Don’t Separate People from Nature

BirdNote^®

Don’t Separate People from Nature

This is BirdNote. 

The environmental movement has historically been very white. As a conservation scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, Corina Newsome works with government agencies to make sure that conservation plans will benefit Black and Brown people and the environmental health of their communities.

Corina Newsome:  Here's an opportunity to like, put in money to address the vulnerability that Black and Brown communities, in particular, and low wealth communities are facing.

    [Olive-sided Flycatcher calls]

Corina says that solving environmental problems facing people of color tends to go hand in hand with what’s best for the ecosystem. 

Corina Newsome: When the environmental concerns of marginalized communities are addressed, birds come back, too. There is one particular example in California where this community was experiencing flooding, the infrastructure was not there to protect them. Once they finally got the resources they needed to create the ecosystem that would protect the community, the birds came back — the flycatchers, like they were seeing birds they hadn't seen in so long in that place because their environmental issue was addressed. 

    [Olive-sided Flycatcher calls]

Corina Newsome: And so it really just showed how these are not different things. In my opinion, one of the most detrimental choices that conservation has made has been to separate people from nature.

Hear more about  bridging the gap between yourself and the ecosystems where you live on the Bring Birds Back Podcast. Listen in your favorite podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Tenijah Hamilton.

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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Olive-sided Flycatcher ML109254 recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote May 2023
Narrator: Tenijah Hamilton

ID# PodBBB-23-2023-05-17    PodBBB-23

Reference:
https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2022/birds-are-a-multiplier-for-environ…
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_de…