Our Values

Community: An assemblage of interacting organisms (either of the same or different species) coexisting in a particular area and time. Because of their interactions, members of a community tend to affect each other’s abundance, distribution, adaptation, and existence. (Biology Online 2021.)

Marginalized community: Vulnerable populations and groups that have been excluded from the power, rights, and prosperities enjoyed by others in a society, including communities at the frontline of pollution and climate change (“frontline environmental justice communities”) as well as those historically and presently disenfranchised on the basis of race (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), economic status (low- wealth and low-income households), or other social identity (e.g., sex, gender, sexual orientation, and ability status). (Justice in 100 Scorecard 2020.)

 

Justice: A subjective concept; knowing this, a sense of justice guides the pursuit of equity and a fair balance amongst diverse systems and definitions. Justice inspires equity and mutual respect. (Summer 2021 Environmental Justice Intern Team.)

Equity: (in process)

Sustainability: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs; this is done through maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem health, transitioning from an extractive linear economy to a restorative circular economy, stabilizing population growth, and advancing an equitable society). (Bruntland Commission 1987; see also A Blueprint for Survival 1972.)

Intersectionality: A lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects; for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. (Kimberlé Crenshaw 2017 and 2020.)

Resilience: [Sic] Refers both to the ability of populations to persist in their current state and to undergo [sic] adaptation in response to changing environmental conditions. (Building Evolutionary Resilience for Conserving Biodiversity under Climate Change 2010.)

Restoration:  (in process)