Why is understanding urban ecosystems important to people concerned about environmental justice?

Abstract

Ecosystems, and more specifically urban ecosystems, represent important models for understanding particular places, environments, or regions. Even though ecologists generally view ecosystems as functional and geographic units, we suggest that ecosystems should also be viewed as cultural constructs. By this we mean that understandings of ecosystems exist within a cultural context, and meanings assigned to ecosystems cannot help but reflect this cultural context. Thus, understandings of nature are themselves cultural constructions, even though their referents have independent standing as biological realities (Kirsch 1999). Environmental justice is both a field of study and a social movement that seeks to address the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harms and asks whether procedures and impacts of environmental decision making are fair to the people they affect. A primary issue for people concerned about environmental justice is that some groups, most often communities of color and low-income communities, face a disproportionate exposure to environmental health risks such as air and water pollution, and environmental hazards such as landfills, incinerators, sewage treatment plants, and polluting industries. As with ecosystems, environmental justice can also be understood as a cultural construct-one that focuses on the class and racial aspects of environmental concerns. This chapter begins by examining in more detail the perspective of ecosystems and environmental justice as cultural constructs. Understanding the connections between urban ecosystems and environmental justice concerns is an important first step and will prove helpful in identifying common areas of knowledge in supported sustainability. Following these conceptual perspectives, specific reasons are presented as to why an understanding of urban ecosystems is important to people with environmental justice concerns. Finally, three strategies are offered to strengthen the connection between an understanding of urban ecosystems and environmental justice. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.