we watched waves pour over our front yard, our mailbox looking like it had been mistakenly plopped down in the middle of the ocean. waves hit the windows on our second-floor deck, water rushed past our windows, and i began to wonder if we might float away, too.

when the storm had mostly passed, the neighborhood began to come out of hiding to check on each other and fulfill our curious natures. the massive jersey barriers – made of concrete and bolted down with steel – had been pushed across the street onto our lawns. our backyard was covered in inches of sand, and there were starfish lying prone in the driveway. the ocean we all loved so dearly came closer than ever before to pay us a visit, and maybe to give us a warning.

the following year we evacuated for hurricane sandy and returned the following day to find that the sand beneath the state road had been washed away, leaving the road suspended in the air. the granite blocks in front of our house had dropped into the ground as it opened up, and i remember staring at the hole where my front yard used to be and feeling that we were in over our heads in more ways than one.

for me, growing up in a beach house in a town that comes alive in the summer was paradise. but it will soon be paradise submerged.

the seawall

at a neighborhood meeting in may 2018, i lingered at the back of the room, letting my parents and their neighbors contend with the reality of their disappearing property. familiar faces leaned over the map held by a state civil engineer who seemed too young to be in charge of saving a neighborhood.

the state of connecticut is building a $5.8 million seawall on the state road that stands between the long island sound and my neighborhood, which consists mostly of old beach cottages set back less than 50 feet from the place where land gives way to water. the state is aiming not to protect houses but to protect route 146, since it was severely undermined when hurricane sandy washed the land out from beneath it.

the u.s. army corps of engineers estimates the long island sound will rise 6.24 inches higher in the next 15 years; the road is only three feet above the current high tide mark, so it’s no wonder the state is starting to worry.

the people who built my house and others like it in the 1920s looked at an undeveloped beach and saw only opportunity. then the deadly hurricane of 1938 and countless other hurricanes and nor’easters hit the town with growing intensity, but beachfront houses continued to pop up on my street like elaborate sandcastles just waiting for the tide to come. perhaps unsurprisingly, the desire for beachfront property remains constant even as the beachfront creeps ever closer. 

we severely underestimate the power of the ocean, just as we underestimate the impacts of a changing climate. whether the year is 2018 or 2033, a category 3 hurricane like hurricane katrina or hurricane irma would flood my family’s entire property with a layer of 11 feet of water, while another category 1 storm like hurricane sandy would dump five feet of water on us. nor’easters and hurricanes become more extreme as they’re fueled by increasing ocean temperatures and they reach further onshore due to sea-level rise, meaning we can expect more starfish in the driveway every year.

climate change and the resultant sea-level rise is the most significant reason we need a seawall, but rarely was the phrase “climate change” uttered at that neighborhood meeting. there’s a major cognitive distance between sea-level rise as an abstract concept and a sea-level that could reach our driveways in less than a century.

but in 2019, the town of branford did something amazing — something that surprised me. the town invested $1 million in a new coastal resiliency fund as a way to save for the future climate costs like repairing washed-out roads and bridges. quietly, without any fanfare, branford made a commitment to its future and acknowledged the threat of climate change in a major way.

the sandcastles

i have this apocalyptic vision in my head of fish swimming by the stop sign where i once waited for the bus, of my childhood bed floating through sunlit water long after my parents have fled for higher ground. there’s no violent destruction or fear in my vision because i’ve grown up with this reality. maybe the next hurricane will knock the house down, but in my head, my childhood home stays in the same place as the ocean overtakes it, a symbolic reminder that the land was never ours to begin with, and that humans have majorly screwed up.

in some ways, i believe my drive to become an environmental journalist stems from my life experiences of reckoning with the rising sea. it’s hard to grow up with hurricanes as a character in your life story and not develop a curiosity about the climate. i’m not trying to save myself – seawall or not, i believe it may be too late for my neighborhood – but i want to help turn our trajectory around for other people, if i can, or at least help people adjust to the new world we’ll be living in.

i’m most concerned about people who are far less privileged than i am: people who live in places like the bahamas or puerto rico and have no way to escape the fury of a hurricane. people who have played little to no role in carbon emissions still must watch the sea approach them, suffering the crash of a wave that began on shores far away.

while i may one day lose my house and my neighborhood, other people will lose their jobs, families, and lives. entire countries will be wiped off the map. every island you’ve ever vacationed on could be just decades away from being a memory that geographers point to, identifying the spot where land and lives used to be. not all sea-level rise is equal in effect, and compared to other people in the world, my story is far from a tragedy.

people like my family and neighbors got lucky, living in the middle of a new england beach postcard, and then because of the choices we made, our luck ran out. but maybe we can prolong the daydream for a little longer…

and so we’re building a seawall, which will hold off the storms and seas for some time. but if there’s anything i’ve learned from playing in the sand, it’s that human constructions are trivial compared to the power of the ocean. we’ve seen that with the destruction of levees in new orleans, piers in new jersey, and entire towns in the bahamas. there is plenty we can do to become more resilient in the meantime, like building seawalls and lifting homes onto stilts, but the reality for places like branford is that people will one day have to move away.

high on a cliff over the branford river, there’s a big, sandy-colored mansion complete with turrets and crenellations that we jokingly refer to as “the sandcastle.” but the irony is that that house will survive far longer than the houses on my street. the real sandcastles are houses like mine; hastily constructed too close to the sea with the optimism of a child building sandcastles and believing they’ll be there forever. i long for the days when i, too, thought that the rising sea would never reach me.

only one side event during the week-long meeting at the fao headquarters in rome was dedicated to fishing, and the fishing industry rarely, if ever, came up during main events. according to people who work on fisheries and aquaculture for the fao, this is indicative of a larger problem.

