Senate Dems press Obama for more focus on diversity
More than 60 percent of Senate Democrats signed onto a letter yesterday urging President Obama to promote diversity in public land management and protection.
“We write to ask you to consider issuing a Presidential Memorandum directing federal land management agencies to broaden the diversity in the sites protected, stories told, communities engaged, and people considered as stewards of our public lands,” said the letter, led by Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Notable signatories included Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington; Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who will likely succeed Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada as Democratic leader; and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who ran a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“When visiting America’s public lands, our youth — who grow increasingly diverse every year — should feel inspired when seeing someone of their same ethnicity, gender, or cultural background represented in the history of the stories they hear and the people from whom they learn,” the letter said.
The document focused in particular on the National Park Service, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
Around 80 percent of the agency’s workforce is white, and, until recently, few of the sites in the park system were devoted to telling stories about minorities.
The senators praised the administration for its work to create new parks that promote diversity.
But they said that “as we enter a second century of the National Park system, we must advance a plan for our public lands that reflects our multi-cultural identities.”
The Next 100 Coalition — a group of civil rights, environmental justice and conservation organizations working to connect diverse communities with the park system and other public lands — supported the letter.
The coalition includes the Hispanic Access Foundation, the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, Outdoor Afro, and the National Urban League and has previously worked with House Democrats to present an “inclusive vision” for the second century of NPS (Greenwire, April 28).