Webinar Recap: Nature-Based Solutions and Partnerships in the Context of Environmental Justice
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the racial and socioeconomic disparities that Environmental Justice advocates have been fighting against for decades, making the work of Just Nature NYC all the more relevant and urgent. Black and Latino people have higher case, hospitalization, and death rates due to COVID-19. There’s an important and dangerous interplay between COVID-19 and extreme heat. There’s evidence to suggest that exposure to particulate matter may increase COVID-19 mortality , and that it can even increase transmission rates. As we face the challenging and dangerous reality of pollution, disparate access to environmental benefits, climate change and COVID-19 locally, New York City must realize a creative, robust, and equitable vision for leveraging nature-based solutions. Just Nature NYC continues to develop, advance, and communicate that vision.
The Webinar:
On Monday, June 22nd, Just Nature NYC held our first webinar, Nature-Based Solutions and Partnerships in the Context of Environmental Justice, a panel and moderated discussion on the interplay between nature-based solutions, partnerships and Environmental Justice. The webinar explored how nature-based solutions can help address systemic inequalities through the lens of extreme heat and air pollution, as well as touched on community solutions, NYC specific initiatives, and green gentrification.
Panelist included:
- Annel Hernandez, Associate Director of NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA)
- Leslie Velasquez, Environmental Justice Program Manager, El Puente
- Mike Treglia, Lead Scientist, NYS Cities Program, The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
Our panelists shared their knowledge and expertise on the inequity of green space and environmental hazards in New York City and explored the disproportionate burden of extreme heat risk in environmental justice communities due to lack of tree canopy and other green spaces. Annel shared NYC-EJA’s advocacy work for integrated climate resiliency, highlighting the importance of nature-based solutions as a way to tackle the cumulative burdens faced by environmental justice communities citywide. Leslie explained how Our Air/Nuestro Aire, El Puente’s grassroots air monitoring campaign, is taking a holistic approach to improving air quality in North Brooklyn. Lastly, Mike highlighted work that TNC has been engaged in to characterize and advance effective and just policies and practices for green roofs and the urban forest.
Over 65 participants joined the webinar, including members from NYC-EJA and the NYC Urban Forest Task Force, a diverse coalition of nearly 50 organizations committed to creating a healthy, biodiverse, accessible, and resilient urban forest that justly and equitably delivers benefits to all residents of NYC, which is convened by TNC and includes NYC-EJA and El Puente as active members. Webinar participants submitted many thought-provoking questions that allowed for a robust discussion. Below, we elaborate on some of the major themes from audience questions that we weren’t able to answer during the webinar in order to advance this important discussion.
Questions Answered:
1. What are some of the policies in place that can make a difference in vegetated cover, such as green roofs, trees, or vegetated ground? What might be some of the challenges in some of these efforts?
Policies to increase, protect, maintain, fund and expand access to green spaces of all kinds are crucial to the health, resilience and quality of life in NYC. Yet, there are no overarching goals or policies for nature and nature-based infrastructure in NYC at this time. One major challenge is that to achieve the vision of Just Nature NYC, goals and policies must be coupled with effective efforts to avoid displacement.
NYC recently passed some policies related to rooftops that involve requirements for green and solar roofs on many new and existing buildings that are being retrofitted. At the same time, there is a need for more incentives, like an improved and expanded green roof tax abatement, to facilitate more equitable and just expansion of green roofs to areas that could benefit significantly, including the most heat vulnerable neighborhoods and neighborhoods that lack open space access. Given the COVID-19 related budget challenges that the City and State are facing, it may prove challenging to expand incentive programs in the coming year. There are other green infrastructure efforts underway as well, that focus on transforming impermeable surfaces. There have been some challenges related to underfunded maintenance as well as occasional community resistance. All of this combined work presents enormous opportunities for good green jobs alongside the crucial environmental and community benefits.
There are also opportunities to better protect existing trees and codify planting programs to expand our urban forest to address equity. For example, in NYC, trees on City parkland are subject to some protections and replacement requirements, but most trees on other public and private lands are largely unregulated, meaning they may be removed or unmanaged without consequences. This is particularly challenging in communities where large numbers or areas of trees are held by owners who are unregulated in this regard, leaving the trees unprotected from potential damage or removal. Specific tree management, planting, and protections goals and regulations can be enacted to help further tree cover in areas of need. There are some existing efforts underway. For example, Cool Neighborhoods prescribes additional tree plantings in the most heat vulnerable neighborhoods. Implementing and expanding this program to include trees in more of the most heat vulnerable neighborhoods, and to include tree planting on land beyond streets and parks, presents a big opportunity. Here again, budget challenges that have cut City workers will need to be addressed.
2. How might some of the challenges and efforts you discussed related to green space tie to COVID-19? Are there clear relationships, or opportunities for shared advocacy efforts?
The current pandemic has brought to light the racial and socioeconomic disparities that Environmental Justice advocates have been fighting against for decades. The same communities that are vulnerable to extreme heat and have the highest levels of air pollution, are the same communities that are experiencing the worst outcomes of COVID-19. Most extreme heat deaths occur in the home, where people are encouraged to stay to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, research is showing that higher levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution is associated with higher mortality rates from COVID-19 and that marginal decreases in pollution could have resulted in hundreds fewer COVID-19 deaths in NYC.
Trees not only provide cooling and reduce the urban heat island effect, but they reduce pollution, such as PM2.5 that contributes to respiratory diseases, which have shown to be a risk factor to developing severe illness from COVID-19 . It’s essential to continue to advocate for more green space in environmental justice communities and make clear that expanding the urban forest is a way to improve public health.
3. How do ongoing social movements like Black Lives Matter relate to your priorities around inclusive nature-based solutions and other campaigns around climate and green jobs?
At the center of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Environmental Justice movements is addressing systemic racism and its harmful effects, whether from law enforcement or from racist policies and practices such as redlining, that have resulted in disproportionate environmental harms and climate risk in communities of color.
Low income communities and communities of color bear the disproportionate impacts of a changing climate. As we discussed in more detail in the webinar, the most heat vulnerable communities in NYC are environmental justice communities. Nature-based solutions, such as green infrastructure(GI) can help mitigate climate change and the impacts felt by EJ communities. GI not only enhances community resiliency but also provides new economic opportunities, creating job opportunities for construction, operations, and maintenance of street trees, rain gardens and other nature-based infrastructure. Overall, it’s important that GI investments include high-road labor standards such as using union labor, enacting local hiring requirements, and creating job training programs with ladders of opportunity for communities who have been historically disadvantaged. Similar to BLM, these climate justice solutions must be designed with communities of color leading the way, to avoid the practices that led to the current systems we are trying to dismantle.
Thanks to the Just Nature NYC team, the panelists, and the webinar attendees for a great conversation around Environmental Justice issues and working in partnerships to devise equitable solutions to the climate crisis. The full recording of the webinar can be found here. We look forward to sharing more information soon as we continue to explore these issues more deeply.