“fisheries in general, by and large, do not gain as much attention or recognition or publicity as terrestrial agriculture,” said omar elhassan, an aquaculture biosecurity consultant for the fao.

fisheries and aquaculture provide the primary source of animal protein for 17% of the world’s population, according to the fao. and in low-income, food-deficit countries and small-island developing countries, nearly 25% of people rely on fish for their primary source of animal protein. when it comes to nutrition, fish matter, both globally and locally.

the same is true for employment, as it is estimated that more than 260 million people around the world work in the fishing industry. this number doesn’t necessarily account for those who aren’t employed as fishers but rely on sustenance fishing to feed their families. aquaculture and fisheries assure the livelihoods of 10% to 12% of the world’s population, or about 770 million to 925 million people.

if you picture huge industrial fishing boats – or the tv show “deadliest catch” — when you hear the word “fisherman,” you’re not alone. industrial-scale fishing tends to dominate how the western world understands fishing, but it doesn’t reflect the reality for most of the world’s fishers. small-scale fisheries employ 90% of the world’s capture fishers. adjust your mental image to include open-air fish markets, small fishing boats, and “the old man and the sea,” and now you’re closer to the truth. oh, and half the people in your mental image should be women.

empowering female fishers

women make up half the workforce of the seafood industry (including both fisheries and aquaculture). because the fishing activities are often equated with capture fishing and most capture fishers are men, the number of women involved in the fish supply chain has typically been vastly underreported.

“we see some women are fishing, but they are certainly marginalized often because they don’t often get on the boat, and that might also depend on some traditional beliefs – for example, that women are bad luck having on the boat,” said nicole franz, a fishery planning analyst for the fao.

women do the majority of the post-harvest work in many small-scale fisheries worldwide, whether they are cleaning and selling the fish or repairing fish nets and boats. but carrying these responsibilities doesn’t mean women always have access to necessary resources or to the markets, and they rarely reap the full benefits of their work.

“(women) don’t necessarily get the fair distribution of benefits within the value chain. if they’re not organized, that’s even worse. we see examples when you have a women’s organization that can act as a trade group together then obviously they can demand higher prices and they’re in a better position to access the market,” franz said.

the fisheries department at fao works closely with women’s groups, especially in africa and asia, to help support the rights and empowerment of women fishers. franz cites the recent establishment of a national women fishers’ organization in tanzania as an example.

technology as an intervention in fisheries

technology can make a critical difference in the fish supply chain, especially in terms of productivity and nutrition. in africa and southeast asia, it’s common to dry small fish by placing them directly on the beach. access to something as simple as a drying rack can completely change how much a small-scale fishing community can gain from their harvest.

“a small innovation like putting this fish on a rack rather than on the floor could make a big difference in terms of the product quality and hence the price, the nutritional qualities, and the overall volume that is produced by these women,” franz said.

some traditional fish-smoking processes can cause respiratory illnesses among women and children who are exposed to the smoke. the fao is working on providing access to better ovens that allow women to work without health risks. usually, a country or an organization will make a request to the fao for better technology, and the fao will provide training on how to build, operate, and maintain the technology. this helps to avoid dividing the market, which is what would happen if some women were directly given the technology and others were not.

“you need to very carefully assess the situation beforehand and discuss with the women themselves a solution on how maybe as a group they can come up with a system where they take turns in accessing this oven or how they divide the benefits of the products that are coming from the use of this improved technology,” franz said.

indigenous fishers and rights to the resource

small-scale fisheries also are critically important to indigenous communities, from the arctic circle to the coasts of south america. as with women, it’s difficult to track how many fishers are indigenous, but this is an area that the fisheries department of fao is beginning to dedicate more attention to because of how important fishing is to indigenous peoples around the world.

one of the main issues facing indigenous fishers is the recognition of access rights. customary or informal access rights are often disregarded when governments develop regulations and create fishing quotas. in the united states, the fish wars were a notable series of conflicts between the washington state government and native american tribes in the 1960s and 1970s. the state government tried to enforce fishing laws that were in conflict with hundred-year-old treaties held by the tribes, and the u.s. government eventually sided with the tribes.

tribal governments and organizations can help people organize and assert their rights, and franz has noticed an uptick in organizing among young indigenous people, especially.

“it’s an expression of this growing awareness and interest to get organized, to get the voice into processes, and to see how the particular issues that indigenous peoples depending on small-scale fisheries are also facing on top of what already is often a challenge for small-scale fishers,” franz said.

climate change threatens livelihoods

you may be wondering why any of this matters, since climate change is acidifying and warming our oceans, killing our fish, and driving people away from their coastal and island homes. but climate change only makes the need for fisheries-focused work even greater, because the people who rely on fish for income or food will be hit hardest. the role of the fao, then, is to figure out how to increase the resilience of coastal fishing communities.

“we have colleagues (who) work on climate change impacts on fisheries because obviously, in particular, coastal communities are very, very exposed, and the vulnerability to the impacts of climate change are considerably higher in coastal areas,” franz said. “they’re looking at the impact both on the resource, in terms of, for example, how stocks are shifting patterns based on the change of temperature in the sea, but also the impacts of increased climate vulnerability on coastal communities.”

multibillion-dollar fisheries in the united states are threatened by ocean acidification, which impedes the structural development of corals, lobsters, and other marine organisms. one state that is particularly threatened is alaska, the home of the nation’s largest crab fishery. alaskans tend to rely more on subsistence harvests than many other americans, so communities that rely on subsistence crab harvests are especially threatened by the changing ocean. thousands of miles away in the caribbean, ocean acidification is harming the coral reefs that are critical to the economies of florida, puerto rico, and the u.s. virgin islands. coral reefs bring in tourism, produce fish to be harvested, and reduce coastal flooding and erosion.

women and indigenous fishers are especially vulnerable to climate change because their more limited rights and mobility make it harder for them to migrate when their current homes no longer yield enough fish. increasing their economic mobility and power in the market can make women and indigenous fishers more resilient to climate change.

the social costs of conservation

destructive fishing practices and overfishing can transform ecosystems and reduce fisheries, sometimes to the point of no return. when there are few regulations over access to a fishery, resources become depleted and communities are devastated.

