Bark signs pledge to resist racism in the environmental movement

The Center for New Community has been bringing together people working in the environmental movement in order to update us on the ways that the environmental movement is being both co-opted by and directly supportive of the anti-immigration movement. As a result of participating in this conversation, we have signed a pledge with others to stop this corrosive involvement. Click here to read the pledge.

The involvement of environmental leaders in anti-immigration and racist, isolation agendas is very real. Many people know about the efforts by anti-immigrant advocates to infiltrate the Sierra Club board, but it has gone much further than that and with much more insidious effects. The Center for New Community has been tracking this very well and has a lot of resources about what they are calling the John Tanton Network.

Some of the messaging points that anti-immigration groups are pushing includes fallacies about litter caused by human migration and converting issues around world carrying capacity into xenophobic, nationalistic agendas. They have been running ads in newspapers around the country to push racist, anti-immigration ideas that are sometimes barely recognizable. The misinformation that they are using to present these opinions is staggering. We need to be vigilant in our pursuit to inform our communities without using this propaganda unknowingly.

These ideas are beginning to become mainstreamed. One of the foundations that the Center for New Community is highlighting for their participation and overt support of anti-immigration work is the Weeden Foundation. Many of our close forest watch allies have been funded by them. Additionally, today, Tuesday, October 5th, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) are holding "The First National Conference on Immigration, Conservation and the Environment" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) are a spinoff group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) who co-drafted Arizona's draconian S.B. 1070. PFIR and FAIR are both part of the John Tanton Network, a network of anti-immigrant started by one man; John Tanton.

We hope to create networks and structure within our community to resist these entities from infiltrating our funding sources and elected leadership. Some of the other groups who also attended the discussion have resources on their sites and have also shown a commitment to incorporating anti-oppression into their work. Check out OPAL, Groundwork Portland, Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project, Center for Diversity and the Environment, and the Sky Island Alliance.

Please take a moment and read the pledge and consider signing as an individual or as an organization.