Dispelling the myth that minorities don't care about protecting the environment is one goal of a Denver conference addressing issues of the environment and race.
The Sept. 11-12 conference, sponsored by the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Â鶹¹ÙÍø, is expected to attract a sizable audience from many ethnic backgrounds to discuss a broad range of natural resource issues.
The keynote speaker will be Robert Stanton, director of the National Park Service and the first African American to hold that position in the agency's 82-year history.
"Justice For All: Racial Equity and Environmental Well-Being" will demonstrate how easy it is to counter the notion that environmental and conservation consciousness exists only in and for white people, said Patricia Limerick, a CU-Â鶹¹ÙÍø history professor and a conference organizer.
Other speakers include:
oWilliam Yellowtail, Region 8 administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
oJanine Pease Pretty On Top, president, Little Big Horn College
oLuis Torres, community activist, New Mexico
oHubert Farbes, former president, Denver Water Board
oDorceta Taylor, professor, University of Michigan
oMaria Montoya, assistant professor, University of Michigan
oWinona LaDuke, campaign director, White Earth Land Recovery Project
oT.H. Watkins, Wallace Stegner Professor, Montana State University
All speakers will address the central questions of the conference: How can we best combine the cause of racial and ethnic justice with the goals of wise environmental policy? Where is the common ground between the civil rights movement and the conservation movement? How would the full inclusion of people of color change the terms in which Americans now discuss and debate environmental issues?
"The need to find the best possible arrangements by which human beings are to live on the earth is a need that must cross the boundaries of race and ethnicity," Limerick said.
The issue of environmental racism, or the documented practice of locating landfills and incinerators in non-white neighborhoods, is one issue that has been recognized and studied. But many other non-urban topics, where issues of environment and race intersect, have received far less attention. These include the long-standing involvement of minority members in recreational land use, forestry policy, water allocation and the general appreciation and appraisal of nature.
Indian tribes usually have their own agencies and strategies of land management. Hispanic county commissioners and activists wrestle with natural resource issues daily. Yet they rarely appear in the most publicized discussions of natural resource issues, Limerick said.
Iantha Gantt-Wright of the National Parks and Conservation Association observed, "As we move into the next millennium, the minority in this country will be the majority. These changing demographics will change the way that we look at ourselves as a nation. A forum such as this provides an opportunity for making cultural and natural resource connections that highlight our links as human beings."
The two-day conference costs $75 and includes four meals and a daylong bus trip to Rocky Mountain National Park on Sept. 12. Experts from diverse backgrounds will provide presentations in the park on natural resource issues and natural history interpretation.
The conference will meet at the Renaissance Denver Hotel, 3801 Quebec St. For more information or to register call (303) 492-4067, or visit the center's Web site at .