“what we see often is that there are no regulations for access, and that’s part of an issue in terms of environmental sustainability, because we see growing populations, increased pressure on coastal areas,” franz said. “on the other hand, for many of these communities, fishing is the only way to make a living, to get food.”

the presence of industrial fishing companies puts pressure on the already tenuous balance of access and protection. common resource management models include coastal zones that are reserved for small-scale fishers, quota systems assigned to a community or an individual, and co-management systems that allow governments to directly collaborate with small-scale and industrial fishers. but monitoring and enforcement is always a challenge for a government, which is a benefit of co-management.

“it’s about handing over, in many ways, the responsibility for the stewardship directly to the communities by generating a system in which they really recognize and value those management measures because they have co-designed them,” franz said.

conflicts between conservation efforts and fishing communities are also a growing issue, especially since national or state governments may create marine protected areas without consulting small-scale fishing communities that will be affected. conservation has social costs, and just access to resources is sometimes overlooked in pursuit of environmental protections.

“in fao, what we’re using is the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries, which tries to look at the environmental, the human, and the institutional dimensions together to make sure that these tradeoffs and tensions are identified from the beginning, and that whenever management measures are decided or the use of an area is decided, this is kept in mind,” franz said.

when negative impacts on the community are unavoidable, it’s important to look out for them in other ways.

“you make sure that either there’s a compensation mechanism or there’s some kind of a safeguarding function to ensure that you’re not having these unintended impacts afterwards that you haven’t even thought about,” franz said.

wild-caught vs farm-raised: the aquaculture debate

not all fish are harvested from the wild, which is a good thing since climate change and overfishing are shrinking fisheries worldwide. aquaculture is responsible for about half of global fish production.

here’s another mental image you may need to adjust: for the most part, aquaculture is not done in factories by large corporations but in backyard ponds by individuals and families. most aquaculture is small-scale, and 90% of the world’s aquaculture takes place in china and southeast asia, according to fao aquaculture biosecurity consultant omar elhassan. and again, about half of the people involved are women.

elhassan believes aquaculture is the future of global fish production, and he notes that aquaculture has been the fastest growing sector of food production since the 1980s. but cultural opinions about it differ greatly from place to place.

“all the fishing zones are essentially at capacity,” elhassan said. “the only thing that’s going to boost food fish production is (aquaculture), but also it really depends on the cultural mindset towards aquaculture.”

in asia and europe, aquaculture tends to be widely accepted, but in the united states, wild-caught fish is believed to have superior freshness and nutrition. 

“in the u.s., (fish) is one of the largest trade deficits. all of the fish in the u.s. is essentially just imported from other countries, and it’s a mix of aquaculture and wild-caught,” elhassan said. but false or misleading labeling leads americans to believe all of the fish they’re eating came from an ocean or a lake.

in elhassan’s opinion, there’s nothing inferior about fish, shrimp, or other animals that come from aquaculture versus from the wild. in terms of nutrition, health, and safety, the american distaste for aquaculture has little factual backing.

protecting aquaculturists’ livelihoods through biosecurity

the main risk faced by aquaculturists is aquatic animal diseases, which can rapidly infect an entire population of animals because it is hard to pinpoint the original source of infection and stop the spread of disease in a pond. biosecurity is a set of measures that people involved in aquaculture undertake to fortify an aquaculture production facility against aquatic animal diseases, and it’s what elhassan focuses on at fao.

“if you’re a small-scale farmer and you lose your entire stock, that can be quite devastating for livelihoods,” elhassan said. it’s like a corn farmer who loses his entire crop to a flood or a sheep herder who loses his herd to an animal attack.

“let’s say i’m a small scale aquaculturist and i lost all of my shrimp stock because of a disease, and let’s say that i’m not even in the worst case; i lost my whole stock but i still had some money or i could still take a loan. there’s still persisting problems of having this disease in my pond. now i have to take all the water out, i have to disinfect the water – can’t just throw it into the environment – and i’m going to have to dry my pond and my soil and sediment and disinfect the things for like at least three months before you would be even allowed to try to produce again,” elhassan said.

the role of the fao is to work with governments that request aquaculture biosecurity assistance to try to protect small-scale aquaculturists from losing their livelihoods in this way.

“what really drives a lot of the work, at least for us in the aquaculture branch, is trying to connect different stakeholders such as national, international, government, academia, and small-scale to recognize aquaculture as a truly profitable enterprise,” elhassan said.

getting fisheries to the global stage – or not

fisheries and aquaculture are profitable, important industries that employ and feed millions of people – especially women and indigenous peoples – around the world. in recognition of this, the fao is working to ensure that the needs of fishers, aquaculturists, and the people who rely on their harvests are addressed by the un. but most public-facing policy conversations in the international community still focus on terrestrial agriculture. despite the love that many cultures share for the ocean, it seems unlikely that fish will ever hold our attention like cows have.

but on the other hand, elhassan and franz measure success through the local impacts of their efforts, not through the global perception of their work. their focus is the small-scale fisher, not the large-scale policymaker. and maybe that’s for the best – maybe the most impactful work is done when policies for fisheries and aquaculture remain on the smallest scale.

for the navajo nation, 13 stores is a devastatingly inadequate number. if the reservation was located in new england, it would almost entirely cover the states of massachusetts, new hampshire, and vermont. this land, where the navajo people were forcibly resettled by the u.s. government in 1868, covers over 27,000 square miles stretching from northeastern arizona into utah and new mexico and is home to more than 300,000 people.

