meetings while simultaneously working to secure sufficient funding and resources to achieve meaningful results. Their work allows the rest of us to enjoy our favorite natural areas knowing they’ll be there for future generations.
After hearing so much about his career and the variety of roles he’s played, I asked Hoyte about his approach to environmentalism and what he thinks about the current state of diversity in the environmental movement. He emphasized how the two lines of his work – justice and environmentalism – are deeply intertwined. Honoring the importance of environmental quality in both rural and urban natural spaces ensures that a diverse group of Americans benefit from conservation. Hoyte’s lifetime of experience with urban conservation policy shows that navigating the human channels of this space is both challenging and essential. Who is at the table defining conservation and making decisions about land management is inevitably tied up in social issues – think racism, sexism, and poverty. Things have improved since Hoyte looked out at a sea of white faces at the New England Environmental Conference in the 80s, but there’s still work to be done to diversify both the people and approaches to conservation today.
I ended the last post, a call to action, with the thought that conservation should bring people together. This sentiment is at the core of Hoyte’s work, bringing people together through an inclusive vision for conservation. When he began his career, Hoyte says, “environmentalism was seen as wildlife management and preservation of land, which had little to do with contamination and waste disposal and so forth.” Hoyte smiles thinking about how far this mindset has come in his lifetime, explaining that “we know now that these problems are very much interrelated and ecosystems are critical for environmental protections and for human quality of life.” Seeing the connections between urban and rural environmental work and their opportunities to support each other ultimately creates a more comprehensive, inclusive, and sustainable system of caring for our land.
Featured Image: Boston skyline at dusk from the Boston Harbor; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Boston_Skyline_at_Dusk.jpg