On February 2, the National Wildlife Federation and partners hosted a roundtable, moderated by Dr. Mamie Parker, pioneering conservationist, and Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, celebrated environmental advocate. The issues raised and recommendations from our expert panelists will guide the Federation’s long-term efforts to address institutional and systemic barriers through programmatic and policy initiatives. Upon completing the roundtable series, we will be hosting a national townhall in April and incorporating lessons learned in our policy advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill. By addressing the unique challenges and barriers that Black people face when safely accessing and enjoying the outdoors, we seek to build a framework to address the challenges different identity groups face through our multi-year Creating Safe Spaces initiative.

Panelists included:

• Taishya Adams, Policy Director and Colorado Co-lead for Outdoor Afro and Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioner;
• Earyn McGee, PhD candidate in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona and science communicator; • Scott Gilmore, Deputy Executive Director of Denver Parks and Recreation and co-founder of Environmental Learning for Kids (ELK);
• Grace Anderson, network weaver, dreamer, and strategist working at the intersection of racial healing and environment justice;
• Michelle Race, co-founder of Black Girls Trekkin’.

BACKGROUND ON SAFE SPACES SERIES

On December 8, the National Wildlife Federation launched the first of a series of roundtables in our Creating Safe Spaces initiative to shed light on the challenges that Black people face in safely accessing and enjoying the outdoors in partnership with Outdoor Afro, Black AF in STEM, Patagonia, and The Links, Inc. Over 1,700 individuals registered and joined us to hear from Black pioneers that have played an active role in addressing barriers. We continued these important discussions on January 12. In addition to learning about challenges, we also discussed potential solutions that could be championed to address issues raised.

WATCH HERE: nwf.org/safespaces

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Julia Jeanty at [email protected].