with so few full-service grocery stores, the reservation is a food desert on a massive scale. the average resident has to drive three hours just to buy food at the grocery store, and extreme poverty on the reservation limits access to many foods like fresh produce. most caloric needs are met by shopping for chips and soda at trading posts and picking up treats like piccadilly at roadside stands and trading posts.

on the national level, a quarter of native americans are experiencing food insecurity. native americans are over two times more likely than white americans to have diabetes. health struggles among the navajo people are no different, as half of navajo children are unhealthily overweight. one in five navajo adults have diabetes — the third highest rate in the world.

many of the najavo people’s economic and health struggles can be directly traced to the neglectful and violent way the u.s. government has treated the tribe for centuries. for example, the navajo taco dish has a dark history, as it was created out of necessity when the bureau of indian affairs was rationing the tribe’s access to food staples like flour and salt.

but far from passively accepting this assault on their health and their lives, the navajo people are taking actions to increase their access to nutritious food. the navajo nation council eliminated produce taxes and passed the united states’ first tax applying to both sugary beverages and low-nutrition snacks in 2015.

even more revolutionary is that reservation residents can get prescriptions for fresh produce from their doctors. with the fruits and vegetables prescription program (fvrx), doctors give patients vouchers that they can use at the store and receive a month’s worth of free produce for their families. the program is paid for by grants from the centers for disease control and prevention and other organizations.

as of 2018, nearly 1,700 navajo people had benefited from the fvrx program, and a third of overweight children in the program reached a healthy weight after six months. it was adopted by 15 health clinics, and produce prescriptions can be filled at 26 grocery stores and trading posts.

programs like fvrx can help fill the gaps in populations like the navajo that suffer from widespread and extreme poverty. but it’s reaching less than 1% of residents after three years in operation, and it’s not a sustainable solution for food insecurity across the whole reservation.

resource scarcity on the navajo nation is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions. residents who live too far from a full-service grocery store to regularly shop there won’t benefit much from reduced taxes and free produce. and with at least 10% of people on the reservation living without electricity and/or access to safe water, struggles with storing and cleaning produce may prevent fvrx from reaching its full potential.

in a different climate, growing one’s own produce might be a solution for many households, but the reservation’s location in the desert makes that more difficult. difficult, but not impossible, as programs like the adopt-a-sonoran-desert crop program allow arizonans to grow and eat their own sustainable, desert-resistant crops and could potentially be adapted to the navajo​​​​​​​ nation.

on the systemic level, the answer seems glaringly obvious: the reservation needs more than 13 grocery stores. but it’s unlikely that new grocery stores or healthy restaurants will start popping up in the rural corners of the reservation, especially since many businesses offering more pricey wares like fresh produce are unlikely to invest in a population with a median household income of around $27,400.

for now, programs like fvrx will attempt to fill the gaps left by american colonialism and systemic violence against the navajo people. but more structural changes are required to ensure that no one must drive three hours just to buy vegetables for dinner.

it was a fitting end to a week spent learning about human-environment issues from some of the world’s preeminent experts at the united nations food and agriculture organization’s 46th committee on world food security. just as pompeii experienced a catastrophic environmental event in 79 a.d., we in 2019 are facing down climate change on a global scale. the difference is that unlike the unfortunate souls of pompeii, we have advance warning and the tools to adjust how we interact with the environment – if only we can agree on how to do so.

agriculture is one of the major contributors to the processes causing climate change, and it’s also incredibly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. the ways that we’ve manipulated the land to produce food are not sustainable if we want to continue living on this planet, and many delegates to the committee on world food security seemed to acknowledge that. but at least in the sessions i attended, few speakers gave climate change the attention that it demands. the only climate change moment that stood out to me from the week was when an official from nicaragua spoke to the plenary about how his nation is one of those most vulnerable to climate change despite contributing negligible greenhouse gas emissions. it was a powerful moment, but it was fleeting.

spending a week with researchers and officials from around the world taught me so much about the issues we’re facing and what governments and institutions are doing to address them. most of my personal interests in sustainability are focused on energy and climate, so it was an amazing opportunity to learn about issues that are unfamiliar to me and gain new research interests. but i did find myself wishing climate was more central to the week’s discussions of sustainable development, and my visit to pompeii helped me realize why: none of our accomplishments in development will matter if our environment becomes inhospitable. we must address climate issues in every goal, plan, and agreement, even if the issue at hand seems far removed from climate change. if we don’t, we will be seeing more lost cities and civilizations in the future.

thank you, planet forward and fao, for this experience!

to head off the threat of overgrowth, the global community has turned to solutions like birth control and family planning to help fast-growing populations slow their birth rates and assuage our sustainability fears. but when you look at who ends up carrying out our efforts to reach demographic sustainability, it seems that the growing countries of the global south are being unfairly saddled with a burden that is not theirs.

lowering birth rates in countries simply because they have high birth rates is not the fast track to a sustainable future because it ignores the major global inequalities in resource usage and environmental impact. wealthy, highly developed countries tend to encourage unsustainable choices at every turn, so even while their growth rates shrink, their harm to the earth and to future sustainability grows.

if carbon dioxide emissions per capita are used as the measure of impact on the planet, one person in the united states has the same impact as 46 people in bangladesh or 67 people in afghanistan. so while these countries may be growing very rapidly, the people in those countries are not to blame if we one day overwhelm the planet – the blame lies with the countries and people who are doing the most to harm the earth. we must focus our efforts on massive changes in consumption and production patterns, not on population growth.

family planning can be an effective tool of development when it is done in a way that benefits individuals. access to family planning has been found to give women more control over their lives by allowing them to make decisions that had previously been left up to their husbands, families, communities, and governments. it allows women to take more control over their educations, health, employment, and bank accounts and gives families opportunities to develop and grow in ways beside population.

but the benefits of family planning must be considered in the context of the global community’s ultimate goal: not just to improve the lives of individuals but to slow down population growth and improve our overall chances at survival. racialized, poor populations are not the primary perpetrators using our resources too quickly or destroying our planet through carbon emissions and plastic pollution, yet it has become their responsibility to reverse trends that they didn’t create.

many of our narratives around family planning are based in dehumanization, with the women of the global south viewed primarily as producers of children and not as people. global institutions celebrate dramatic drops in birth rate as development successes, but what is left unsaid speaks volumes: lowering the population growth of developing countries is helping us survive on this planet. the jump to a disturbing conclusion from this is a short one, as reducing the fertility of certain populations in the name of the greater good is clearly eugenics.

reducing birth rate in the 20th century was not about choice but control. institutions like the united nations and the international planned parenthood federation (ippf) have dark histories of participating in eugenic activities. for instance, the united nations population fund contributed to the fujimori sterilization campaign in peru in the 1990s, during which 100,000 women, mostly indigenous and rural, were forced to be sterilized. governments themselves are often perpetrators of eugenics, as was the case in 1976 when the government of india – supported by the american government – sterilized 6.2 million men against their will.

dramatic cases like these may seem like blemishes on an otherwise fair and successful global movement for demographic sustainability, but they are really indications that racism and classism are deeply embedded in our conceptions of population and development. in his controversial book fatal misconception: the struggle to control world population, matthew connelly writes that family planning can create and encourage racial divides and victimize vulnerable populations.

“even now, long after the demise of population control as an organized movement, fear of the fertility and mobility of particular groups continues to spark ethnic strife,” connelly writes.

the potential still exists for family planning to be an equitable and empowering tool for sustainability if utilized differently. this requires looking at populations and communities on an individualized basis at the local level, rather than the global, and identifying what specific environmental and socioeconomic problems they face. family planning may not be able to mitigate global climate change, but it can help communities adapt to their changing ecological conditions and enhance their abilities to survive and prosper on the small scale.

demographic sustainability in the future may not mean protecting the environment from populations, but protecting populations from the changing environment. hopefully, the future of sustainable development will prioritize the rights of individuals over the shrinking of the human population. it is the reduction of harmful activities that will save the planet, not the reduction of numbers.

it can be hard for us to accept that there are wonders of this planet whose existence has nothing to do with us. places like alaska’s arctic national wildlife refuge (anwr) have intrinsic value that far exceeds the benefits we could reap from drilling it or even from visiting it ourselves. few people will ever visit anwr, as it is isolated, unsettled, and very wild; only 1,200 people visit annually. though i may never be one of them, i know that its value is not up to me to decide.

there is truly nothing else like anwr. the new york times calls it “the wildest place in america that you’ve never heard of.” stretching from the coast to the brooks range in the northeast corner of alaska, it is home to populations of caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and much more. it is also home to decades of conflicts between the state, oil companies, alaska native communities, and environmentalists.

simply stated, anwr is huge. at 30,136 square miles it is roughly six times larger than connecticut, the state i grew up in, and 443 times larger than washington, d.c., where i live now. it is larger than anything i can wrap my head around, and yet i know that drilling even a small part of it — the coastal 1002 region that has been opened to drilling by last year’s tax bill — is an environmental crime and an irreversible mistake.

as captivated as our imaginations have always been by our country’s wild west, the trump administration and other government leaders are trying and succeeding at making it less wild. if alaska’s state leadership and senator lisa murkowski have their way, alaska will soon be forever changed.

we are a nation that is 25 percent public land; in nevada it is 80 percent, and in alaska it is 61 percent. public land can mean national parks like yellowstone, which receives 3.8 million visitors per year. but it can also mean anwr, which is so vast and wild that parts of it will be kept secret from us forever.

one of the first things you’ll learn in an environmental studies class is the difference between a conservationist and a preservationist. conservationists believe in protecting resources for the sake of sustainability, so that future generations can benefit from them, while preservationists believe in protecting them completely from human use, because they have a value all their own.

conservationists protect land for humans, while preservationists protect land from humans. both sides have noble goals, and they don’t have to be in conflict with each other. in fact, they are usually on the same side of the battle against those who visit a landscape and can only see as far as the monetary potential beneath their feet.

as a child who loved nature and had high expectations that everyone else did, i was inspired by people like john muir, who gave nature a capital letter and a proper name, and marjory stoneman douglas, who crusaded for the defense of the everglades but famously avoided entering them herself. what i didn’t know was that arguing on behalf of preservation out in the world is akin to being a dreamer, someone who has not yet been bogged down by reality.

even when i arrived at the wilderness society as an intern last fall, i still had stars in my eyes and expected that i would be working alongside the most staunch agents of preservation. it turned out that the wilderness society was more rooted in teddy roosevelt conservation, defending the rights of americans to use their public lands rather than defending the right of that land to exist untouched.

as a communications intern at the wilderness society, i found that our frame most often had to be, “drilling/mining/privatizing/raising park entrance prices is wrong because it will limit your access to the lands that belong to you,” because it was easiest to garner public and media attention when human impact was involved. it is much harder to get donations or shares on facebook if your primary message is, “drilling/mining/privatizing is wrong because this land has existed for thousands of years before us and it should continue to exist because there is nothing else like it in the world.”

i observe this not as a flaw of the organization by any means, merely as a reality check for myself. the choice to focus on conservation over preservation is often no choice at all. in our economy of sacrifices and benefits, it can be impossible to convince the average person to care about something that doesn’t affect them. environmental organizations must realistically navigate the political world and act where they can have the most impact.

and yet, the wilderness society has been deeply involved in the decades-long battle against opening anwr to drilling, calling the refuge the “crown jewel of the nation’s wildlife refuge system.” focused as they are on conservation and recreation, the organization recognizes that intrinsic value matters, too, stating, “the arctic refuge is one of the finest examples of wilderness left on earth and among the least affected by human activity. its wilderness values are timeless and irreplaceable.”

our transactional worldview extends beyond the environmental sphere, and perhaps it is exacerbated by our current leadership. when the president of the united states degrades and threatens to deport immigrants, those immigrants feel that they must justify themselves and their presence here by showing their degrees and accomplishments; it is not enough that they are humans deserving of respect and safety. we make people prove their worth in order to receive basic goods like food and living wages. it should be no surprise, then, that we expect natural places to somehow earn their right to not be mined or developed into oblivion.

most of us will never summit everest, yet we would never advocate for mountaintop removal or building a shopping mall at its base. we know that everest’s existence precedes us and that it is worth much more than what we might turn it into. natural wonders like anwr are no different, though they may exist more quietly. anwr has existed for thousands of years without our input, but unfortunately, it won’t be here for much longer if those concerned among us don’t step in.

you and i may never touch it, but it exists, and it matters.

it is estimated that there are 3 million migrant farmworkers in the united states, accounting for 42 percent of all farmworkers. dependent as they are on the farms that employ them, many farmworkers face poor working conditions, starvation wages, and sexual abuse. some cases of farmworker abuse have even earned the title “modern day slavery” due to conditions such as forced labor, physical abuse, confinement, and debt bondage.

even without such extreme cases, farmworkers still encounter abhorrent conditions as the most disenfranchised cogs in a severely dysfunctional system. the average total family income for farmworkers ranges from $17,500 to $19,999, far below the u.s. poverty line, and many do not have access to social services due to their undocumented status.

and because barriers of language, power, and privilege keep them from the decision-making table on agricultural, environmental, and labor issues, they face these hardships silently and without the backing of the green community or the people who benefit from their work.

enter the fair food program, a partnership started in florida by the coalition of immokalee workers to give farmworkers more agency, more protections, and a louder voice to advocate for what they need. it has partnered with 14 businesses, including mcdonald’s and walmart, and formed legally binding agreements in which buyers commit to paying a fair food premium and suspending purchases from growers who have failed to follow the program’s rules. most of florida’s tomato growers participate in the program, as well as some others along the east coast and some growers of strawberries and peppers.

the fair food program is led by and for farmworkers. the coalition of immokalee workers leads worker-to-worker education sessions and educates workers on their rights in hopes of reducing worker abuse. there is a toll-free bilingual complaint line in operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for workers to report possible violations of the code of conduct. complaints are actively investigated, and all steps of the process are documented in a database. also, the fair foods standards council performs audits of farms in which at least half of the worker population is interviewed.

simply put, the program works. it has been called “one of the great human rights success stories of our day” by the washington post and “‘an international benchmark’ in [the] fight against modern-day slavery” by the united nations. over $25 million has been paid in fair food premiums to finance the distribution of 150,000 “know your rights” materials, the interviews of over 16,000 farmworkers, and the resolution of 1,800 worker complaints.

the proof of a solution, though, is in its replicability. the fair food program works for immokalee workers, but it is yet to be seen if it could work on a national level. or perhaps it is preferable for local communities to grow their own systems of protections organically, rather than being forced to enact new policies from the top down.

to improve the lives of farmworkers, transparency and mobilization of those most affected is key. that means having eyes on the ground monitoring farming practices and ensuring that workers are fairly treated all the time, not just when the government is paying attention. it means allowing farmworkers themselves to lead the conversation and enter spaces that are not always open to them — spaces like the planet forward salon on food and water that occurred in february. farmworkers should be a part of the conversation on agriculture whenever it occurs. we’ve been complicit in their enforced silence for far too long.

“wilderness, nope. wilderness society, nope,” she remembers thinking.

walker, who is black, grew up in the maryland suburbs outside of washington, d.c., and spent her childhood summers visiting family in detroit. though her grandmother always insisted she spend time outside each day, her childhood didn’t give her much experience with the wilderness.

“when you are in the lower socioeconomic bracket, you’re not thinking about going to a park. not one that isn’t close,” walker said. “it’s not even on your radar because you can’t get there.”

eventually, walker realized she wanted to pursue working for the wilderness society based on the merits of the position itself, not because she had a great passion for environmentalism. and the barriers that discouraged her from cultivating an interest in environmental issues are far from unique.

people of color are underrepresented in environmentalism and in the outdoor recreation industry. green 2.0, a research group that analyzes data on diversity in environmental organizations, found that as of april 2017, the full-time staffs of the top 40 environmental non-governmental organizations are on average 73% white.

only one in five visitors to national parks is nonwhite, and since the wilderness society focuses on public land conservation and access, this is something of a damning trend in the organization’s homogeneity, too. at the wilderness society, 86% of the staff is white. of the senior staff, 96% is white.

when walker first began working for the wilderness society as an operations specialist a year ago, there were only three other black women in the organization, which employs about 150 people total.

“it was that disconnect — the fact that all four of us looked different… and people still called us the other’s name, which was a little rough,” she said. “i was the newbie, how could you possibly get me confused as heather?”

in environmentalism, and especially in land conservation, there’s an unspoken expectation that the people who do this work care about the environment, and that they care because they’ve had direct experiences with the outdoors. many people who work at the wilderness society spend their free time kayaking, camping, and hiking in the backcountry. for people like walker who haven’t had those experiences, the motivation to work in environmentalism may not be there because of a lack of exposure.

though anastasia greene, communications manager for the wilderness society for the northwest region, enjoys spending time outdoors, she believes it shouldn’t be a prerequisite for working in environmentalism. greene said anecdotally that she thinks it has been in the past.

“there’s all these little mentalities around what it means to be an advocate for the environment,” the seattle-based greene said in an interview at the wilderness society’s d.c. office. she is a woman of color leading regional communications strategies for the pacific northwest.

“it is an environmental organization, so there are people who are just gonna love like getting outside and extreme sports… but i think part of the culture that we really have to address is the expectation that if you don’t like these things or if you can’t do these things that you’re somehow less.”

opening mainstream environmentalism up to more diversity is encouraged by a blossoming of smaller organizations such as outdoor afro, latino outdoors, green for all, adventures for hopi, the greening youth foundation, big city mountaineers and the center for diversity and the environment. the wilderness society has joined with its urban to wild campaign, which helps connect urban and low-income communities to public lands that might otherwise be inaccessible.

urban to wild (u2w) is an effort to reduce the barriers to outdoor spaces faced by our country’s rapidly growing and diversifying urban populations. over the next year, u2w will be working in the los angeles, puget sound, and albuquerque metro areas to enact new policies and practices. according to the wilderness society, the u2w model focuses on “protecting local parks and open space, creating new transit to trail opportunities and working with public land managers to ensure they are inclusive of local community needs.” the organization also plans to develop a u2w coalition on the national level.

community-building for people of color in environmentalism, with specialized conferences and social and professional networking opportunities, helps people feel more comfortable and supported in their work. the people of the global majority in the outdoors, nature, and environment (pgm one) summit brings together environmental and outdoor recreation industry professionals who identify as nonwhite to share their experiences. outside of the professional environmentalism world, instagram accounts like brown people camping and women of color in nature highlight the recreational experiences of people of color and inspire others.

walker is hopeful about the the wilderness society’s capacity for change. she says that the organization, spurred by changing views on the importance of diversity in environmentalism, is enacting policies designed to recruit people of color. for example, the policy sets a goal that a certain percentage of qualified applicants who are chosen to be interviewed should be people of color depending on the location of the position.

in d.c., where the population is majority non-white, that goal is 25%. the goal is less ambitious for the more rural offices out west, where the candidate pool includes fewer people of color. in wyoming, where the population is over 90% white, the target proportion is only 10%.

“they’ve acknowledged it, and i think that was the biggest step ever, because once you acknowledge it, you have to do something about it,” walker said.

“the wilderness society is truly committed to becoming a better organization every day by investing in a welcoming workplace culture, building a stronger recruitment network to diversify our staff, and challenging ourselves to make sure that public lands benefit us all,” said jamie williams, president of the wilderness society.  “the experiences of our staff should be a constant reminder of both what we have accomplished so far and how much we have yet to do—as an organization and within the conservation community as a whole.”

recruiting interns and employees from historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) is a new step the wilderness society is taking, due in part to the enthusiastic outreach of recruiters like shaw-walker.

“i did have a lot of people pass, just glancing like, ‘no, i don’t stand outside,’ and i had to say, ‘hey, we don’t just stand outside,’” walker said of recruiting at hbcus. “while they didn’t know they were looking for me, i knew i was looking for them.”

but recruiting employees of color is only the beginning of the battle toward equity. environmental professionals of color often face tokenization and microaggressions in the workplace, like being assigned to work on justice and diversity campaigns because of their identities.

heather davis served as the assistant director of the wilderness society’s urban to wild campaign until october 2017, when she took a management position at the national wildlife federation. in an october email to the wilderness society’s staff, davis wrote that she was tired of being pigeonholed into certain positions because she is a black woman.

“i am realizing that as young as i am, i am tired,” she wrote. “i am tired of the burden of feeling like i must and i need to work on justice issues in the conservation and environmental community simply because this is baggage that i carry and bring as a woman of color.”

“this is why our diversity, equity and inclusion work as an organization and as a community is so imperative and important because there are other heathers out there with the skills, desire, and passion to work on conservation and environmental issues, but we need the conservation community to see us as professional conservationists first and people of color second and not assume that because we are passionate about something that we necessarily want to make a career out of it,” she wrote.

walker admits she, too, fears being pigeonholed. but greene views it differently.

“to me, it doesn’t feel like being pigeonholed,” she said. “i feel like i need to be there.”

“i value speaking up and knowing that, ok, i don’t speak for all black women, i don’t speak for all people of color, but if i’m in the room, i’m gonna be heard,” greene said.

the hope is that environmental work will one day be an appealing and welcoming field of work for more diverse communities. although the organization is still in the middle of fully diversifying all of its offices, including those in the intermountain west, walker has a good feeling about where the wilderness society is headed.

“from what i gather… it was a lot of kumbaya stuff at first,” she said. “but i think since we’ve officially introduced policies that directly affect how we bring new people into the organization, it’s working.”

believe it or not, phipps conservatory and botanical gardens in pittsburgh’s oakland neighborhood is one of the many buildings vying for the “greenest” title. rising from the crest of a hill, the eye-catching conservatory is a beacon of sustainability in a city better known for its industrial past than its environmental forward-thinking.

referring to phipps as a building is a bit of a misnomer, as the campus includes a tropical forest conservatory, a production greenhouse, a welcome center and cafe, a research building, and a modular learning facility called the seed classroom.

now in its 125th year, phipps began to show clear commitment to a sustainable future in the last decade. it reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 56 percent per square foot over the course of a decade, exceeding the 2025 goals set by the paris agreement. the campus is powered 100 percent by on-site solar and wind or through the purchase of renewable energy credits. a majority of the sanitary water from the buildings is cleaned by constructed wetlands on the campus.

conservatory staples revitalized

most of the leed-silver certified welcome center is underground, as it is earth-bermed on three sides. its parking lot is on the grassy lawn — no asphalt required. the center’s cafe, which is 3 star certified green restaurant, composts 500,000 pounds of waste per year and sources organic and local foods whenever possible.

the seed classroom, which is used primarily for children’s education and activity programs, is net-zero energy and is petal certified by the living building challenge. it is a stand-alone building made primarily of lightweight, recycled materials and is intended to be a superior alternative to overflow trailers used by some schools. all of its mechanical systems are exposed so that students can learn through interaction.

even the botanical gardens themselves are full of surprises. mixed in with the living flowers are vibrant glass flowers that are instantly recognizable as the work of renowned artist dale chihuly.

the only greenhouse of its kind

there is only one greenhouse in the world to be leed-certified, and, not surprisingly, it’s at phipps. it has an open roof system and features 16 different growing climates thanks to highly sophisticated computer controls.

the tropical forest conservatory is the first conservatory in the world to be powered by a fuel cell. it is completely passively cooled by underground tubes in the earth that bring cool air up into the building.

the greenest building in the world (maybe)

the real highlight, though, is the center for sustainable landscapes, a 24,350-square foot education and research facility located behind the main conservatory building. it’s the only building in the world to have been awarded the four highest green building certifications: it was the first to get a four star sustainable sites certification; has the highest number of points for leed platinum v2.2; was the first well platinum building; and, most impressively, has certified living status under the living building challenge. it is one of only 15 buildings in the world to be certified living.

the center for sustainable landscapes has so many “green” qualifications that it becomes almost impossible to appreciate how remarkable each one is. not only does it power itself through solar and wind power, it produces enough electricity annually to power 12 homes. it uses 75-percent less energy and 90-percent less potable water than a typical office building, and it manages 3.25 million gallons of stormwater per year. the atrium and green roof feature over 100 native plant species and offer a stunning view of downtown pittsburgh.

why pittsburgh?

that phipps is achieving all of this in pittsburgh may be part of the awe value. in many minds, the city is known for steel manufacturing and pollution, not net-zero buildings and exotic plants. but pittsburgh is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, having cycled through the boom and bust of industrial america’s past. it’s a city on the rise, aided by sustainable titans like phipps.

this is not the new google campus or a shiny tower in a destination city. though its glass exterior gives the conservatory a futuristic appearance, phipps was founded in 1893 by steel magnate henry phipps, at the height of the city’s significance as an industrial center. it was even a stop on the tour of exotic plants from the 1893 chicago world’s fair. the welcome center, built in 2005, speaks to the conservatory’s gilded age roots with a gorgeous neo-victorian dome made of glass.

perhaps what is most impressive about phipps is not just its certifications or marvels of sustainability, but its roots in the community. the conservatory offers free children’s wellness events and resources, and its education programs are attended by 5,000 adults and 40,000 family groups annually. the homegrown program installed over 200 vegetable gardens in underserved neighborhoods in an effort to increase access to healthy, fresh food. phipps collaborates with local universities to research sustainability, botany, and environmental health issues, and it offers paid internships to high school students from low-income households.

one of the greenest buildings in the world is one you may not know about. but the people of pittsburgh know about it. it may be their best kept secret.

here are 10 things i learned at the society of environmental journalists 2017 conference.

1. some issues don’t have sides.

not everything is up for debate. when 97 percent of scientists have reached a consensus that supports the existence of climate change, less credence should be given to those who, without factual evidence, continue to disagree.

2. avoid equating environmentalism with liberalism when communicating outside of the echo chamber.

most environmental issues are not as partisan as it may seem; air, water, health, and land access are basics that many people care about. avoid making assumptions about the audience, and be careful about sticking the blanket “environmental” label on every story.

3. know when to put away your notebook or camera and just listen.

the best way to build trust is to physically be on the ground in communities and report from there. look for community organizations that can get you in the door. when reporting on environmental justice issues, be compassionate and human, but avoid showing pity or giving false hope.

4. don’t let a story drop.

showing up in a community for an environmental justice story and then disappearing is exploitive and will not help you build trust with sources. track the aftermath that continues after other reporters leave, and check up every few months with sources to see how their situations are progressing.

5. environmental crime is the fourth largest crime sector, according to unep, yet it lacks coverage in the united states.

it occurs in different forms such as illegal trade of natural resources and wildlife trafficking and can be hard to track because of its international nature. the convention on international trade of endangered species (cites) makes it easier to prosecute some crimes.

6. the threats we’re currently seeing to public lands are unprecedented.

from the federal land freedom act to interior secretary ryan zinke’s land review, there are myriad threats to american public lands right now. the federal government is attempting to pass some lands over to the states, and from there to privatization and industrial development.

7. eliminate false balance when one side is not backed by facts.

a basic tenet of journalism is including both sides of a story, but sometimes there is limited valid evidence to back one group’s views. in these instances, use stock lines like, “these views do not reflect scientific consensus.”

8. environmental activism is viewed as a luxury activity in developed countries, but it’s a matter of life and death in many other places.

environmentalism is sometimes perceived as a hobby of the rich, but activists in poorly regulated and policed areas and industries risk their lives because they often have no other choice. for example, over the last 10 years, 1,000 wildlife rangers have been killed on the job.

9. collaboration is key when there aren’t enough reporters on an issue.

many environmental issues, like climate change or natural disasters, get plenty of coverage. others, like conservation, can get passed over because they have less perceived shock value or readership potential. journalists can solve this through collaboration and combining beats.

10. there is still great power in good news stories, according to jane goodall.

in a personalized video message to the conference, goodall reminded attendees that stories of hope and progress can still inspire action, even when the future appears dim. and who can ignore words of wisdom from a legend like jane goodall?

next year’s sej conference will be held in flint, michigan.